Chapter 19 Zane #2
Carmen gave him a look sharp enough to slice paper, just making him laugh more. “Well, I’ll let you get back to your… uh… moment.” Ace walked to the stairs, stopped, and turned back toward them, pointing between Carmen and Zane. “I’m glad you’re doing this. You have my support.” He turned and left.
Zane turned back to Carmen and found her staring at the floor as if she needed it to stop moving.
“Well,” Zane said lightly, “that became even more awkward.”
Carmen exhaled. “I think we should take Ace’s advice,” she said, her voice steadier now. “We can discuss the details in a message so the whole station doesn’t hear it.”
“Agreed,” Zane replied, and he held out his phone. “Let’s swap numbers.”
They exchanged numbers quickly, and Zane forced himself to keep his movements calm and his smile controlled. He didn’t step closer. He didn’t reach for her as he so desperately wanted to and had the entire time they’d been together that afternoon.
“Thank you,” Zane said quietly. “For today.”
“Of course,” Carmen replied. “It is my job after all.”
Zane nodded once, then stepped back. They both took a step forward. He walked towards his office, but it crisscrossed with the path to Carmen’s office, and they nearly collided.
“Oh, sorry,” Carmen mumbled.
“No, it’s my fault,” Zane said and stepped aside, letting her walk to her office door before giving a quick nod. “I’ll message you.”
Carmen nodded too, and then she turned and went into her office, closing the door behind her.
Zane stood there for a second longer than he should have, wanting to kick himself for his clumsiness before he forced himself to move toward his office.
Carmen
Carmen shut the office door, leaned back against it for exactly one second, and then immediately pushed off as if the door had burned her.
Her legs felt unsteady in a way that had nothing to do with the embankment at Hollow Pond. Her heart was beating too fast, and her mind was doing that thing it always did when something unexpected happened. It started listing reasons why it was a bad idea.
Too much going on. Too dangerous. Too complicated. Too soon.
And underneath all of it, quieter but persistent, was the one big reason she couldn’t dismiss.
Jerry.
The guilt hit like a sudden dip in a road you hadn’t seen coming. It wasn’t loud, but it was heavy. Carmen pressed her fingertips to her forehead and closed her eyes for a moment, forcing herself to breathe evenly.
She and Jerry had talked about it, once, in one of those late-night conversations when the world felt far away and the truth felt easier.
They’d promised each other that if one of them died first, the other would not spend the rest of their life locked in a shrine of grief. They’d promised that when the time came, if someone good came along, they wouldn’t let it pass them by.
Carmen had believed that promise when Jerry was alive.
She hadn’t realized how hard it would be to accept it when he wasn’t.
Her phone buzzed before she could spiral.
Carmen looked down and saw the message, and her stomach did a small flip that felt annoyingly like teenage nonsense.
Zane:
How about tomorrow night? I see we’re both off. I can pick you up at 7:30, and we can go to that new restaurant on the border of Gainesville, if you’d like.
Carmen stared at it, then at her hand, as if she expected it to shake.
It didn’t, but it wanted to.
Carmen wasn’t sure whether to answer immediately. She wasn’t sure whether answering immediately made her look eager, and then she reprimanded herself because she was a grown woman with a badge, a job, and a family, and she was not going to start behaving like a nervous teenager over a dinner date.
Still, she couldn’t stop the small smile that tugged at her mouth.
She typed, then deleted, then typed again, then paused as if she’d forgotten how sentences worked.
Before she could decide, the office door opened, and Willa stepped in.
“Sorry,” Willa said with a grin, seeing Carmen jump. “I didn’t think to knock since we’re sharing office space while the chief is here.”
Carmen’s head had snapped up far too quickly, and she knew she must look as guilty as she felt, like a kid caught with their hand in the cookie jar right before dinner time.
Willa’s smile widened immediately. That was the problem with Willa. She missed very little, and she had the sort of eyes that could read a room in seconds.
“Is that Chief Evans?” Willa asked, her eyes landing on the phone in front of Carmen, the text message still shining like a bright beacon.
Carmen cleared her throat. “Of course you don’t have to knock,” she said, and then immediately regretted how stiff she sounded. “And why would you think that message is from Chief Evans?”
“Because of that smile on your face when I walked in and it turned to shock, then guilt,” Willa said, matter-of-fact. “And I guessed it would be him asking you on a date because Ace told me he asked you out, so I put two and two together.”
Carmen exhaled slowly. “Of course Ace told you.”
“So it is him.” Glee filled Willa’s voice as she guessed correctly.
“Yes,” Carmen admitted. She lifted her phone slightly as if it were evidence in a case file. “Chief Evans asked me to dinner.”
“Ah!” Willa said. “And?”
“I was going to find you to ask you if it’s okay for me to go out with him like that,” Carmen told her.
Willa blinked, then looked genuinely surprised.
“Why would you ask me if it’s okay?” Willa asked, perplexed.
“Because I don’t want it to be awkward for you,” Carmen told her. “Or for the station.”
Willa’s expression softened, and she stepped closer.
“Aunt Carmen,” Willa said in a warm voice, “I think he’s perfect for you, and I’m fully team Chief Evans. And who cares what the station or anyone else thinks? If you want to go out to dinner with the Chief, you have my blessing.”
Carmen felt her throat tighten unexpectedly and tears sting the back of her eyes at her nieces' enthusiastic support.
“Thank you, sweetheart,” Carmen said, quieter than she intended.
Willa leaned in, her eyes sparkling mischievously.
“So where are you going for dinner?” Willa asked.
“He wants to take me to the new restaurant just outside of Gainesville,” Carmen told Willa. “But… uh…”
“But uh, what?” Willa gave her a side-eye look.
Carmen glanced at the message on her phone again.
“I didn’t know if I should wait to answer him,” Carmen admitted, and then felt foolish as soon as she said it. “Or if I should reply right away. That’s what I was contemplating when you came in.”
“You haven’t replied to him?” Willa looked at her. “When did he send the message?”
“About seven minutes ago,” Carmen told her niece and shrugged. “The last time I dated, we did things over a landline. Or face-to-face. I’m not sure of all the current dating rituals.”
Willa rolled her eyes with affectionate disbelief.
“Message him back now,” Willa told her. “The poor man is probably thinking he was too forward and you were just being polite earlier.”
Carmen’s eyes widened. “Oh! I didn’t think of that.”
Willa pointed at Carmen’s phone as if she were issuing an instruction in the fire station.
“Well, go on, do it, now,” Willa instructed her aunt.
Carmen typed quickly.
That sounds wonderful. Thank you. I look forward to it.
She hit send before she could second-guess it again, then exhaled and stared at the screen like it might explode.
“There,” she said, voice breathy. “Done.”
Willa smiled.
“Good,” Willa said. Then her expression shifted into something practical and cheerful. “Now we have an excuse to take you shopping for something to wear tomorrow.”
“That sounds like a plan,” Carmen accepted her niece’s offer as she did need something to wear because she admittedly had nothing to go out on a date in.
Carmen leaned back in her chair and couldn’t stop smiling.
Because for the first time in a long time, the thought of tomorrow didn’t feel like something she had to endure.
It felt like something she might actually want.