Chapter 8
EIGHT
JESS
By the time we pulled up to the curb, I already knew it was going to hurt.
I just didn’t expect it to look like… nothing.
Pepper parked a little down from my usual spot on Main, leaving the engine idling like she thought I might bail and demand she drive me away again.
Allie and Meghan were quiet in the backseat, which was evidence that things were really bad.
Normally, if the three of them were in a car together, we had at least one argument about music and Allie trying to hand me a snack.
Today, nobody reached for the radio.
Nobody reached for me.
We all sat for a second, staring at the empty slice of street where Pour Decisions should’ve been.
“Jess?” Pepper asked softly. “You ready?”
“No,” I said. “But let’s do it anyway.”
The air hit my face the second I opened the door.
Everything still smelled faintly like smoke if I inhaled too deep.
Possibly that was phantom memory. The emergency blanket was gone, the oxygen mask gone; all I had left were the bruises on my ribs from where I’d coughed too hard and the hospital paperwork folded in my pocket to prove I hadn’t dreamed it.
Except apparently I had dreamed the part where my truck existed.
Because the space it had occupied was just…
plain pavement. A dull gray rectangle of asphalt with a faint ugly crescent of black where the wheels had been.
Someone had swept most of the debris into a neat pile near the curb—charred bits of something unidentifiable, half a melted zip tie, a strip of plastic that might’ve once been part of my menu board.
If you hadn’t been to the truck, you might have assumed it was a little construction mess. Something temporary. Nothing important.
But I knew exactly where the tires had rested, where the hitch had sat, where the side door had opened—when it cooperated. My feet took me there automatically, like they were following grooves worn into the universe.
I stopped where the back wheel would’ve been and just… stood.
The world quieted around the edges. I could see people walking in and out of Pie Hard down the street, the big cedar tree in the square dripping with handmade ornaments. Everything looked normal, festive, annoyingly cheerful.
And here, in the middle, was a blank, too-bright patch in my life like someone had cut Pour Decisions out of the picture with scissors.
Pepper came to stand on one side of me, hands stuffed in her coat pockets. Allie flanked the other, her expression carefully neutral. Meghan hung back a little, like she understood instinctively that this was a circle you couldn’t just shoulder into.
“You okay?” Pepper asked.
I let out a breath tinged with ash and sarcasm. “Define okay.”
“On a scale of one to ‘burn this town to the ground,’” Allie offered.
“Tempting,” I muttered.
A blackened smear on the asphalt marked the site, stubborn as the coffee stains on my favorite mugs. I stared at stain until my throat got tight.
“I thought it would look worse,” I said eventually.
Meghan shifted beside Pepper. “Worse how?”
I shrugged, the movement jerky. “More… devastation. Rubble. Twisted metal. Dramatic caution tape flapping in the breeze. Instead, it’s like I parked somewhere else and forgot. Like the last six years of my life didn’t happen.”
Nobody told me I was being dramatic. Because they were good friends.
A car drove past slowly, the driver peering out the window with the kind of nosy curiosity small towns practically bred in people. I turned my back, suddenly very aware that I’d been the centerpiece of Main Street’s disaster theater two nights ago.
The girls closed ranks without my having to ask, forming a little human shield between me and the street.
“You don’t have to stay and stare at it,” Allie said quietly. “We can go. There’s no rule that says you have to… pay your respects to a parking space.”
“It’s not a parking space. It was my everything.” The words came out flatter than I had intended. Too honest. Too naked.
Meghan slid an arm around my waist, squeezing once. “It still is. It just isn’t here right now.”
I swallowed around the lump in my throat. “Where did it get taken?”
Pepper shook her head. “Rhett said they moved the next morning, but he got pulled to a cal before he heard where.”
“Probably wherever they drag stuff for investigation and insurance,” Allie said. “Wreck lot or some such.”
Investigation. Insurance. Words that made my brain want to curl into a ball.
Great. Couldn’t wait.
“Hey,” a voice called from down the sidewalk. “Y’all okay?”
We turned to see Austen MacAvoy hustling toward us, her dark hair pulled up in a messy bun, scarf flying in the wind. Rhett’s little sister had a way of moving through the world like she’d decided it was lucky to have her, and most of the time, I agreed.
Right now, I tried not to crumble when she opened her arms and wrapped me in a big, warm hug without asking.
“I am so glad you’re all right,” she said into my hair. “Rhett texted me after they got the fire out, and I swear my heart stopped.”
“I’m fine,” I lied into her shoulder.
She pulled back and gave me a once-over that said the lie wasn’t fooling anyone. “You look like somebody used your feelings for target practice.”
“Accurate,” I said.
Austen’s gaze flicked toward the empty pavement. Her mouth tightened. “I hate this. Rhett says it could’ve been so much worse, but this? This still sucks.”
Understatement of the year.
“We brought her to see what’s left,” Pepper said. “Which, as it turns out is… not much.”
“Still smells like smoke.” Austen wrinkled her nose before her expression brightened in a way that made me instantly suspicious. “But hey, there is one good thing.”
I eyed her warily. “Please do not say something about doors closing and windows opening, because I swear—”
“No, no, nothing Pinterest-y, I promise.” She lifted her hands. “I mean the fundraiser. That thing is doing numbers.”
“The what?” I asked.
“The GoFundMe?” Her brow furrowed like I’d asked what coffee was. “You’ve seen it, right?”
I blinked. “What GoFundMe?”
Austen’s eyes widened. She looked over at Pepper, Allie, and Meghan like this was some kind of elaborate prank they were all in on.
Pepper winced. “Okay, so… in our defense, we thought somebody had already told you.”
“Told me what?” I demanded.
Meghan dug her phone out of her back pocket. “Hang on. It’ll be easier to show you.”
The three of them huddled together for a second, thumbs flying. I stood in the cold, feeling like the only person who didn’t have the script.
Finally, Meghan turned her phone screen toward me.
At the top, in big, bold letters, was the title:
brING POUR DECISIONS BACK TO HUCKLEBERRY CREEK
Underneath it was a picture I recognized—a shot one of my regulars had taken during the fall, the truck framed with pumpkins, me laughing at something off camera. Somebody had slapped that up as the header image and written a description underneath that made my chest hurt:
Our town runs on Pour Decisions—on Jess’s early-morning coffee, her late-night kindness, and the community she’s built cup by cup.
After a devastating fire, her beloved truck is out of commission right in the middle of the busiest season of the year.
Let’s help her rebuild, reopen, and return to the heart of Main Street where she belongs.
They’d set a goal.
The current total sat beneath it in big green numbers.
I stared at it. Blinked. Checked again.
“Is that…” My voice came out thin. “Is that… real?”
“Refresh it,” Pepper said.
Meghan swiped down. The number jumped by another fifty dollars.
“It’s real,” Allie said. “And it’s climbing.”
Hundreds of names filled the screen. Some I recognized instantly—teachers, shop owners, half the parents of the kids who stopped by after school.
Others were anonymous, simply “Huckleberry Neighbor” or first name only.
Donations ranged from five bucks to three digits. One line in particular snagged my eyes:
Anonymous—$2,500
Can’t function without your gingerbread latte. Please come back.
A sound escaped me—something between a laugh and a sob.
“That’s an eye-watering amount of money, Jess,” Austen said gently. “People are stepping up. Businesses, too. The hardware store kicked in. So did Henderson’s. Even the mayor. Half the firehouse, from what I can see.”
I swallowed hard, but the lump in my throat didn’t budge. “Who… started it?”
“Username says HCKReadsRomance,” Meghan said.
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Of course it does.”
That would be one of the town’s unofficial Facebook admins. Possibly three of them. They operated like a Greek chorus with better memes.
“I did share it,” Pepper admitted. “But I didn’t start it. That was in my notifications before they’d even cleared the street.”
“Same,” Allie said. “I boosted it once. Maybe twice.”
“Three times,” Meghan muttered.
“Traitors, the lot of you.” But my heart wasn’t in the complaint. I couldn’t tear my gaze away from the screen. In ugly app font and low-res photos was proof that this town cared whether Pour Decisions existed. Whether I existed in the spot I’d carved out for myself.
I’d always told myself it was about the coffee. The convenience. The caffeine. That if I disappeared tomorrow, they’d grumble and move on.
Apparently… not.
Heat pricked behind my eyes. I blinked hard, but tears still blurred the screen.
“Hey.” Meghan looped her arm more firmly around my waist and tucked me in against her side. “It’s okay.”
“It’s really not.” My voice cracked. “But this is… I don’t even know what this is.”
“Love,” Austen said promptly. “And a town-wide caffeine dependency.”
That startled a tiny, broken laugh out of me. One lone tear escaped and slid down my cheek. I swiped at it with the heel of my hand, annoyed and grateful and overwhelmed all at once.
“I don’t deserve this,” I said.
“Bullshit,” Allie said.
“Seconded,” Meghan added.
“You absolutely do,” Pepper said firmly. “Jess, you’ve been pouring into this town for years. Let them pour back for once.”
I stared at the total again. At the comments that went on and on.
You gave my kid a free cocoa when she was having a bad day.
Your truck was where I went after my divorce.
You remembered my order when nobody else remembered me.
My chest ached.
“What am I supposed to do with this?” I whispered.
“Rebuild,” Austen said simply. “When you’re ready.”
I let out a shaky breath. “I don’t even know where my truck is right now.”
“Best guess?” Allie said. “Somebody at the firehouse knows.”
Pepper squeezed me again. “If you want to determine what’s salvageable, that’s where you start. Ask at the station.”
My stomach did an unhelpful flip.
Going to the fire station meant walking onto their turf. Meant being watched. Meant probably having to look Powell Ferguson in the eye and pretend I didn’t remember exactly how his hand had felt on my back while I tried not to fall apart.
“I don’t—” I started, then stopped.
There were a lot of things I didn’t want: I didn’t want to need help. I didn’t want to owe anyone. I didn’t want the whole town to see me cracked open.
But I wanted Pour Decisions back more than I wanted any of that.
“Ask Chief Holloway,” Pepper said gently. “You don’t have to talk to… anybody else if you don’t want to.”
The hesitation after anybody else hung heavy between us.
Meghan bumped her shoulder against mine. “You can hate him and still let him save your truck.”
“I don’t—” I began automatically, then stopped myself. The word hate felt different in my mouth now. Complicated. “I don’t want to owe him.”
“You already do,” Allie pointed out. “Twice over. You’re still breathing.”
Fair.
I stared down at the blackened crescent on the pavement. The ghost of my truck. The ghost of my life, if I let it be.
The fundraiser total glowed in my peripheral vision like a dare.
“Okay,” I said finally, exhaling. “Fine. I’ll go.”
Pepper perked up. “Now?”
“Not with a face full of snot,” I said, wiping at my cheeks. “But today. I’ll… I’ll go down there. I’ll ask where they hauled it and what’s left.”
“And if he’s there?” Austen didn’t bother pretending she didn’t know who he was.
I swallowed hard. Thought of his voice in my ear, low and steady: You’re okay. You’re safe. Thought of the way he’d said, “We’ll figure it out,” like my problems were automatically his too.
“If he’s there, I’ll deal. I always deal.”
Nobody pushed. Nobody teased.
The girls closed in around me, four points of warmth against the December chill, while I took one last look at the empty space where my truck had been.
I turned away from the scorch mark and the ghosts and the version of my life that ended here.
If I wanted that life back, I was going to have to fight for it.
Even if that meant walking straight into the fire station and asking my least favorite firefighter for help.