Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Axel
The firehouse kitchen smells like garlic bread and marinara, which would normally put me in a good mood. Tonight it just makes my stomach twist, because she’s here.
Savannah sits at the long steel table, shoulders relaxed, laughing at something Torres just said. Her hair is pulled back in a loose braid, a few strands falling around her face, and she’s smiling—really smiling—for the first time since she came back.
And it’s not at me.
I drop into my usual seat like the chair offended me. Cole passes me a plate piled high with pasta. I nod my thanks, grab my fork, and focus every ounce of energy I have on the food in front of me.
Don’t look.
Don’t look.
Don’t—
I look.
Savannah’s laugh rings like a sparkler popping in the dark. She’s telling the guys a story, one hand gesturing animatedly, and the whole table leans in. Ash, who barely tolerates conversation, looks like he’d pull up front-row seats if she kept talking.
Her cheeks are flushed from the heat of the kitchen. Her lips curve with amusement. And her eyes—bright and warm and so damn familiar—sweep across the table and accidentally land on mine.
The hit is immediate. Sharp. Hot.
Like taking a live wire to the chest.
She swallows, expression flickering just slightly—like she hates that the tether between us still exists. Like she hates that she feels it too.
She looks away first.
I should do the same. I should shove down everything clawing up my throat. I should be normal. Calm. Professional.
Instead, I stab a fork into my pasta so hard the damn utensil bends.
“Christ,” Torres mutters under his breath. “Fork didn’t kill your dog, man.”
I grunt. “Mind your food.”
He smirks. “Hard to mind mine when you’re over there acting like yours insulted your mother.”
The guys chuckle. Savannah hides a smile in her napkin.
And I hate that I notice that too.
Cole clears his throat with the giddy self-satisfaction of someone about to stir the pot. “So, Savannah—tell us more about this ‘secret firefighter past’ you apparently had.”
Savannah blinks. “Excuse me?”
Torres answers, grin wide. “You patched Ramirez up so fast on that last call you looked like you’d done the job before.”
Her brows rise. “I’ve worked trauma all over the world. I didn’t realize that made me a closeted firefighter.”
“No, no—” Cole waves a spoon dramatically. “It means you’ve got the instincts. That’s the problem. We’re trying to figure out where you’ve been hiding them.”
Savannah’s lips twitch. “If you all want to imagine I had a secret identity, I won’t stop you. But I’m not sure firefighter qualifies as mysterious.”
“Only if it’s Ramirez’s brand,” Ash grumbles. “Broods more than a wolf in a romance novel.”
I choke on my water. “What the hell does that mean?”
Torres claps me on the back. “Means you’re intense, Captain Angst.”
“Shut up, Torres.”
Savannah laughs again—light, delighted, too pretty for this ugly metal kitchen—and something in my chest loosens at the sound. It feels like drinking warm whiskey after being cold too long.
Then she smirks at Torres.
And that loosened thing in my chest?
It twists.
Not because she’s laughing. But because she’s laughing at him.
Not me.
Instinct hits fast and hard, the kind you can’t control. My hand tightens on my fork. The metal squeals as it bends another fraction of an inch.
Torres sees it. Everyone sees it.
Cole whistles low. “Easy, big guy. The cutlery didn’t hit on your girl.”
Heat spikes through me so fast I swear the temperature rises ten degrees.
Savannah freezes, eyes wide.
The table goes silent.
“My what?” I manage, voice low, dangerous.
“Oh come on,” Torres says through a mouthful of garlic bread. “You’ve barely blinked since she walked in.”
“Not true,” Ash mutters. “He blinked, once. When she said ‘pass the salt.’”
Laughter erupts around the table.
Savannah’s face flushes a deep, telltale pink.
I should say something to shut it down.
Something calm. Reasonable.
What comes out is neither.
“She’s not—” I start, but my voice cracks more than I intend. I clear my throat. “She’s not my girl.”
Her eyes snap to mine.
For a second, there’s something like disappointment in them.
Or maybe I’m imagining it. Hope is a dangerous thing, and I’ve lived without it for a long damn time.
But then Torres grins at her. Big. Stupid. Too charming.
“So Savannah,” he says, leaning forward, “if you ever want a tour of Devil’s Peak—”
“Torres,” I growl.
His smile widens. “—a real tour, not a firefighting one—”
“Torres.”
“—I’d be honored to—”
I slam my fork down so hard it echoes off the table like a gunshot.
Everyone goes silent. Even the overhead fan seems to pause.
Savannah’s gaze cuts to me. Slow. Intense.
A spark lights behind her eyes, something dark and hot and dangerously curious.
I look away. I have to. Because if I don’t, I’ll drag her into my lap in front of half the station, and that’s not who I am anymore.
That boy died in a fire ten years ago.
But I’m not sure what’s left.
Not when it comes to her.
“I’m going to… get more bread,” I mutter, pushing up from the table.
I don’t need the bread.
I need a second to breathe.
Unfortunately, the universe has a talent for kicking me in the teeth.
Savannah stands too.
Our eyes lock.
And everything inside me stutters violently.
She steps closer. Just enough to brush against my awareness—light, barely-there pressure, but it’s like being hit with a live current.
“Axel?” she says softly.
God. Her voice still wrecks me.
“You okay?” she asks.
I’m not.
Not even close.
But I nod. “Fine.”
“Your fork disagrees.”
I follow her gaze to the table. The fork looks like I tried to make modern art out of it.
I exhale slowly. “I’ll buy a new one.”
She smiles. It’s small. Gentle. Enough to carve me open.
Then she does something I’m not prepared for.
She reaches out and touches my hand. Barely a graze. Fingertips warm. Soft.
But it hits me like a blow to the sternum.
My pulse surges. My muscles tighten. My breath falters.
Her eyes widen—she feels it too.
She pulls her hand back quickly, like she accidentally touched a flame.
Torres, the asshole, hollers from the table: “Ramirez! You gonna break the rest of the silverware or can I eat in peace?”
Savannah steps back. The spell breaks.
But the heat doesn’t fade.
Not even a little.
We both return to our seats, acting like nothing happened.
Acting like I’m not one slow inhale away from losing every ounce of restraint I’ve rebuilt since she left.
She sits. Laughs softly at Cole. Tucks a strand of hair behind her ear.
And I—idiot that I am—watch her.
Every movement. Every smile. Every glance.
She looks across the table again, her eyes lingering a fraction longer than before.
Not an accident.
Not imagination.
A challenge.
My jaw tightens when Torres makes some joke that draws her into a bright grin.
Possessiveness flares hot and ugly in my chest.
I want to tell him to shut up.
I want to drag her outside and ask her why she left without me.
I want to tell her I wrote to her every month for a decade.
I want to tell her I rebuilt my family’s home on the ashes of the night I lost her.
I want to tell her that every time I look at her, I feel the same thing I did when I was sixteen and stupid and in love.
But I say none of those things.
Instead I grip my fork until the metal warps again.
Savannah sees.
Of course she sees.
She always saw right through me.
Her expression shifts, subtle but unmistakable—her eyes soften, like she’s trying to read my thoughts, decode the storm brewing behind my ribs.
Then she bites her lip.
Lightly.
Almost absently.
It shouldn’t be a big deal.
It shatters me.
Heat surges through me so fast my vision nearly blurs. I look away because if I don’t, I’ll forget every reason I have for keeping my distance.
Distance keeps her safe.
Distance keeps me sane.
Distance keeps the past where it belongs.
Except the past is sitting across the table, laughing with my crew, bright and alive and so goddamn beautiful I can barely breathe.
Torres elbows me. “Hey. You okay?”
No.
“Fine,” I grind out.
“Cause you’re looking at her like she’s dessert and you haven’t eaten in a week.”
I glare. “Eat your pasta, Torres.”
He shrugs. “Just saying. If you don’t make a move soon, someone else will.”
Savannah glances over right as he says it.
Color rises under her cheeks.
Our eyes meet again.
This time neither of us looks away.
The firehouse noise fades. The voices blur. The lights dim. Everything shrinks to the space between us—charged, magnetic, inevitable.
And I know.
She feels it.
The pull.
The history.
The hunger neither of us wants to name.
I drag my gaze away before I do something irreversible.
Before the guys notice.
Before she notices too much.
Before she sees the truth burning in me:
She’s mine.
Even if she never wants to be.
Even if she never was.
Even if we’re a decade too late.
Right now isn’t the moment.
She’s been through hell.
She deserves gentleness, joy, something light.
Not a man made of smoke and regret.
So I swallow every reckless impulse and pick up a new fork.
I focus on breathing.
On eating.
On pretending I’m not two seconds away from breaking every rule I’ve ever lived by to take back the girl I lost.
But then she smiles at me.
Not at Torres.
Not at the room.
At me.
And that one small smile?
It’s enough to tell me this slow, burning, torturous thing between us—
It’s not one-sided.
It never was.
And it sure as hell isn’t dying anytime soon.