Chapter 8 #2
"She'll come around," Will says. "If she's worth having, she'll work through whatever's making her run."
"And if she doesn't?"
"Then she wasn't ready. And you move on."
Simple advice. The kind I'd give someone else without hesitation. Doesn't feel simple when it's my own situation.
The door opens, and for a second my pulse jumps—automatic hope that it's her, that she's reconsidered, that she's ready to talk instead of hide.
Just another customer looking for drinks and distraction.
I pour their order and try to convince myself that Cole and Will are right. That space and time will let Mira process what happened. That she'll work through the fear and confusion and come back ready to explore what we started.
I fail completely.
The weekend passes in a blur of shifts and cases and deliberately not thinking about her.
By Monday I stop checking my phone every few minutes.
Stop hoping every notification is her. Stop scanning crowds for her face.
She needs space. Fine. I get it. Doesn't mean I'm waiting around indefinitely for her to decide whether she can handle what we could be building.
I focus on the investigation instead. Interview more businesses, review vendor records, build the case against whoever's setting these fires. Professional partnership without the personal complications. The way it should have been from the start.
Except working the case means encountering her. Coordinated interviews with witnesses. Evidence review sessions with Davis. Case meetings where we both pretend the tension is professional disagreement instead of unresolved personal shit.
She's good at pretending. Better than me.
Which is why, when dispatch calls about another fire—small warehouse on the industrial edge of town, fully involved when crews arrived—I'm not surprised to pull up and see her vehicle already in the lot.
Same accelerant patterns as the others. Same methodical approach.
Another fire in the series targeting local businesses.
Mira's there to photograph the scene for insurance purposes. I'm there to document evidence and determine origin. We work opposite sides of the burned-out structure, carefully maintaining distance.
The air still carries the acrid bite of smoke, underlaid with the chemical tang of accelerant. Charred wood crumbles under my boots as I move through the debris field, cataloging burn patterns and collecting samples.
Professional focus. Don't think about Mira working fifty feet away. Don't wonder if she's thinking about me. Don't acknowledge the tension that crackles between us like residual heat.
Until our paths intersect near what's left of the loading dock.
"Shaw." Professional acknowledgment. Nothing more.
"Mira." I don't stop working. "Get what you need?"
"Almost done. You?"
"Another hour, maybe two."
Silence stretches between us. Not comfortable partnership silence. The kind loaded with everything neither of us is saying.
Finally, Mira breaks. "I'm sorry I disappeared. It wasn't fair to you."
I look up from the debris I'm cataloging. She's watching me with something vulnerable in her expression, something that looks like regret mixed with residual fear.
"You needed space. I get it."
"But I should have communicated instead of just shutting you out."
"Yeah. You should have." I stand, brushing ash from my hands. "But you didn't. And that tells me where your head's at. You're not ready for what I'm offering. Maybe you won't be."
"Shaw—"
"It's fine, Mira. We keep this professional. Work the case together. Catch whoever's setting these fires. Then you go back to the city and I stay here, and we both move on with our lives."
"Is that what you want?"
"What I want doesn't matter if you're not ready to meet me halfway." I turn back to the evidence I'm collecting. "You yellowed. Good. That's what you should have done. But then you ran instead of processing. That's on you."
"I know."
"Do you? Because from where I'm standing, you're still running. Still convinced that what you felt was fake or worse, that I'm manipulating you. Still unable to trust your own responses."
"I'm trying—"
"You're trying alone. That's the problem.
" Frustration finally breaks through the professional veneer.
"You asked me to show you what real power exchange looks like.
I did. You triggered, yellowed, and I stopped immediately.
Did everything exactly right. And you still don't trust me or yourself enough to work through what happened. "
Her face pales. "That's not fair."
"Isn't it? You disappeared for days rather than have one difficult conversation. That's not processing, Mira. That's avoidance."
"I needed time to think—"
"You needed time to convince yourself this won't work. There's a difference."
We stare at each other across charred debris and smoke-damaged concrete. The space between us feels impossibly wide, filled with everything we're not saying and everything we can't.
Finally, Mira looks away. "Maybe you're right. Maybe I'm not ready."
"Maybe you're not."
She leaves without another word. I watch her go, hands clenched at my sides, and wonder when wanting someone became this goddamn complicated—and whether she'll ever be ready to stop running.
The answer, apparently, is not today.
I turn back to the debris field and force myself to focus on what I can control. Evidence collection. Burn patterns. Building the case against whoever's doing this.
One problem at a time. Right now, the fire investigation is the only problem I can actually solve.