Page 117 of The Fire We Crave

She offers me her card to pay, and I refuse it. “The coffee is on me. I love you girls, and I am more than happy to discuss anything in the romance books we read, but what I do with Smoke is?—”

“You’re shy?” Ember asks incredulously. “After all the things I imagine Smoke is doing to you?”

I burst out laughing. “I’d rather you didn’t imagine me and Smoke doing anything.”

Raven sips on her coffee. “If this were a romance book, we’d be discussing size difference, and age gap, and a very distinctive meet cute.”

“Stop,” I say, but there’s no malice in my tone. In fact, there’s something utterly comforting, joking with my friends during a time of stress.

“Oh, or the injured hero, hurt and comfort, and—yes! I got it. Forced proximity and unexpected roommate.”

“I hate you both,” I say playfully.

Ember shrugs. “You’ve always loved me.”

The use of the wordlovehits me. It takes so many forms. True love, intense female friendships, our pets. “Yeah, I love you both like sisters, which is why, what I want to tell you is, Melody’s alive.”

Ember immediately jumps off the stool again. “Oh my God, Quinn. You should have led with that. That’s amazing.”

Raven reaches for my hand. “Jesus. What happened to her? Is she okay? How are you?”

“It’s okay. You can both sit back down. You might need to. She was never taken. She left.”

“What?” Ember stops in her tracks.

I nod. “Yup. She chose to leave. Chose to let us believe she’d been taken. Chose to let us believe there was a struggle as some kind of weird-ass payback for what she deemed my parents’ control. All this time, all this worry, all this money my parents put into searching for her, Mom dying by suicide in an attempt to escape the feeling she’d let Melody down…”

I pick up the cloth and continue to clean, and as I disinfect the shelves that usually hold the cake pops and brownie squares, I tell Ember and Raven the whole story, from Melody’s arrival to departure. And it’s strange to watch them both go through the range of emotions I did. To have it dawn on them that I stayed here, like a freaking lighthouse, waiting for a ship that knew where land was but preferred to be out at sea.

I feel Ember’s sense of betrayal, because she was here and saw what happened to us all. And I feel Raven’s anguish at the life we all lost.

When Ember’s arms finally wrap around me, she says, “You’ve done more than any sister should ever have to. I feel bad for your niece, but your sister has used up every cent of her ‘ask Quinn for favors’ money.”

“For years, I’ve thought about what I would do when she was found. I’d give her the bakery and then cut ties with this town. Go travel. See the world. Work my way from place to place. Catch up on all the years I’ve lost being the stalwart, good daughter.”

Raven squeezes my hand. “And now?”

I look around the bakery, my eyes resting on the photograph of our family. The one my father took. “I’m starting to thinkthat family is how we define it.” I look back at my friends. “I mean, look at us. Ember, we’ve been friends since we were little. And there’s Kinsey, who’s helped me run the bakery for years. And the community I know from being here. And new friends, like you, Raven. Other shop owners, my regular customers, the club.”

They both hear the roar of motorcycles at the same time I do, and Raven smiles. “And then there’s Smoke?”

I nod. “And Smoke. They all feel like ties to this place. I need to decide if the way they tether me here is something I need more than what I was going to do.”

We step out onto Main Street, and Butcher slows the procession of bikes down with a raised fist.

The bikes halt, and it’s like one of those weird scenes from a movie montage where Smoke, Atom, Wraith, and Butcher all dismount.

Smoke walks towards me and surprises me by simply hugging me to him, bending to bury his head in my hair. “I love you, Quinn. I really fucking love you.”

I wrap my arms tight around him. “I really love you too. I won’t accept anything less than you coming back to me. And if something does happen, can you tell Butcher that he has to let me know? Because I can’t go through not knowing where you are for the rest of my life.”

I realize a tear has escaped, and as if sensing it, he lifts his head and brushes it away with his thumb. “I’ll tell Atom. I won’t put you through that again. Changed my will this morning too. Everything of mine is yours, sugar.”

“I don’t want to talk about that.”

He smiles sadly. “Important that we do. Don’t want that hanging over you too. I’ll look after you, alive or dead, sugar. One day, it will be ’til death do us part. But that’s not today.”

“What’s a girl supposed to say to that?”

---