Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
Axel
There’s a pink ceramic mug on my counter that wasn’t here a week ago.
“Read More, Kiss More” in loopy gold script.
There’s a pair of fuzzy socks draped over the arm of my couch and an avalanche of romance paperbacks stacked beside my boots by the door.
In the bathroom, a citrus-and-honey shampoo has staged a quiet coup against my sad two-in-one.
And my favorite gray T-shirt—the one that fits like it was made for me—now fits like it was made for her and refuses to migrate back to my drawer.
We haven’t said she moved in.
We don’t have to.
Savannah pads into the kitchen wearing that stolen gray shirt and a pair of sleep shorts that should be illegal, hair in a messy knot, cheeks still warm from sleep.
She yawns, opens a cupboard like she’s always known where everything lives, and reaches for her mug.
I lean a shoulder on the doorframe and watch the morning claim her: the way she rises on her toes to grab the sugar, the way she hums without realizing it, the way her eyes find me and soften like the first sun on new snow.
“You’re staring,” she says, pouring coffee.
“I paid for this view,” I answer. “With ten years of penance.”
“Hmm.” She blows across the rim and takes a careful sip. “Penance accepted.”
The corner of my mouth tips. “So magnanimous.”
“You’re lucky I’m in a generous mood.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because you put my mugs on the second shelf instead of the top and that’s the most romantic thing anyone’s ever done for me.”
I cross to her. “That’s a low bar, Brooks.”
“Then raise it,” she says, chin lifting, mouth curving. “I dare you.”
I cage her against the counter with my palms, one on each side of her hips. Her lashes flutter, then steady. She doesn’t look away. She never does. For a beat the only sound is the coffee machine sighing and whatever’s pounding in my chest, insistent as a siren.
“Later,” I murmur against her temple, claiming a breath I shouldn’t. “After the station.”
Her hand fists in the hem of my shirt like she might anchor me there. “Promises, Ramirez.”
“Threats, Brooks.”
She hides a smile behind her mug and pushes past me with a sway of hips that feels like a crime scene.
On the couch she tucks one leg under, curls around her coffee, and scans the morning sky through the window.
Snow flurries skate the glass. Devil’s Peak is a cutout of blue-gray granite and cloud.
The Phantom River glints a hard silver line behind the pines.
“Big day,” she says lightly.
“Nope.”
“Don’t be grumpy. The crew worked hard on this.”
“They taped a banner to the rafters.”
“And baked cinnamon rolls.”
“Levi bought them.”
She laughs, bright and impossible to recover from. “You’re going to smile at least once.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“We’re not teenagers, Savannah. We don’t need a plaque that says ‘look who figured it out.’”
“Speak for yourself.” She sets the mug down and rises, crossing back to me. Her palms slide over my chest, slow and claiming. “I would like the plaque.”
“That so?”
“I like shiny things.” Her voice tips lower. “Rings, for example.”
My pulse trips. She looks up at me through her lashes and I feel every year I carried her ghost. I swallow, find steadier ground in teasing. “Subtle.”
“I’m a paramedic. We don’t do subtle. We say what needs saying.”
“I admire that.”
“Do you?”
“Yeah,” I tell her truthfully, curling a hand at her waist. “I really do.”
Her gaze flickers to my mouth and back. The room tilts warmer. If we don’t leave now, we’ll be late and the city will burn and somehow it will be my fault.
“Boots,” I say, stepping back like I didn’t just think about lifting her onto the counter and finding out what ‘generous mood’ really means. “We’re out the door in two.”
“Yes, Captain,” she salutes, eyes laughing.
I grab my jacket, my keys, and the box burning a hole in the inner pocket. The weight is small, but it drags at me the way gravity drags falling stars—inevitable, bright, dangerous if mishandled. Not yet, I tell it. Tonight. By the firepit where I gave her the letters and she gave me back air.
We step out into a wind scented with fir and woodsmoke. Flurries dust her hair. She tilts her face into the cold and smiles like this is what she came home for—mountain light, winter breath, me at her side like I’ve always belonged there.
I open the truck. She climbs in. I circle around, touch the ring box once through the jacket, and tell myself the crew can tape up as many ridiculous flame stickers as they want; I’ve got the only banner that matters waiting for the dark.
The firehouse is a riot of cinnamon, cheap garland, and louder-than-necessary whistling the moment we step into the bay.
Someone strung market lights between the beams like we’re hosting a barn wedding.
There’s a hand-painted sign—Levi’s handwriting, God help us—propped on the ladder truck: COUPLE OF THE YEAR and beneath it, in Sharpie chaos, a long list of previous “winners,” most of whom are fictional: Talon I keep my face stone-calm. The crew deserves a challenge.
Levi waggles a brow. “Axel, give us a speech.”
“No.”
“Fine, we’ll take Brooks.” He turns grand. “Savannah, please tell the room how you and our resident frost giant finally admitted the longing and the letters and the moonlit pining—”
“Shut it,” I say, but I’m not even pretending to be mad.
Savannah, traitor, curtsies. “Thank you for recognizing excellence in small-town romantic misunderstanding. I’d like to thank the cinnamon rolls, the banner committee, and the universe for conspiring until Axel figured out a heart is not a hazardous material.”
The room explodes. Dax wolf whistles. Even the probie chokes on a laugh. I slide a palm to Savannah’s lower back, quiet pressure that says I’m right here. She straightens, and that little touch travels through both of us like a line sparking alive.
Levi points a camera phone. “Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!”
I level a stare that could stop a structure fire. The crew groans in theatrical disappointment. Savannah tips her head toward me, voice low. “You’re enjoying this.”
“Not even slightly.”
“You are,” she sing-songs. “Your mouth is trying not to smile.”
“It’s a muscle twitch.”
“A very handsome muscle twitch.”
“Brooks,” I warn, and she grins, radiant and sure, and for a second I have to look away or I’ll break my own rule about public displays and show them what claiming looks like.
We make the rounds. She hands out cookies she baked at an ungodly hour.
I fix a wobbly bulb on the string lights.
The crew teases until they run out of jokes.
When the noise ebbs, I catch Savannah leaning against the ladder truck, watching me like a secret.
I cross to her; she nudges my ribs with her shoulder.
“Congrats, Couple of the Year,” she says.
“Tragic honor.”
“You’ll survive.”
“Only because you’re here.”
Heat creeps under her skin. She tucks a curl behind her ear and fails at not smiling. “We should eat.”
“Later,” I say, too softly for the room. “I’ve got something planned.”
Her brows arch, curious and hungry at once. “Oh?”
“Trust me.”
She blows out a slow breath, playing at nonchalance while her fingers find my hand and lace there like they were always meant to. “I do.”
Two words that go straight to the core of everything in me.
***
Night cuts the mountain into a clean silhouette by the time I coax her out of the truck and to the firepit at the overlook.
The night is quiet, the firepit a dark ring as the river and valley stretches below us, all of the world muffled by steady snowfall.
I start the fire with kindling I split this morning.
Flames lick pine, then rise, a warm roar.
Savannah crouches to warm her hands. Orange washes her cheeks.
Snow glints in her hair like the world decorated her for me.
My throat tightens. Ten years of letters. Ten years of never enough. I slide my hand inside my jacket, wrap my fingers around the box, and kneel before I can think about how my heart is trying to beat out of my body.
Savannah looks up. Sees me. Covers her mouth. Shakes her head like she’s laughing and crying at once. “Axel,” she whispers, voice wrecked. “Oh my God.”
The ring isn’t extravagant. It’s exactly right: a band of silver engraved inside with the firehouse number and a small etched flame at the center, a stone that catches firelight in a slow dance. It’s a promise forged out of what we are—duty and heat, hands and hope.
“Savannah Brooks,” I say, and her name tastes like home, “I’ve loved you since you pulled me into a snow fort and declared war on every boy who made fun of my mittens.
I loved you at sixteen when the world ended and somehow you kept breathing.
I loved you in every place I couldn’t reach you.
And I love you now, here, where we’re finally brave enough to stay. ”
She’s sobbing quietly, beautiful, fierce, shaking her head like there aren’t words big enough to hold this. I breathe once, steady my hands, and open the box.
“Will you—”
“Yes,” she says, breaking, laughing through tears. “Yes, yes, I will, before you finish a single poetic sentence.”