Page 39 of Burning Hearts
The word meant too many things.
“Hydrate,” I said, because my mouth didn’t trust my heart.
He started toward the mezzanine. I watched him get smaller until the corridor turned him out of sight. My phone was in my hand before I’d told it to be, screen bright on a blank text.
I typed a draft:You did good work.
Too plain, so I erased it.
You kept eighty-four people from becoming an incident report.
Too firefighter, too bleak. Erase.
You don’t have to pretend to hate me when the room is loud.
Absolutely not. Erase.
My thumb typed anyway:Don’t get hurt.
I stared at it, heard my own advice, and deleted the line until the cursor blinked at nothing. The radio muttered my callsign. I pocketed the phone like contraband and went to find Wyatt’s clipboard, because we still needed a few signatures.
In the glass of the service door, I caught my own reflection. Foam-sprayed jacket, eyes that hadn’t slept, a hand that remembered a belt and a hip and the half-second it took for gravity to accommodate. I let the door swing, stepped back into the work, and left the unsent where it belonged.
CHAPTER NINE
ELLIS
I woke up with a hollow,post-adrenaline tired that occupied my joints. My phone was already blinking at me like it had news.
Beau’s group thread lit up.
Beau:Good morning to everyone who did NOT set Riverfield on flambé. I need a tidy five at 10:15: what caught, who cleared out. Keep it church quiet and lawyer-safe.
Directly under it, Beck’s morning line made the rounds.
Beck:Lantern Room reopens tonight; give credit to the Fire Marshal; zero injuries.
I lay there a beat, listening to the room, and the clip found me anyway: my own face in someone’s story, counting heads. My voice was steady. Comments flipped between #TeamBrew and #TeamSignal, but the word that showed up most wascalm.
The attention online might’ve been flattering if my mind weren’t stuck on the one moment nobody caught on camera—his palm flat to my chest, that quiet “Eyes up, out we go,” and a ceiling tile slamming into the space where my body had just been.
Cade Briggs had moved me like it was muscle memory. Not dramatic, not hesitant. Just… sure.
And my body had added that to the short list of things it wanted more of.
I showered, dressed, and took the stairs two at a time to Main Street. Peachtree Commons had fully reset—hoses coiled, and a bronze peach polished and innocent.
My phone buzzed. The group thread pinged again.
Beau:If you can make it boring enough for legal and pretty enough for the thumbnail, you win.
I rolled my eyes, grinning.
Respectable sparkle, my specialty.
Cast Iron had a line, as usual.
“Crew order for Signal House,” I told the counter, and Miss Pearl slid the usual sack of biscuits toward me with a coffee carrier perched on top.
