19. Kael #2
“What’s the movement?” Sharon asks, genuinely curious.
“Wait. That’s what you want to know more about?” Ash says, tilting his head.
“I’m with Ash on this one,” Walt says. “Didn’t you read anything about it?”
“I like figuring out new stuff.” The wine gives me enough courage to add, “Like chainsaws.”
Walt chuckles, thankfully.
“Futurist Illusionism blends technology with tradition,” I say. “But I don’t know much more than that yet.”
“I’d like to see that,” Sharon says. “Much more interesting than a finance bootcamp.”
“You’re probably right,” Ash admits.
“Oh, come on.” I lean toward Sharon and stage-whisper, “This is his favorite topic.”
“It’s not my favorite topic,” he protests. “Okay, it might be, but only for right now.”
“Well, what is it?” Sharon asks.
“The FI retreat was really for people following Financial Independence, Retire Early,” he tells his wineglass while his shoulders inch up. “It’s for anyone who wants to use money to buy their time back from work.”
“Ash works for Query,” I offer, trying to ease him away from the embarrassment he clearly feels about talking money.
His posture opens a little as he describes the job.
There’s something funny about how easily he talks about helping other people make money and how carefully he tiptoes around the fact that he’s good at it for himself too.
It’s generous, considering how much he has, but also a little absurd where acceptable conversation lies when it comes to money.
Alistair flaunts his wealth like it’s a costume he never takes off.
Ash keeps his tucked away under layers of kindness and modesty.
It’s his Escher effect, making him appear simple until I look long enough for him to twist, and a few glasses of wine in, it feels as sweet and dizzying as the buzz behind my eyes.
At some point, the sun slides low enough that orange light streams in through the big back windows. The sight of it catches in my throat. Flames and sunsets are too close together now to feel uncomplicated.
Ash says Jenny’s picking us up tomorrow. She booked an early trip home and insists it’s no trouble.
Tonight, it’s just us and Sharon and Walt. After the second pizza and a lot more laughing than I’d have thought possible this morning, they suggest we enjoy their backyard while they head to bed.
“It’s cold,” Sharon says, “but we’ve got a little fire table that’s warm enough and very controlled.” She rests a hand briefly over her heart. “Nothing like up there today.”
My fingers brush the river rock in my pocket. I’m not sure I need any more fire, big or small. “We don’t want to keep you up.”
“Please,” Sharon insists. “He sleeps like a rock, and after today, there’s nothing that could keep us up.”
“Sounds nice,” Ash says softly. “If you’re sure you’re up for it.”
“Help yourself to the wine,” Sharon says. “Now, come give me a hug, and I’ll see you in the morning.”
Ash hugs her first, murmuring thank-yous and apologies into her shoulder. Then she turns to me with her arms open.
“You were a wonder today.” She pulls me in, and I feel six again, crushed against Gram’s cardigan. “Thank you,” she whispers into my ear, then repeats louder, “Thank you both. I think, somehow, this was all meant to be.”
Meant to be. A building they don’t want, a town they can’t bear, a fire that forced all of us here on the same day. I don’t know what any of it means yet, but with Ash at my side and the smell of smoke still in my nose, I have the strangest feeling that, this time, she might be right.
Downstairs, at the back of their unfinished store, Walt stacks a few pieces of wood in the shallow fire table and coaxes to life a small flame that’s a safe, contained echo of the day.
Then it’s just Ash and me, a bottle of wine between us, two camping chairs, and the rising moon. I could do without ever smelling smoke again, but watching it curl and thin into the sky is… different. There’s no roar, just heat and light.
We sit in comfortable silence while exhaustion seeps in. Thoughts of Sharon and Walt, Gram, and the impossible luck of what we escaped drift past. Once they’ve all thinned out, what’s left is a low, steady awareness of the man beside me.
It’s the way his hand felt on my cheek. The way we shoved that downed tree together. The way he squeezed Walt’s fingers at the table. Whatever lives between us has been banked and fed all day, and now it won’t stop glowing under my skin.
After several minutes, Ash breaks the spell. “Sunset was beautiful tonight.”
“Those wildfire pollutants.”
“Beautiful.” His laugh is soft. “Why didn’t you mention it?”
“Same reason you didn’t want to talk about your FIRE.”
“Didn’t feel right,” he says, the same heaviness that drove him to tears edging his voice. “We’re so lucky. I can’t believe the day we’ve had.”
“Feels like a lifetime,” I say, feeling something tug me away from the fire’s crackle and toward him.
“We made it,” he says. “Together.”
The tug is him, certainty that he’s looking at me, wanting something. It’s the same current I felt at the Inskip Inn when I leaned in and he pulled back. Only now…
I look up and catch him staring with a gentle smile on his lips.
A shift in the wind sends a swirl of smoke toward us.
“Of course,” Ash mutters, standing to drag his chair a few feet over. “I never want to inhale smoke again.”
“Can you believe what they went through?” I ask quietly, moving my chair back beside his.
The uneven dirt tilts my chair as I sit, and Ash’s hand shoots out to grab my arm. Once my feet are solid, I wait for a joke, but it doesn’t come.
He’s just… looking at me. Hazel eyes seeing straight through my skin to whomever’s underneath. His hand stays on my arm, and I go still. I can barely breathe with him watching me, like he might kiss me if I don’t spook.
“Unreal,” he says, twisting me up. “I feel like…” He trails off, fingers slipping off my arm as his attention flickers back to the flame. “Maybe Sharon’s right. Maybe the universe made all this happen for a reason. To teach me to live more in the present and stop worrying so much about the future.”
“Must kill you,” I say. “The universe lining up to say that I’m right?”
He laughs, and the sound buzzes across whatever’s between us until it settles, low, in my chest. He’s predictable and kind and funny and, yes, sometimes boring, but somehow it all adds up to more than a crush. It tugs at something deep, something I haven’t let anyone touch.
Before I can stop myself, it pulls words out of me. “I can’t stay under Alistair’s thumb.” It’s way too serious for the moment.
I brace for his comeback, but Ash doesn’t take the bait. His gaze stays fixed on the fire as he slowly nods. Maybe he’s agreeing with something in his head and not reacting to me.
It leaves me wondering if I even meant it. Probably the wine.
Ash lifts his glass toward mine. “To two phoenixes.”
“Kings and phoenixes,” I say, clinking.
We stare into the flames for a while, swallowing words that stack against my ribs: thank you, don’t go, I’m scared, I want you. The pressure builds until I have to look up.
He’s already looking. Something’s shifted, his hazel eyes alive with intent, tracing my glasses and over my face more than once. He looks… hungry.
I go stiff—shoulders, arms, spine, everything—because there’s no mistaking it now. He wants me, and he knows I see it. The fire’s heating up, but the flames aren’t getting any bigger.
He leans in. “Kael—”
One more inch and this becomes something I can’t joke my way around. One more inch and it’s real, and God, I want it.
Smoke rolls over us on a shifting gust, and I’m on my feet before I’ve even decided to move, the chair folding with me.
“I’m—I’m taking another shower.”
Real smooth. I walk off before he can react, cheeks burning, heart pounding, my body all but reaching back for him.
Ash doesn’t do casual. Which means he’s an anchor I can’t afford to tie around my neck. If this isn’t a one-night stand in the making, then it’s something dangerous, something that could turn into years. I don’t dare touch it, but every step away feels like a punishment I’m choosing for myself.
The guest bathroom connects to the living room as well as the bedroom, so I slip in from the hall and lock that door behind me. I strip quickly, wrap myself in a towel, crank the hot water, and let it steam the room.
In the mirror, my shoulders slump, shadows pooling under my eyes, my whole body sagging like it’s waiting for someone else to prop it up. I try straightening, flexing my bicep, and remember how the chainsaw felt in my hands. It’s so pathetic I have to laugh.
Steam curls and thickens until it swallows my reflection, leaving me staring at a fogged mirror while the shower hisses. Then it pulls sharply past the glass as the bedroom door cracks open.
Ash steps inside, and my pulse skitters. I tighten the towel around my hips, not to cover up, but to hold myself together, because he knows I’m in here. And we both know why he came.