Page 61 of Reckless
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“I’ve got to be honest with you, Gorgeous. Your meat loaf is flying onto plates so fast out here, I’m thinking all you need is a food truck and a fast route to every firehouse in the city, and you could make a mint for Hope House all on your own.”
Zoe’s fingers squeezed over the fresh tray of green beans she’d just walked from the kitchen to the dining room. The corners of her mouth twitched as Alex capped off his words with a sexy little wink, begging her to let her lips bloom into a full-fledged smile. The urge doubled as she scanned Hope House’s service line and saw that Alex wasn’t really exaggerating, but still, she refused to respond with anything more than a lift of her brows.
“Are you deliberately messing with me, Mr. Donovan?”
Alex clapped a palm over the front of his apron, feigning insult. “Of course not.” At Zoe’s and Cole’s twin looks of are-you-kidding-me, though, he recanted. “Okay, maybe a little. But come on. Just look at all these happy people.”
Zoe followed his gaze over the dining room, where the Thursday night dinner service was in full swing. All eight of the long, communal tables were more than halfway full, with the two closest to the service line being completely occupied. The quiet buzz of conversation was peppered with clinking cutlery and the shush of sturdy plastic trays being pushed down the resident side of the service counter. At the end of the line, Hector and two of his friends picked up their post-dinner oatmeal cookies and coffee with wide smiles. Brennan stood by the clearing station just waiting to whisk the dirty dishes back to the kitchen, laughing and joking with Ava, and okay, Zoe had to admit it. Everyone really did look happy.
“All right,” she said, passing the green beans to Cole so he could take them to the front of the service line. After pausing for a quick this-is-all-we-have-left-so-please-make-it-last reminder before sending him off, she turned back toward Alex. “You win. The meat loaf is a success.”
He dropped his tone a register, ensuring that their conversation stayed private even in the bustle of the dining room. “You’re taking care of these people one meal at a time. The food might be good, but face it, Zoe. Anyone else in your position would’ve thrown in the towel ages ago. Only you didn’t. Instead, you made a difference in these people’s lives.You’rethe success.”
Her cheeks warmed for a brief second before her gaze landed on the large, twilight-shadowed windows at the front of the dining room, and the unguarded door adjacent to them. “Feeding everyone who came in tonight is a success, yes. But for every hungry person in this room, there are at least three more out there who qualify for assistance that I still have to turn away because we don’t have enough food to go around, and I still can’t even think about the most bare-bones security yet. Guys like Damien are still out there. As much as I want to, I have no way ofkeepingthem out there.”
She reached out, squeezing his forearm to quell the protest clearly tightening the line of his jaw beneath his gold-blond stubble. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m grateful for what I can do right now, but I’ve still got a long way to go, and I know you guys can’t volunteer forever. When I land the Collingsworth Grant, then we’ll talk success.”
Slowly, the tension in Alex’s jaw slid back into his trademark cocky smirk. “I guess I shouldn’t be shocked,” he said, turning toward the stainless steel counter behind them for a stack of clean plates. “After all, you told me on my first day that feeding everyone at Hope House was your number-one priority. I should’ve known you’d do anything to make it happen.”
“Including boss you around.” Zoe grinned, grabbing the dish towel draped over her shoulder to give Alex’s denim-covered leg a playful snap. “We still have thirty minutes left in this dinner service, and sitting around isn’t on the menu.”
“You know you’re going to pay for that later, don’t you?” His eyes glinted, the color of an ocean at sunset, and even though none of the tenants or other volunteers were within earshot of their conversation, Zoe leaned in closer anyway.
“Why do you think I did it in the first place?” she asked, connecting her gaze with his for just a beat longer before turning to saunter toward the pass-through to the dining room. A quick tour around the space wouldn’t hurt for security’s sake, and anyway, as excited as she was getting over this grant proposal, she’d missed being in the dining room with the residents.
Zoe stopped at the first table by the service line, greeting some of the longer-term residents and chatting with a few newcomers before repeating the process at the next table. She got a third of the way through her circuit around the dining room when Rachel slipped through the door leading in from the shelter, putting her barely two steps to Zoe’s left.
“Oh hey, just the person I was looking for,” Rachel said, tucking a strand of red hair behind one ear. “Do you have a sec?”
Zoe tilted her head toward a small dish-return alcove, and they took the handful of steps to reach the out of the way space. “Sure. What’s up?”
Rachel tugged some papers from the stack on her hip. “I coordinated an early pickup schedule for the food drive. I know we were going to wait until next week to start, but Ava’s article on the shelter made huge waves. Half of the businesses are calling to tell us their boxes are already overflowing, so I drafted this up on the fly.”
“Oh, my God.” Zoe’s brows lifted as her jaw dropped in the opposite direction. She flipped through page after page of the detailed list, her surprise doubling. “This is incredible.”
“I told you this food drive would be awesome. Plus, I’m happy to help,” Rachel said over a playful smile. “I know Hope House is important to you, but your job can’t be the only thing going on in your life.”
“You have a life, too,” Zoe argued, but Rachel just winked.
“One with zero romantic prospects. Come on, Zoe. It’s one thing to throw in extra hours when you’ve got nothing personal on the horizon. But I wasn’t kidding about the way Alex looks at you. He might be doing his damnedest to fight it, but this isn’t my first rodeo. I’ve worked with him for years, and I know what I know. That guy has it bad for you.”
Zoe’s blush served as a quick chaser to the chirp of laughter pushing past her lips. “I told you, it’s just the sex.”
Rachel put on her very toughest don’t-fuck-with-me face, and whoa. Girlfriend meant business. “It’s not. He likes you. And I think you like him, too. So, do yourself a favor, please. Stop being afraid to risk it and give the guy a real chance.”
“I want to,” Zoe admitted, the words startling her and yet feeling perfect at the same time. “But this thing between me and Alex was never meant to be long term. My parents’ marriage fell apart because my mother couldn’t handle the risks of firefighting, and I can’t lie, Rachel. Between Mason Watts being killed a few years ago and my dad’s injury after that, the danger scares the ever-loving hell out of me, too. Being with Alex while we’ve worked here at Hope House is one thing. But…”
“You don’t know if you can handle that fear when he goes back to fighting fires,” Rachel finished.
Zoe shook her head. “Old habits, remember?”
She let out a breath even though it did nothing to ease the indecision squeezing her rib cage. Yes, she knew Alex had her back in the kitchen, and yes again, Hope House had enough volunteers to give her a bit of a reprieve right now. But in little more than a week, her grant application would be finished and turned in. The firefighters would go back to Eight, she’d go back to running the soup kitchen solo…
And Alex would go back to jumping into things feet first, risking his life every minute of every day.
Rachel shifted toward Zoe, her stare serious in the shadows of the alcove. “Old habits aren’t always a bad thing. In fact, sometimes, those instincts to keep yourself protected are the only things that save your ass.”
