Page 28 of Embers in Autumn
“Yes, please.”
We each took one, mine salted, his dusted with cinnamon sugar. The first bite nearly made me groan. Soft, warm, buttery—pure autumn in bread form.
“God, this is heaven,” I mumbled around a mouthful.
“Simple things are the best,” Dean said, tearing off a piece of his. “I used to come here as a kid with my sister. Every fall, same stand, same pretzels. She still insists the cinnamon ones are better.”
I laughed. “She’s right.”
His smile deepened, but then he tilted his head. “What about you? You said your grandma lived here, right?”
I nodded, brushing salt from my fingers. “Every summer. She’d bring me to this park. We’d sit on that old bench by the pond and feed the ducks. It felt like a whole world back then. Coming here now feels… smaller, but also the same, if that makes sense.”
“It makes perfect sense.” He slowed his steps, gaze drifting to the pond in the distance. “Places hold pieces of us. You walk the same path years later and it still remembers you.”
Something inside me softened at that. We strolled on, our shoulders brushing occasionally, the kind of closeness that felt both natural and dangerous. I let myself smile, let myself enjoy it—the simple act of walking beside a man who made me feel both seen and safe.
We wandered past the pond where the water wore a thin shimmer of light. A pair of ducks stitched small wakes across the surface, and a child’s laugh rang out from the playground like a bell. My pretzel was half gone, Dean’s cinnamon sugar one dusted his fingers, and I was thinking about how easy the morning felt when his hand found mine.
It happened without fanfare. One second my fingers swung at my side. The next, his palm slid into my palm, warm and sure, his fingers threading through like the most natural choice in the world. My heart misfired. I felt sixteen, ridiculous and breathless over something as simple as skin to skin. I looked up, startled, and he gave me a small smile that said he knew exactly what he had done to me.
“Cold?” he asked, like he was doing me a favor by warming my hand.
“Maybe a little,” I said, though my cheeks were already hot. “This helps.”
We walked like that, hands linked, our steps finding a shared rhythm. Leaves drifted down around us, catching on his shoulders and in my hair. A dog trotted by with a stick bigger than its head. Somewhere behind us a busker plucked the first notes of a song that sounded like October should.
Dean squeezed my hand. “Tell me something embarrassing about yourself.”
I snorted. “I once wore two different shoes to work and did not notice until lunch. Does that count?”
“That depends,” he said. “Were they both black?”
“One was black, one was brown. Different heel heights. Ilimped through three meetings and a client presentation.”
He laughed, warm and low. “Bold choice. Iconic, even.”
“Your turn,” I said, emboldened.
“I once got stuck in a Christmas tree while rescuing a cat.”
I blinked. “You are making that up.”
“Wish I were. Firehouse charity tree. Thirty feet, strung with lights. Cat darted in during set up. I climbed. The tree won.”
I tried to picture him half buried in pine, broad shoulders tangled in lights, and failed not to giggle. “Did you save the cat?”
He lifted our joined hands in a small victory salute. “Of course. I have a reputation to maintain.”
We turned down a path lined with maples. Sunlight filtered through their crowns, laying copper and gold at our feet. My hand had stopped sweating and started fitting, the way a hand learns another hand. It felt like a promise I did not fully understand yet.
I stole a glance at his profile. “Is it hard,” I asked, “your job. Not the carrying hoses part. The other part.”
“The other part,” he said softly, as if he knew exactly what I meant. He paused, thinking. “It is hard in ways that do not make good stories. The calls you cannot fix. The faces you take home even when you tell yourself you will not. The sleep you lose for no reason you can explain. But it is also simple. I go where I am needed. I help the best I can. Then I try again tomorrow.”
“Do you ever wish you had picked something easier?”
He considered, then shook his head. “I like being useful. It keeps me honest.” He glanced at me. “What about you. Do you ever wish you had chosen something that made more money and less trouble than a bookstore?”
