Chapter 4
FOUR
brODIE
I study the scratches carved into the wooden tabletop in Frank’s.
The place is a perfect West End hideout. Cozy warm lighting. Quirky mismatched furniture. Windows streaked in condensation and the comforting aroma of freshly baked cookies. It’s been here for decades and likely the setting for countless life-changing events. First dates. Breakups. Makeups.
And despite knowing this should absolutely not be where I’m at, all I want is for today to be the latter.
I can’t help it. It’s been three years. Three long years that have felt like a lifetime of spectacularly failing to forget the woman who owns my heart.
Meaning seeing Savannah again yesterday was like being hit with a flash flood in a desert. With me as the desert.
Before arriving at Hall Eight, I’d mentally prepared to see part-asshat, part-bully Brock, with his permanent contract to make my life miserable. Savannah, however? Working alongside Brock? As a fucking firefighter?
She should be well on the way to her future by now. The one I walked away from to protect. Dutifully preparing to step into her dad’s shoes. Existing in an entirely alternate stratosphere. Not fighting fires in the community I call home.
“Can I get you a refill?” The perky brunette barista flutters her eyelashes at me.
On a normal day I’d happily give as good back, but today isn’t a normal day. In fact, it’s possible there may never be a normal day ever again. “I’ll have another Americano, black.” I glance at the clock. Nearly three. “And an oat milk latte with honey on the side.”
The door swishes open as I finish speaking and I know without looking who’s walked in. It’s like she speaks to somewhere unseen in my soul. I steal another mouthful of air, bury the butterflies going nuts, and turn to Savannah with an attempt at an easy smile.
All the air whooshes from my lungs in one go.
Wow.
She looked incredible yesterday, flushed from the game, splattered in mud like some teen wrestling fantasy, but today… It’ll be a miracle if I survive the next half hour.
Her eyes meet mine and for the briefest moment she returns my smile, but like a switch flicking off, she boxes it away as if remembering she hates me.
Which is totally justified. I hurt her. What I did was unforgivable.
I just wish she knew why I did it. And how the choice I was forced to make also destroyed me.
But she doesn’t. And she can’t. It’s as simple as that.
She approaches, her hands tracing over her long blonde hair. The scent of coconut teases at me and I’m instantly transported to us being curled up on her dorm room bed with its overly springy mattress, her head nestled on my chest.
I stand, nearly knocking over my chair. “Savannah.”
“Brodie.” Her ocean-blue eyes are laced with something fierce.
She sheds her coat and I allow myself the briefest scan of her body poured into a cropped white tee and jeans slung low on her hips.
She sits, the tee briefly lifting to reveal a glimpse of rock-hard abs.
I avert my eyes, but they land on her arms, triceps flexing. She has a ripped set of guns, too.
“The fire department looks good on you.” I will the words back in as soon as they’ve fallen from my mouth. They sound crass out in the open. Like I’m hitting on her. Which I’m not. That would be a ridiculous idea. “I mean—”
“Black Americano, and an oat milk latte with honey on the side.” With impeccable timing, the barista places down our drinks and slinks away.
Savannah glances from her coffee to me. “How did you know what I’d order?”
I shrug. “Guess it’s my reporter’s head for remembering details.”
Pushing back her hair, she fixes her eyes on me. “You have no right to have remembered anything about me.”
She grabs at the honey. Her hand shakes ever so slightly and the pot slips, golden liquid spilling to the table. I slide over a napkin, but she bats me away, leaving a silence as thick and cloying as the honey. As if three years of heartache and questions are also threatening to spill.
I search for something to say. I mean, I know what I want to say.
I want to apologize. To explain what happened.
But I can’t go there. Her dad was brutally clear on his terms. Savannah must never know about his involvement.
And Aiden Archer is not a man you cross.
Not least because he holds sway in the world where I’m only just beginning to carve out a career.
The same world where Savannah was meant to be thriving.
She clears her throat, her back locked rigid against her chair. “Why did you want to meet, Brodie? Friendly reminder, I’m only giving you thirty minutes. You want to spend that time staring at a table, guess that’s your—”
“I wanted to see you.”
“You saw me yesterday. Not enough for you?”
“Nothing will ever be enough when it comes to you.” Again, my words tumble out unchecked.
“Fuck you, Brodie.” Her hands flail, narrowly missing her coffee.
She doesn’t seem to care and keeps on with the erratic gestures.
“You walked away, remember? You, not me. One day you’re telling me you love me; the next, you were done.
Our lives were no longer on the same path and all that.
” She adds quotation marks to the last part, sarcasm rolling off her.
I wince, hearing my own voice saying that line.
It’s the same phrase I played on repeat while buried in my bedroom instead of celebrating my graduation. Pretending to my parents I was sick so I could hide for nearly two weeks straight. Way to celebrate my honors milestone, nursing a broken heart and a ton of guilt.
I take a breath, working to get a handle on my emotions.
It isn’t helping either of us if I devolve into a total chump who can’t string a sentence together.
I might not be able to share what happened to make me walk away, or fully understand the reasons why her father made me do it, but he can’t stop me from sharing how it left me feeling. Or from trying to make amends.
Sitting forward, I rest my arms on the table, my hands close enough to hers that I swear I feel her body heat radiating against me.
“I wanted to say how sorry I am for what happened. I know they’re just words, and there’s no reason for you to ever give me the time of day again, but I’ve never regretted something more than how things ended between us.
If there’s a way I can make it up to you, just name it. Anything at all.”
Her eyes narrow. “Anything?”
I nod.
“Send someone else to write the Herald’s feature.”
Ah, fuck.
The damn feature. With its shiny promotion dangling at the end of it. The ultimate career carrot I’m not prepared to give up on yet. Especially after two years of working relentless scut, feeling invisible, and being chronically overlooked.
There has to be a way for us to work together.
Channeling my best reporter skills, I attempt a more casual tone. Something that can steer us to neutral ground. “I promised I’d walk away, and I will if it comes to that, but you also said I could have thirty minutes first.” I glance at the clock. “By my reckoning, I still have nineteen left.”
She shakes her head. “You won’t change my mind.”
“How about we try something else? What if we were meeting for the first time without any of the baggage? What would we be talking about?”
“I don’t know.”
“Just give it a try. Imagine we’re complete strangers.”
“This is silly.”
“Maybe. But I think it could help.” I sit back, trying to encapsulate the vibe of someone who’s totally at ease and doesn’t also think this is totally silly. “Do you live locally?”
“Why?”
“I’m on Barclay.”
Her mouth falls open. “You’re here in the West End?”
“Yeah, you?”
She looks at the table, breathing tightly. “I’m on Nelson.”
“Well, look at that. We’re practically neighbors.”
She swallows. “How long have you lived here?”
“Two years. Since I started work at the Herald. You?”
“I moved up here last year when I left Stanford. Found a place with Nix.”
“Your friend from high school? She visited you, right? At UBC?”
“Yep.”
“And how are you finding living here?”
“Oh, uh, it’s nice.”
“Agreed. More neighborly than Downtown. Less flashy than West Van. Gotta love its quirkiness.” I exhale, a smile easing its way back.
She rolls her eyes. “Don’t do that.”
“What?”
“That whole thing you’re doing.” She points in the general direction of my face. “You wouldn’t be doing that if we’d only just met.”
“What, smiling?”
She nods.
“Uh, pretty sure I would totally be smiling if we’d just met. Probably a whole bucketload more than this to be honest.”
“Dammit, Brodie.” She bangs her hand on the table, our coffee cups rattling. “This just isn’t going to work.”
I sink into my seat.
Maybe she’s right.
If smiling causes that kind of reaction, we’re entirely fucked.
I can’t delete our past. And I don’t know how to keep things strictly professional.
At the end of the day, Savannah’s my catnip.
My bolt of lightning. All it took was five minutes of watching her running around in the mud, an angel with a rugby ball, and I’m right back where I was when I walked away.
Head over heels. Meaning the task of shadowing her—keeping things relaxed and compartmentalized while conducting shrewd questioning, so I can write a promotion-winning, cutting-edge story that may or may not expose a scandal underpinning Metro Vancouver’s fire department—feels more impossible right now than meeting a mermaid riding a unicorn.
She lets out a little sigh. Quiet. Breathy. Ironically, the kind of sound a mermaid would likely use to tempt sailors from their ship. “I’m sorry. I said I’d give you half an hour and you still have ten minutes left. I’ll try not to jump down your throat again for smiling.”
Her words are a lifeline and I grasp on, meeting her gaze. Still fierce. And beautiful. So beautiful my brain short-circuits.
She raises a brow. “Are we returning to awkwardly staring at the table for these final ten minutes?”
“I’m not staring at the table this time.”
Her cheeks flush, the gentlest pink.
Another lifeline. I clear my throat. “When I turned up at Eight yesterday, you really were the very last person I was expecting to see.”
“Not that long ago, I would have been the last person I would have expected to see.”
“So what happened?”
She fusses with a napkin, tearing at the edge. “It’s a long story.”
“I’d say I have all afternoon, but I have a hunch you’re holding onto our hard deadline?”
She nods, but for the first time, she doesn’t seem so sure.
I jump in to keep her talking. “How have others taken to your new line of work?”
“Nix has been super supportive.”
I brace myself. “And your dad?”
“Oh.” She looks away.
“Oh?”
“Uh…” She snaps an elastic band from her wrist, scraping her hair into a ponytail. “It’s just… well, it’s complicated.”
Not remotely surprising based on what I know about her dad. The man literally tore us apart, spinning some bullshit about safeguarding Savannah’s future.
I wait for her to offer more. She doesn’t.
My pulse ticks up a notch. “How come?”
She shares a stiff smile, returning to tearing at the napkin. “Doesn’t matter.”
“You kind of look like it does. Complicated in what way?”
“Just complicated. Don’t worry about it.”
Her words have the opposite impact on me. “Because he isn’t happy with your decision?”
“Uh, no. More complicated than that.” She scatters the shredded napkin across the table.
“Fuck, Sav. What’s going on?”
She sighs, eyes locked on the table. “I… well, uh…” Her shoulders rise, high and tight. “He… doesn’t actually know. I haven’t told him yet.”
I freeze, my entire body feeling like I’ve stuck my fingers into an electrical outlet. “I don’t understand.”
She continues to look everywhere but at me. “There’s nothing more to understand. As far as Dad’s concerned, I’m still at Stanford.”