36. Brooks
Brooks
“If you ask me, the man never stood a chance.”
— Lauren
The smell of rosemary and fresh yeast is the first thing to register, curling through the morning air and pulling me from sleep before the sun has even managed to clear the tree line.
For a second, my brain runs through its automatic, well-worn routine—checking the time, scanning the room for the standard, sterile dark gray of my own bedroom walls.
But the ceiling above me isn’t gray.
It’s a soft, faded cream and the mattress beneath my back doesn’t have the stiff, unforgiving tension of the one I usually wake up to across the grass.
Ember is lying on her stomach next to me, her face buried sideways into the down pillow. A massive, unruly tangle of soft curls is spilled across the white sheet.
One of her legs is hooked entirely over my right thigh, pinning me down with a loose, heavy familiarity that feels more binding and more natural than anything I’ve ever known.
I stay completely still for ten minutes, just watching the slow, rhythmic rise of her shoulder blades under the cotton sheet.
She makes this soft, sleepy little sound in the back of her throat and shifts closer without even thinking about it.
I swear I feel it everywhere. Not just physically, in the way her weight presses against my leg, but deeper than that.
Like my body recognizes something fundamental before my brain even catches up to the reality of being here.
Ember cracks one eye open, the lid heavy and fluttering. “You staring at me?”
“Yes.”
“That’s slightly creepy,” she mumbles, her voice a rough, unpolished rasp.
“You drooled on my shoulder,” I counter, keeping my tone perfectly dry.
She smirks. “I did not.”
“You absolutely did.”
She squints at me suspiciously, her brow furrowing. “You’re making things up because you think I’m too tired to defend myself.”
“You are too tired to defend yourself,” I point out, a ghost of a smile appearing at the corners of my mouth.
“Rude.”
I grin, reaching up to brush my thumb under her eye, sweeping away the last traces of slumber. “Morning.”
Ember lets out a soft, muddled snort against the pillow, her eyelashes fluttering before her eyes finally crack open, fully awake but still hazy.
She stares at my jawline for three seconds, her lips curving into a slow, lazy morning smirk. “You’re still here,” she says.
“I told you I wasn’t going back across the grass,” I say. I reach out, my hand cupping the side of her face, my thumb tracing the soft curve of her cheekbone. “I’m staying right here.”
She hums, leaning her face into my palm.
But as the morning light gets stronger, filling the bedroom with a pale, clear gold that highlights the dust motes dancing in the air, I know we need to put the final pieces of this thing together before the day starts in earnest.
I roll onto my side, propping my head up on my hand so I can look down at her face, my expression shifting into something completely serious.
“Ember,” I say, waiting until her eyes clear of the morning fog. “We need to talk about Sophie.”
She blinks, the playful curve of her mouth shifting into something quiet and attentive. She pulls the sheet up a little higher, tucking it under her chin, watching me with guarded interest.
“Okay. Let’s talk about her.”
“She’s the center of my entire life,” I say, my voice steady, ensuring every word lands with the weight it deserves.
“Everything I do, every decision I make, goes through the filter of keeping her safe and happy. When I pulled away last week, I told myself I was protecting her. But the truth is, I was just terrified of how much she loves having you around, and how much I want you there. If we’re doing this—and I am absolutely doing this—I want you in her life completely.
She deserves stability, and she deserves to know that you’re a permanent part of our world. ”
I watch her face carefully while I talk, searching for any sign of hesitation. Not because I think she’s going to run, but because I need her to understand the gravity of what I’m asking—and what I’m committing to.
“Sophie gets attached hard,” I add. “She always has. And she acts brave about things even when she’s not.”
Ember nods once, a slow, deliberate movement. “I know.”
“She was trying to act normal this week.” My jaw clenches, a spike of frustration at myself cutting through the morning calm. “But she kept asking if you were mad at us.”
Something in Ember’s expression crumples, a flash of genuine pain crossing her features. “Brooks…”
“I’m not telling you that to make you feel guilty,” I say, shaking my head. “I’m telling you because I handled this badly. I let my own fear spill onto her, and I’m not doing that again.”
Ember reaches for my hand under the sheet and threads her fingers through mine.
“I love that little girl,” she says. “And I would never disappear on her like that.”
“Good,” I say, a dry, self-deprecating smile pulling at my mouth. “Because I actually talked to Lauren last night. Before I came over here.”
Ember’s eyebrows shoot up toward her hairline.
“She called me,” I mutter, rubbing the back of my neck. “Apparently, news travels fast. Lauren called me from Greece just to tell me I was being an absolute, grade-A ass to my neighbor.”
Ember lets out a sharp, sudden laugh. “No. She didn’t.”
“She did,” I confirm. “She told me she didn’t want our daughter growing up with a lonely, stubborn father because I’m too terrified of my own shadow. She said if I didn’t walk across the grass and apologize to her new best friend, she was going to drive over here herself and hit me with a wrench.”
Ember is fully grinning now, her eyes sparkling with that bright, wicked mischief I’ve grown to crave. “I love her. I’m going to send her a loaf of sourdough. We can form a club to keep you in line.”
“The club is already fully formed, clearly,” I say, leaning down to press my forehead against hers, the clean, familiar tang of her jasmine perfume filling my lungs.
“She really said best friend?” Ember asks after a second, her breath hitching on a laugh.
“Direct quote.”
“Oh my God, I knew we connected.”
I drop my head back into the pillow, staring at the ceiling. “At one point she called me emotionally constipated.”
Ember fully snorts at that, burying her face in the pillow to muffle the sound.
I point a finger at her. “Don’t encourage this.”
“She’s right though.”
I stare at her, feigning shock.
The traitor just shrugs against the mattress. “You did emotionally repress yourself onto a public bench for a week.”
“That sentence sounds fake.”
“And yet.”
I groan and drag a hand down my face while she laughs harder.
Honestly, hearing her laugh in bed next to me might be the thing that permanently alters my brain chemistry.
“But I told her the truth,” I continue, my tone turning earnest again. “I told her I’m staying. I want to tell Sophie today that we’re a team now.”
Ember looks at me for a long, silent beat, her hand coming up to rest against the back of my neck.
“Okay,” she whispers against my lips. “Now get up. The goats are demanding attention, and you look like you know how to haul a fifty-pound sack of grain.”
I don’t move right away, content to simply exist in the space she’s created.
Ember narrows her eyes. “Brooks.”
“What?”
“You’re stalling.”
“I’m comfortable.”
She rolls her eyes, a playful glint in her gaze, and tries to shove my shoulder with her palm. It does absolutely nothing.
“You are unbelievably heavy,” she complains.
“Occupational hazard.”
“You’re literally a human oak tree.”
I grin down at her, leaning over so our noses are nearly touching. “You seemed pretty happy about that last night.”
Her entire face goes a deep, brilliant shade of pink instantly.
“Get up,” she says, shoving me harder now.
? ? ?
By 11:00 AM, the farm is a disaster area of mud, silver feed-bag paper, and aggressive barnyard animals.
I’d walked back across the lawn at dawn to wake up Sophie—thankfully, she has a free day today—presenting her with the news that we were spending the day next door. She’d nearly taken my shins out with her excitement, sprinting across the wet grass before I’d even managed to lock my own back door.
Now, she is sitting on an overturned milk crate near the small wooden paddock holding a tin cup full of alfalfa pellets.
“Don’t let Gertrude get the whole thing, Soph,” Ember calls out from the tool shed.
She steps out into the yard wearing a pair of mud-caked yellow muck boots, an oversized flannel shirt, and a pair of denim overalls with one strap completely unbuckled.
She looks entirely ridiculous and, somehow, completely beautiful.
“She’s a total glutton. She’ll eat the cup if you let her.”
“C’mere, country girl,” I mutter, catching the back loop of her overalls before she can walk past me toward the feed bins.
She blinks at me, surprised. Then her eyes narrow with delight.
“Excuse me?”
Shit.
I grin anyway, holding my ground. “You heard me.”
She points a finger at her own chest. “Me? The woman you spent six months calling city girl because I owned pink boots and complained about the hardware store coffee?”
“You still complain about the hardware store coffee.”
“Because it tastes like battery acid, Brooks.”
“Yeah, well,” I tug her closer, closing the distance between us. “Now you also smell like hay half the time and carry apples around for livestock in your pockets.”
“That is unbelievably judgmental.”
“You have goat feed on your sock right now.”
She looks genuinely offended, lifting her foot to inspect the evidence. “That could happen to anybody.”
I laugh and kiss the top of her head before I can stop myself. It’s a reflexive, easy movement.
She freezes for half a second at the casualness of it, her body tensing before she relaxes into my touch. Then she looks up at me, softer now.
“So what are you then? You don’t get to rename me without consequences. Hot neighbor doesn’t quite fit anymore.”
“I don’t need a nickname.”
“Hm,” she ignores me, tapping her chin with a gloved finger. “Maybe hot farmhand.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Grumpy lumberjack?”
“I’m not a lumberjack.”
“Suspiciously competent goat security?”
“That one’s worse.”
She’s fully laughing now, leaning into my chest while I shake my head.
“But I can’t not call you a nickname. You need one. Just not hot neighbor. You’re now just…” She waves her hand vaguely toward me, the farm, and the house next door. “Mine.”
My entire brain short-circuits for a solid second. The world seems to tilt on its axis.
Ember smirks, clearly enjoying my reaction. “Oh my God. Look at your face.”
“Country girl,” I warn, trying to regain my composure.
She laughs so hard she has to grab my arm to steady herself, her forehead resting against my bicep. She looks up, her eyes soft but full of that sharp, flirty banter that keeps my heart hammering against my ribs.
“You’re a dork, Brooks. A big, beautiful dork. But I suppose your posture has improved since you got off that bench.”
“The bench was terrible for my back,” I murmur, my hand coming up to rest on the small of her back, pulling her just an inch closer. “But the view was excellent.”
Gertrude lets out a loud, rattling sound right into Sophie’s face, her yellow eyes fixed entirely on the tin cup.
“She’s hungry, Ember!” Sophie chirps, her little legs swinging off the crate. “She says she wants the paper too!”
“No paper for the animals, sweetie,” Ember says. She tilts her head up. “Well, Brooks. You’ve been standing there inspecting that fence line for twenty minutes. Is it safe, or are you going to give my farm a bad grade?”
I look down at her, my mouth twitching. “The lower latch is compromised by two inches. If Gertrude decides to push it, the whole garden is gone.”
“Oh, please,” Ember scoffs, her eyes rolling. “You really are a one-track mind, aren’t you? Everything is a problem waiting to happen. I bet you check the expiration date on the baking soda before you make pancakes.”
“I do, the baking soda loses its power after one year. It affects the rise.”
“Well thank you, Officer Brooks,” Ember says solemnly.
“Just doing my duty.”
“To protect innocent civilians from baking soda and goat-related incidents?”
“Exactly.”
“Hey, look!” Sophie shouts, pointing at the far side of the paddock where two smaller brown goats are currently butting heads into a pile of hay. “They’re crashing!”
Ember laughs, a real, breathless sound that echoes through the quiet valley, and she leans into my side, her hand sliding into my back pocket again with a casual, permanent ownership that makes the last five years of my life feel like nothing more than a waiting room.
I have spent my whole life fighting fires, only to fall in love with the one thing that survives after the flames.
An ember.