Five
Penn
I’ve been a mess of nerves, cleaning my place and agonizing about what we’ll talk about. This is why I tend not to date. It’s stressful as shit.
But now, seeing Hearth at my front door is like something straight out of my wildest fucking dreams. She’s wearing jeans and a cute flannel top, eyes shimmering through her clear-framed glasses, long cinnamon hair tumbling from beneath an oversized sunhat.
“Hey, you made it.” I can’t help my stupidly huge smile as I take in the adorable sexiness of her. I reach for the two brown paper grocery bags she’s holding. “C’mon in.”
“Thank you.” She takes off her hat, hanging it up on a hook by the door. “I’ll have to wear these from now on whenever I’m outside, even if it isn’t a super sunny day.” She shrugs.
“It’s cute on you.”
“Thanks. Wow, your place is really nice.”
She’s being sweet. My place is okay. It’s a place to come home to, but it isn’t quite home. There’s always been something missing, even knowing it’s not my permanent, forever house or anything. With Hearth here, it’s already somehow brighter, fuller.
“There’s two ribeye and some vegetables and jasmine rice and potatoes, I wasn’t sure which of the starches you would prefer.”
“Either, whatever you like,” I tell her as I take the bags into the kitchen, and she follows me in. “I can grill these up for us outside.” I take out the two perfect-looking ribeye. One thing about her, she definitely knows how to shop for good meat.
“What, no. I told you I was going to cook for you.” Hearth sidles past me with confidence and immediately takes over, dipping down low to peer into all the cabinets. She opens and shuts a few, then takes out a cast iron and sets it on the stove. “Besides it’s kind of cold outside. This’ll be perfect.” She spins around to face me. “You don’t mind do you?”
My grin is huge, and not just from watching her commandeer my kitchen like this. “Not even one little bit,” I say, backing off.
She smiles, amused, or victorious, maybe both. “Let’s do rice? It’s easier. I make it really good though.”
“Sounds excellent, babe.” My muscles tense up as the word slips out, but she keeps moving seemingly unfazed, like she didn’t hear it or she refuses to be affected.
Did I just say ‘babe’ ? I haven’t called anyone babe since, well, never. Relationships are a distraction I’ve never been super interested in until I met Hearth. I can’t fucking explain the shift, but it’s real. It’s felt . Like I’d been holding my breath for too long and finally got to let it out. That exhaled, calmative release. That’s what it was to meet Hearth.
When the rice comes to a gentle boil, she lowers the heat and covers it. “I can’t believe how hot it was just…three months ago? Seems like two weeks ago.”
“I can put a fire on if you’re chilly?” I offer.
“No, it’s nice in here.” She looks over at me, smiling. “Cozy.”
That reminds me. “I have a bottle of sauvignon blanc if you’d like?” I make a face after I say it. “Er, sorry, I probably totally screwed up the pronunciation of that.”
“You didn’t but…you don’t strike me as a white-wine-with-steak kind of guy?”
I shrug. “I’m not usually. Thought I saw you drinking it that night.”
“I wasn’t drunk,” she says defensively. “That’s not why it happened.”
“I know. I just…noticed it. I can’t help it, I’m kind of trained to notice things.”
“And you just, remembered?” This time it’s her turn to make a face.
“Yeah,” I tell her. “Would you like a glass with dinner?”
“I’d love a glass with dinner. And one now,” she says, her shoulders relaxing again, and a smile in her eyes that feels like a small victory.
“Coming right up.”
I pour her a glass, and then one for me. Red wine with steak, white wine with fish —everyone knows that. Or there’s always beer. Beer is less complicated. Beer goes with anything. Am I questioning if I’m already pussy-whipped as I take my first slow sip of the white? Yes. And I am also answering it. Yes .
Maybe we’re a perfect pair.
Or maybe we go to together like white wine and steak.
Fire and water.
Hearth and Penn . The writer who hides her writing and the fireman who has helped to put out one single fire.
Doesn’t matter, because one sure thing is I’ll do whatever she wants. I know it right here right now, looking at Hearth as she takes over my kitchen like it’s hers—that woman right there, she can call all the shots she wants. No is no longer in my vocabulary when it comes to her.
Somehow, the rice starts to give off a buttery, sweet smell as it cooks, and the garlic and pepper fill the air as she sautés the veggies while the cast iron heats up. Jesus, she hasn’t even started the ribeye and my mouth is already watering.
By the time Hearth plates the meals, my stomach is rolling with anticipation, as if I hadn’t eaten in days. I set the table and pour Hearth another glass of wine. I start to refill my glass too, but before I can, she pops open a beer and slides it in front of me.
“Writers notice things, too,” Hearth says with a wink.
“I bet you do especially.” I grin.
“I do. I notice all the things.”
“What do you notice?”
“You mean besides the fridge full of beer?” She arches an eyebrow.
“Touche.” I chuckle. “This looks incredible by the way. Thank you for cooking.”
“It’s my pleasure.” She holds up her wineglass, and I clink my beer bottle against it. “Dig in. I hope you like it.”
The first bite of ribeye is heaven on earth, and my eyes roll back with a sigh. “Amazing. Wow. You don’t know how long I’ve been waiting to try this.”
“Glad I could lure you over to my rescue with the smell of my grilling.” Hearth giggles.
“Yeah. Your mom gave me hell for not taking you to the hospital, so, thank you for that.”
“Yeah…that’s my bad.” She takes a long, long sip of her wine.
“Can I be kind of direct for a minute?” I ask, feeling emboldened by the steak or the bit of alcohol, or maybe I just feel at ease enough around her already.
“You have no idea how much I would appreciate that,” Hearth says graciously, making me relax even more.
“You wouldn’t let me take you to the hospital. You wouldn’t look at yourself for the longest. Are you always so…”
“Stubborn?”
“Your word,” I smirk.
“I don’t think I am, though. I am normally kind of a rule follower. I’m following every order my PT gives me.”
“Oh? What are your limitations?”
“No real limitations. Just that I have to do the exercises she tells me. Every day.”
“And you never miss a day—” I hedge.
She nods, proudly. “That’s right.”
“—stubbornly.”
“Hey!” She reaches across the table and swats at me. “It’s dedication, not stubbornness.”
“I’ve learned the two can go hand and hand. When you’re committed to something, you’re committed .”
“You’re making me sound like an insane person.”
“I definitely don’t mean it like that.”
“Yeah.” She pauses. “So what about you, do you commit to certain…things?” She blushes fiercely.
The answer is yes, but the things I commit to are very few and far between. I’m committed to my career. I’m committed to my goals. I was committed to visiting Hearth as often as possible. I hesitate to bring that up though, wondering if she’s still salty about that.
“Certain things, yeah.”
“Girls?” she inquires.
“Never before. But…I like to think that I could. For the right girl. I want to be married someday, have a family. Lots of land and maybe some animals.”
“Those are big ambitions.” Hearth looks at me, giving an earnest smile. “I like it.”
“Yeah? Thanks.” I finish up the last few bites, feeling warm and satiated. “Not to commandeer our entire dinner conversation, but, I’ve also been wanting to tell you that I’m sorry if my visiting you was an invasion of privacy.”
She shakes her head. “No apology needed. I think it was sweet.” A beat later, she asks, “So…you…read my stories?”
“Your mom gave me some of them. I didn’t read them.”
“She said you liked them?”
I wrinkle my nose. “Little fib.”
Hearth gasps, clutching the necklace she’s wearing as if it were pearls. “The good firefighter—is a liar ?”
“Ouch.” I wince. “Is that kinda harsh?”
“Well, you did lie to her.”
“I didn’t know what else to say,” I admit. “I would love to read them. But you didn’t give them to me to read. They’re yours. And it made her so happy to hear that I liked them.”
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Do or say things that aren’t true just because it might make someone else happy. That’s not real.”
I see what she’s saying, deep down, and it hits me right in the gut. I set down my beer and look in her eyes. “That’s not what this is, Hearth. That’s not what I’m doing with you. I’m fall—” I clamp my mouth shut before I finish that sentence and potential ruin the rest of the night before it even really gets started.
“What?” she asks softly.
“This is real, Hearth. You said you could read everyone’s faces, except mine and your mom’s. Did you ever think maybe that’s because you just don’t believe what you’re seeing? We’re two people who both lo— care about you. What I feel for you is real.”
Why do I keep wanting to tell her I love her? That would be insane, we barely know each other. But somehow, I know that I do. I know it . I’m not an impulsive person but the compulsion to tell her is almost overwhelming.
“Another beer?” she asks, pushing back from the table. She starts to gather the dishes and I stop her.
“You cooked— and shopped. I got these. Want some more wine?”
“Sure, I’ll have a little more. Thanks.”
~ * ~
“If there’s a sauvignon blanc, is there a sauvignon red?” I muse aloud as I refill Hearth’s glass. “Or how do you say red in French?”
“I think it’s rouge , but probably not for wine. There’s a pinot noir. Maybe there’s a sauvignon noir?”
“No idea. Maybe.” I meet her on the sofa with her refilled wine and my beer. She cozies up to me, as if it’s our third or fourth date and not our first. My arm falls around her.
“This is so nice. Thank you for the date. Is it a date?”
“I hope it’s a date.” I smile. “Thank you for being here.”
Her head tips back and her eyes gently close. I lean in toward her. My heart flips faster the closer I get. Hearth’s cheeks turn rosy the moment before our lips meet, just a featherlight connection that sends my pulse into hypoxia.
We break apart, and my eyes fall to the jewelry resting at the base of her neck. I reach down to her hand, holding it up to inspect the matching bracelet. “Did you make those?”
She smiles up at me, shyly. “My mom made the necklace, and I made the bracelet.”
“They’re pretty.” I keep her hand in mine, lacing our fingers.
“Not fair by the way—you met my mom,” she points out, “I don’t know any of your people.”
“You want to know my people?”
“Yeah, if you want to tell me about them.”
“My mom and dad split when I was little, I never really got to know my dad, but my mom took to single parenthood. She did amazing raising me on her own. We grew up together, almost like best friends.”
“She sounds like an incredible person.”
“That, she is. I finished fire school little over a year ago. The guys on my shift are pretty awesome, honestly. As a rookie, they didn’t give me too hard of a time. Collin is a big Titans fan. Emrys is the best cook. Ward has balls of steel, I swear. And then there’s Dante…”
“What’s the story with him?”
“He’s kind of quiet, brooding I guess you could call it. He’s got some stories to tell but he keeps them all locked up. He’s got a good heart, though. A really huge heart.”
“Y’all sound like a family.”
“We are. Come to find out, they did track me out to the woods one time about ten months ago, in case something ever happened, they’d know where to find me. We look out for each other like that. But interestingly, no one had put up any signs and they don’t remember seeing the signs you had seen that night you were there.”
“I could have sworn I saw signs.”
“I haven’t been back since that night, so, maybe.”
“And you’d never been in a fire except for during training?”
“Actually, I have. I was going to tell you about it at the hospital, the day you were discharged. I was…pretty excited to tell you. Even though I wasn’t sure if you’d be awake or not to hear about it.”
“Oh my god, seriously? I feel horrible. I totally pushed you away that day.”
“Nah, you shouldn’t feel bad. I understand.”
“Were you scared?” she asks.
“A little, at first. But those guys, they’re good. I knew they knew what they were doing, and they had my back. They weren’t going to let anything bad happen to me or anyone else there.”
“ Was anyone else there?” Her pretty eyes go wide.
“You mean inside the house? Fortunately no. Everyone got out of there in time.”
“That’s so good.” She breathes with relief.
Looking at her for a beat, it’s like all the wires in my head blink out. I thought she was beautiful the second I laid eyes on her from a distance. Then up close, she tipped my world over. Now, I know her, I feel like I really see her. I see the beauty inside her shining out now too. I tell her that.
She points to her face. “ This doesn’t feel like beauty shining out. It feels like the ugliness.”
“There’s no ugliness in you. None.”
“There’s ugliness in all of us, Penn.” She drains her wineglass. She’s probably not wrong. “So what dreams do you have?” she changes the subject.
I slide her a grin, taking her empty glass and offering her my hand, as I stand up. “It’s easier to show than tell.”
She peers up at me, amused, taking my hand. “Now you’re starting to sound like a writer.”