From Air (Wildfire)

Chapter Twelve

It’s a busy morning in the kitchen as Maren makes an omelet and Will grabs a glass of water and a handful of vitamins after getting home from his shift. Then there’s Fitz, filling a reusable mug with coffee.

As for me ... well, I’m trying to keep from shitting my pants, vomiting, or making eye contact with Fitz.

Just a kiss. Pfft. It was just a kiss at Gary’s—a singular kiss after a misunderstanding. Last night was the kiss . And there was no misunderstanding. So kiss is now kisses . Plural.

“Later,” Will mumbles, heading up the stairs.

“Later,” Maren echoes while scuffing her teddy bear slippers to the table.

I shove my lunch in a canvas bag, sling it and my purse over my shoulder, and bolt out the door with a quick mumbled “Bye.” The lazy sun finds my face as I reach the end of the drive, giving me hope for spring. When I climb inside my Jeep, I take my first real breath of the morning.

However, that breath dies when my Jeep won’t start. Not a sound.

“Shit.” I grip the steering wheel and close my eyes. After a few deep breaths, I slide out, deflating a little more with every step back to the house.

Maren glances up from her plate as I shut the door behind me.

“My Jeep won’t start.” My nose wrinkles.

“That sucks. Fitz?” I cringe when she yells his name.

He jogs down the stairs and grabs his jacket. “Yes?” Pulling up the zipper, he glances at Maren and then at me.

“Jamie’s Jeep won’t start. Can you jump her?”

Jesus . . .

He tips his chin to focus on his gloves. “Yeah, I can jump her,” he says with a grin that Maren can’t see. Thank god.

I’ve got nothing. I’m too busy ping-ponging my gaze between the two of them. Does Maren suspect something?

“Let’s go, Jaymes,” Fitz says, opening the door.

I scurry after him. “I don’t know what’s wrong with it. It started just fine yesterday. And I didn’t leave on any lights.”

And you kissed me last night!

“When’s the last time you put a new battery in it?” He opens the driver’s side door and pops the hood.

I rub my hands together and blow on them. “I have to say never.”

He chuckles. “You need a new battery. I might start it for you, but it probably won’t start when you leave work later. If it were me, I’d go to the gas station this morning and see if they have time to slip a new battery in it.” He treks to his truck and positions it in front of my Jeep.

“What do you need me to do?” I ask.

“Didn’t your dad teach you how to jump a car?” He rests the jumper cables over his shoulder while opening the hood of his truck.

“He died when I was five.”

Fitz eyes me for a second and offers an apologetic smile. “Red goes to the positive. Black is negative.” He holds up both cables. “Connect them to the dead battery first.”

I pay close attention because I have a feeling this might not be the last time I need to jump my Jeep.

“I’ll start my truck, then you’ll start your Jeep.”

After my Jeep starts, Fitz shows me how to disconnect everything in reverse order. “Drive around for a bit before you stop at the station, and leave your Jeep running while you ask them if they can fit you in. If they can’t, then call me.”

I climb into my Jeep, and he stands at my open door.

“Thank you,” I murmur before scraping my teeth along my lower lip and averting my gaze.

“Anything for my person.”

My heart doesn’t simply stop; it explodes into pieces so tiny I’ll never put them back in order.

I clear my throat. “Calvin Fitzgerald, there are rules in our household.”

“I’m aware.”

“I’m not getting evicted.”

“Neither am I.” He’s so confident.

Me? Not so much. “My job in Missoula is temporary.”

He nods.

“You’ll be nonexistent when fire season starts.”

Again, he nods.

I can’t look at him and say the words, but I also can’t dance around them any longer, so I grip the steering wheel to steady my nervous hands, gazing at his truck in front of me. “You kissed me, Fitz. Twice. Why did you kiss me?”

“Because not kissing you became too exhausting.”

A man has never broken my heart. Homeschooling helped by reducing the size of my dating pool. Casual dating has helped too. So it doesn’t make sense that I know Calvin Fitzgerald is on his way to obliterating my heart. Yet, I do. I know it with absolute certainty.

I slowly turn toward him.

Fitz bites the inside of his cheek with a downcast expression. I’ve never seen anything sexier than this man at this moment showing me a sliver of vulnerability.

He rubs the back of his neck. “And I have impeccable endurance, which means I have a complicated relationship with my feelings toward you,” he says, lifting his gaze with a tense brow. “So I need to be consumed by work. And I need to know that you’re temporary in my life.”

My heart digs through its emergency kit and pulls out the tools to construct a fortress around it.

I manage to say the opposite of what I feel. “It was just a kiss.”

Fitz’s gaze washes across my face before he relinquishes a tiny smile. “Yes.”

“Sorry, I’m late. Thanks for being so understanding. Stupid battery.” I sigh when Dr. Reichart meets me in the hallway while I slide my stethoscope around my neck.

“No problem.” She blows at the steam from her coffee. Already, half her hair has fallen out of her ponytail. “Did you get a new battery?”

“I did.”

“It’s come to my attention that you’re living with Will Landry.”

My brain trips for a few seconds. “Um ... Will? Yes. He’s my roommate. One of three.”

“Are you two dating?” She’s moseying toward her office while she sips her coffee, her thumb sliding down her phone screen.

“No. It’s a house rule. No dating your roommates.”

Technically, it’s “no sexual relationships,” which I think has been fine-tuned by Calvin to mean kissing is apparently okay because it’s not sex?

“Is he dating anyone?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

She smiles when we reach her office, slipping her phone into her coat pocket. “Tell him I said hi.”

“You know Will?” Duh. She brought him up. I shake my head. “I mean, how do you know Will?”

“He popped my cherry, then ripped my heart out, threw it on the ground, and crushed it to smithereens with his mammoth black boot.” She stomps her foot to the floor and twists it like she’s extinguishing a cigarette instead of her proverbial heart.

“Oh. Whoa! I had no idea—”

Dr. Reichart pins a scary smile on her face. “The past is the past. I don’t hold grudges.”

That smile is not a no-grudges-held smile.

“I’ll let him know you said hi.”

“Great. Tell him I’d love to get coffee with him.”

Pressing my lips together, I nod a half-dozen times. As soon as she’s behind her office door, I’ll text Will and tell him to pack a bag and leave Missoula stat .

“ Beat Saber during lunch?” She lifts her sculpted brows in question.

“Sure,” I squeak.

The door clicks, and I turn, smacking into Betty. “Oof! Sorry.”

“Mrs. Edie requested you. I guess you were ‘nicer’ to her last week.” Betty gives me a cheesy grin.

“Did you know Dr. Reichart lost her virginity to Will?” I follow Betty in her new green sneakers to the break room.

“That’s impressive.” She messes with her pink micro bangs.

“That she lost her virginity to Will or that Will took it?”

“Neither. I meant it’s impressive that she remembers who took her virginity.”

“You don’t?”

She peers over her shoulder at me. “Is that even a real question?”

Betty’s a slut. I love her. She’s kind and funny, with years of nursing experience that she shares with the other nurses. A true role model at work. But her legs spread like my spring-loaded kitchen shears. I don’t need a full hand to count my sexual partners. Betty needs a spreadsheet.

Spread-sheet.

“Have you gotten some lately?” Betty asks, snagging a stale donut.

“Some what?”

“Oh my god. If you have to ask, then I know the answer.” Betty’s face sours when she discovers how long that glazed donut has been in the pink box.

“Sex?” I glance up from my tablet.

“Yes. That’s when a guy puts his penis—”

“Stop.” I laugh. “It’s been a hot minute. But I’ve recently been kissed.”

“Oh, tell me where.”

“In my kitchen and by my Jeep after a party.”

“No. Where did he kiss you?”

“Um ...” I glance over her shoulder to the nursing student waiting for Mentor Betty. “The lips,” I murmur.

“Which lips?” Betty waggles her eyebrows. “Do you know what I mean?”

She must think I’m still a virgin and not just a Montana virgin.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” I wink and toss her a conspiratorial grin while brushing past her to get to Mrs. Edie.

“You little hussy.”

I cringe, and my face flushes when the male nursing student eyes me. He heard her. Now I’m Nurse Hussy because I let Betty think my labia was recently serviced.

It’s going to be a long day.