Page 81 of Engulfing Emma

But I’m not giving up. There has to be someone out there. Justoneman who’s not a firefighter, who can make me feel like he does. I’ve kissed some of them. I even let one put his hands on me, thinking that was what I needed to get over this thing with Brett. If there even is a thing anymore.

I refuse to buy into the belief that there is only one person out there for everyone. I look up at the ceiling, thinking of my mother. No—it was her choice not to date. She could find someone if she really wanted to.

I check my phone again as if he would have magically sent me a text in the last ninety seconds. Silly, because I know he’s at work.

I roll my eyes at myself thinking how I know Brett’s schedule a little too well for a woman who isn’t interested in dating him.

I look at all the baked goods I’ve made this week. It’s way more than usual. I’ve been trying to keep busy. But the problem is baking keeps the hands busy, not the mind. What am I going to do with all these cookies, muffins, and buns?

I know what I want to do with them. But that would be giving him the wrong idea.

Maybe if I go with a purpose. An excuse to be there other than to get him into bed. Because that’s not what I want.

It’s not.

“That’s a lot of stuff, Mom,” Evelyn says, coming in the kitchen to collect her sack lunch.

“The three of us will never eat it all. I was thinking I’d drop it by the local fire station.”

Her face breaks into a bright smile. I eye her suspiciously, wondering why that would make her happy.

“I think it’s a great idea,” she says, reining in her overeager smile. “Grandpa would be happy. Did you know Grandma used to take cookies to him when he was at work?”

“I did know that. That’s why I started baking in the first place.”

“Really?”

I nod. “As soon as I was old enough to stir the batter, she let me help, and then once a week, we’d walk over a mile to take them to him. He didn’t work at the fire station around the corner; his was farther away.”

Would I have been able to walk into Brett’s firehouse if it had been the same one as my dad’s? I haven’t been back there since he died. The memory of Mom and me taking him cookies has always been too painful for me to consider going back.

“Maybe one day I can help you bake stuff for the firehouse,” she says.

My mind plays a trick on me, and I see flashes of Evelyn and me taking cookies to Brett, just as Mom and I took them to Dad.

“We’ll see,” I say, gathering up the excess baked goods and putting them in a bag. “Come on. Time to get to camp.”

Evelyn asks me some strange questions on the way, like did I enjoy dinner last night with Jake, a fellow teacher from my school? And do I like him? And what kind of qualities do I like in a man?

“What’s up with you and the questions?” I ask, horrified that maybe I haven’t been as discreet as I should have been with the men in my life.

She shrugs. “I don’t know. Just curious about boys, I guess.”

I breathe a sigh of relief, but at the same time, my insides twist when I think about her growing up. “Oh, no. Don’t even think about it. You are not allowed to date until you’re sixteen.”

“That’s actually pretty progressive,” she says. “Kendra and Allie’s moms say they have to be seventeen.”

“Progressive?” I say with a raise of my brow. “Kind of a big word, Evelyn.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m kind of a big girl.”

I stop and give her a hug. “I guess you are.”

“Big enough to go to Germany?”

“That again?”

“I really, really, really want to go, Mom. I never ask you for much.”

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