Page 118 of Fire and Icing

The smile she gives me is one I want to frame. I wish I had my phone and a way to use the camera on it without interrupting this moment, just so I could have this smile in my possession to take out on hard days, or when we’re on break at the station, or just because I want to look at her face and remember how it feels to hold her in my arms and have her stare up at me like I’m the only thing that matters in her world.

“This gig’s just a thing I’ve got going on Saturday night,” I say, brushing her hair back with my hand. “I still want to take you out. After the gig. On a different night.”

“Okay. You can.”

“Are you just going to make everything easy on me now?”

“Hardly,” she smiles a flirtatious smile at me. I bet she’d cross her arms over her chest if I weren’t holding her so close.

“Good.”

“I don’t want to fight this anymore,” she says softly.

“Fight this … us?”

“Yeah. Us.”

“We get to have an us?” I smile so big it makes my cheeks pull tight.

“That’s what I came down here to tell you.”

“So you’re like, my girlfriend?”

“Do you need a label?”

“I actually do. I need to be your boyfriend.”

She shakes her head lightly. But then she says, “Fine. You’re my boyfriend.”

“Why do you make me feel like I’m in high school, all nervous and tied in knots?”

“I don’t know.” She shrugs. “I’m just me.”

“That’s an understatement. I told my brother the other night, you’re like no one I’ve ever met.”

She blushes. “You are too—like no one I’ve ever met, Dustin.”

The way she says my name says everything. She’s out here, taking this risk. And I feel it—how much this is costing her. Whoever hurt her did it big and deep. And she had to jump over the chasm they left to make her way to me. Cody and Stevens were right. She’s worth the wait. She’ll always be worth it.

We spend the next hour in the kitchen, talking and laughing. We’re about to say goodnight, so I lean in and kiss Emberleigh and she stands on her tiptoes to meet me halfway.

“I’m going to have to get used to this,” I tell her. “Right now I’m still in disbelief.”

“Me too,” she says. “I don’t know why I kept you at arms’ length.”

“Well, you did kiss me twice before tonight, to be fair.”

“I think you kissed me,” she says, playfully.

“Oh, I definitely did.” I wink.

I lean in and kiss her forehead. It’s a gesture of affection, nothing based on this raging attraction I have for her. She bringsout layers in me. I feel like her best friend, her boyfriend, and something else I can’t even put my finger on. A part of me would take a bullet for her. It’s not about how adorable she is or how I can’t stop thinking about her. I’m overcome with this urge to make her life better than it’s ever been—to show her how good it can be to depend on another person and to let them love you well. I want to be a better man for her.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asks softly.

“I’m planning what to name our babies,” I tease.

“Oh. Okay then,” she laughs. “Nothing big.”

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