Page 92 of Frosting and Flames

“One of Mark’s friends. Anakin.”

She laughs, then stops when she realizes I’m not laughing. “Wait. You’re serious? His name is actually Anakin?”

I wince, nodding.

She sets her paper and pencil down. “How have I not heard of him before? I know I don’t go out much, but there’s no way I could have missed that.”

She looks so adorably confused, I want to smile. “I don’t think he lives in Aurora. Mark said he’s visiting that weekend.”

She shakes her head, astounded. “Does he even like Star Wars?”

I do laugh then. “Why are you so fixated on this?”

Heat touches her cheeks. “You’re right. I’m getting distracted.” She scribbles something on her list. “Anakin for the peppers, I guess. And you have the list of spices and peppers to buy on Thursday?”

I nod. “It’s on my phone.”

“Good. What about face painting?”

“Jae said she’d do it.”

She sets down her checklist. “Jae?MyJae?”

“Yep. The one and only.”

Her forehead scrunches. “How am I only hearing about this now?”

I scratch my jaw. “Maybe because Chief only gave us a few weeks to put this whole thing together and we’ve had a lot else going on?”

Even so, this is the most ambitious fundraiser the fire station has done that I can remember in the last decade. That could be why we keep needing to have them, though—the ones we’ve been putting on haven’t had enough going for them.

“There’s that,” she concedes. “But we only have a few days now. How did it sneak up on us this fast?”

Guilt creeps over me for a moment. I’ve been so focused on Rachel lately, I’ve forgotten the whole reason we started gettingto really know each other in the first place. At least Chief has stayed pretty hands-off about it after he approved the plan.

We have it handled, though. Especially with how thorough Rachel’s checklist is.

“We’ll be fine,” I assure her. “Seriously. This is going to be the best fundraiser we’ve ever had.”

She seems appeased at that. “Okay, but when did Jae volunteer? Where was I?”

“I ran into her at the grocery store a couple weeks ago and she asked what she could do.”

“Face painting…” She trails off, thinking it over. “Has she ever done it before?”

I shrug. “She said she’d learn.”

“Yeah, that sounds like her.” She chuckles, shaking her head. “I’ll talk to her about it.”

We go through the rest of the list—games, station tours, raffles, her bakery’s dessert table, the band’s set list. It feels like it goes on forever, but I’m just grateful Rachel’s organized enough to have everything mapped out.

I promise I’ll get her all the volunteers’ emails tomorrow so she can forward them their part in the day’s activities, and then we call it quits for the night.

“What do you want to do now?” I ask, stretching out on Rachel’s new couch. Selfishly, I’m glad she bought a new one if the old one was making her think of Kyle.

“I have a surprise for you,” she says, eyes twinkling.

“Oh?”

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