Page 22 of Breaking Through

I should have said no. I should have buried the sketch along with the others. Instead, I observed myself saying, "After Chicago. When words wouldn't come."

His hand hovered over the page, not quite touching. "It's... intense."

The care in his voice unwound something in my chest. I pushed back from my desk, needing space but engaging anyway. "There are others."

"Show me?" It was a voice of genuine interest, and that made him dangerous to my defenses.

I pulled out the folder I'd been avoiding all morning. "The department therapist suggested art therapy. She said sometimes trauma needs a different language."

His eyes fixed on another sketch sticking partway out of the folder. "Is that... a squirrel?"

I sighed. "Part of the therapy. I had to draw something that wasn't fire-related. That particular squirrel spent a month terrorizing hikers at the visitor center."

"Terrorizing?" His lips twitched.

"It developed a taste for expensive trail mix. It started organizing raids with its gang. The sketch was supposed to be calming, but..." I gestured at the slightly demonic glint I'd accidentally captured in its eye.

Holden bit his lip, clearly fighting a smile. "So you're telling me your therapy included documenting squirrel crime sprees?"

"They're menaces. You laugh, but one stole Maya's entire sandwich last week when she wasn't looking. Then it sat in a tree eating it while staring her down."

Holden settled into the chair across from me, and I spread out the rest of the sketches—flames and fear captured in graphite and charcoal. My hands remembered every line.

"This one..." He pointed to a drawing of hands reaching through smoke. "The movement here, it's like you can feel..."

I rubbed my wrist. "The helplessness." The word escaped before I could catch it. "Sometimes you can't reach far enough."

Holden looked up. "Is that why you switched to ranger work? To be able to reach people before they need saving?"

The question hit like an uppercut to the solar plexus. I stood abruptly, desperately needing to breathe air that wasn't full of his presence. At the window, I stared at the pine branches while I worked to steady my breathing. Even with my back turned, the tiny hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

"Maybe," I finally managed. "I don't usually..."

"Share?" His voice was closer. I hadn't heard him move. He'd closed the gap between us silently.

I corrected his assumption. "Talk about it at all." I turned, and I quickly understood that was a mistake. Holden stood barely an arm's length away, close enough that I saw the different shades of brown in his eyelashes. A loose thread on his collar drew my attention—something small and imperfect that only made him more real.

"Thank you." His voice had dropped to barely above a whisper. One hand rested on my desk, fingers splayed near my sketches like he was anchoring himself. "For showing me."

"I don't know why I..." The truth was I did know. The coffee shop conversation had cracked something open, letting light into places I'd kept dark for years. He'd looked at me across that table like I was someone worth seeing.

He reached out slowly, telegraphing the movement like I was some wild thing that might startle. His fingers brushed my arm just above the wrist, warm through my uniform sleeve. The touch sent electricity dancing across my skin.

"Wade..." The soft, almost reverent way he said my name made my carefully constructed walls feel paper-thin.

I could blame what happened next on temporary insanity. On lack of sleep or too much coffee or the way morning lightsparkled off his hair. But the truth was more straightforward and terrifying: I'd been falling since that first morning on the beach, watching him through my own lens of possibility.

His gaze dropped to my mouth, then back up. The slight movement shattered my last defenses. I swayed forward, allowing him to step back and remember all the reasons this was a terrible idea.

Instead, he leaned in, and the space between us became nothing at all.

I kissed him.

Or maybe he kissed me.

Maybe we met in the middle like waves reaching the shore—inevitable, necessary, and frightening in intensity. His lips were soft, tasting of vanilla and coffee, and something inside me shattered and reformed in the space of a heartbeat.

My hands found his waist as his slid up to my shoulders. The kiss deepened, and I remembered how to breathe, feel, and want things I'd convinced myself I couldn't have.

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