Page 6 of Up In Smoke

Though Luke was only able to read it through fuzzy eyes, he made out the message.

—At Snafu. Where you at?

He blinked but his eyes only got fuzzier. Luckily, the message was pretty standard between them and he was able to make it out by the shapes of the words. It was a command invitation to head out and join the crowd.

What if he said no?

The problem was that he'd already fucked up in the middle of the night with the fire by telling his chief that he needed to be the one to go into the house. Then he'd screwed up further by lying to Taggart. If the chief figured out the connection, that would only look worse. But Luke hadn’t been able to figure out any other way to save everyone. And he wasn't going to let Ivy Dean burn because of his own bad decisions.

If he didn't show up tonight, it would look odd and he couldn't afford any more abnormalities to his behavior. So he sat on the side of the bed, holding the phone between two hands, and forced himself to tap out a message.

—On my way.

He needed a shower. He’d fallen straight into the bed without one. At least he'd had one at the station last night, but he needed another after the hard sleep he’d just powered through. Running the water cold, he tried to think through what he needed to do just to be normal.

Normalwas everything right now. It was his only cover. He needed to have two beers—probably enough to look reasonable and hopefully not enough to knock him out tonight. He needed to flirt with Tierney or Amy or whoever was waiting on his table. He always flirted and it never went any further. His reputation was entirely unwarranted.

As an adult, he could look back and see how he'd wound up here. Hindsight made it clear that flirting had been the only way to not be an asshole in his family. It wasn’t rude, and it wouldn’t get him mercilessly teased by his older brother or his father. After his father died, his mother had been her same giving, kind self, but then she’d worked two or three jobs to support her four sons. She'd never been home. Though the boys had been fed and housed, they had raised themselves.

Luke was sad to report that he was the most stable of the lot. He'd gone into firefighting because four-year college hadn’t been an option. Sadly, with his record and his family ties, neither had police work. Firefighting was respectable work and luckily, he loved it.

He had a lot to live down, much of it inherited, but much of it of his own making, too. And now was not the time to make waves.

Just when he’d begun to think he could inch his way forward, the fires had started. He was torn between feeling angry and sad and worried that the universe was actively and constantly working against him.

Stepping out of the shower, he ran a towel over his head. Awake enough to play out the evening, he put on jeans and a T shirt and shoved his feet into sneakers because his brothers wore boots and he wasn’t them.

In a handful of minutes, he was walking in the door at Snafu, the large circular booth in the corner already occupied by his buddies from A-shift, only tonight, Jo had brought along her new roommate, Ivy Dean.

Luke was surprised by the jolt in the center of his chest as he laid eyes on her.

She wore jeans and a bright pink sweater with enough holes to see the black tank underneath. She didn't look like Jo, whose closet Luke suspected she'd been shopping in, but she didn't quite look like the prim librarian, either. Scooting over, she patted the seat next to her as everyone shuffled to make room for him.

“Hi Ivy,” he said softly. “I hope you're doing okay.”

“I'm barely holding it together!” She said it far too jovially for the stark admission the words offered. And she raised a huge mug in her slim fingers as she saluted him. “But thank you.”

The last words were soft and somewhat scared and only for his ears.

The booth was packed with him in it. His thigh laid alongside hers, his shoulder touching the soft yarn of the sweater and Ivy turned to him, a small smile on her lips.

She might be alive today because of him.

Was the smile one of gratitude or was it maybe something more?

Chapter Six

Ivy was watching everyone. With everything that had happened, her concerns about her clothing were superfluous and stupid. But she held on to them tightly.

Maybe it was easier to think about clothes because she could do something about it. Everyone had commented on what she wore—all of it kind and complimentary. She’d showed up in Jo's tight jeans and bright pink sweater, not her usual colors.

Had she been in Redemption long enough that this wouldn’t change what they thought of her? Had she established herself as smart, but not interested? As hard working, but not a party girl?

This clothing wasn't as unfamiliar to her as they might think it was. In fact, she'd pushed decency much further, many, many times. And she'd been so used to the skimpy clothing and the tight, short skirts speaking for her that she wondered what this was saying now. So far, it hadn't caused a problem.

What was causing a problem was Luke Hernandez. Why was her heart skipping a beat? And why was she drawn to him when he wasn't even flirting with her?

That had to be the worst. He couldn’t find a cute or casually praising thing to say to her when he always had a ready compliment for everyone. He did it so much that the phrases and the sweet nothings rolled off of his lips like honey. But now, when he looked at her in full sincerity, and inquired about how she was doing, she lost it.

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