“I don’t think that works if the oven is on,” Poppy says, opening the oven door. She’s right. The fire is even worse now, and the entire crust is engulfed in hot flames.
“Shit, shit, shit!” I fling open the drawer next to the oven and grab a pair of tongs to grab the pizza with. As I lift it out, the flames grow larger. I throw it down onto the stove and start fanning with a dish towel.
“You’re making it worse!” Poppy sounds exasperated.
“What would you have me do, then?” I press my fingers between my brows, thinking. The sink. I need to get the pizzas in the sink. I reach for the tongs again, but as I’m about to grab them, Poppy shrieks.
“Look!” I look to where Poppy is pointing and see the flames catching the wall behind the oven. Oh God.Oh God!“I’m calling 911!” Poppy yells over the fire alarm, now blaring through the house, as she runs out of the kitchen to get her phone.
“Poppy, no! Don’t!” I grab the tea towel again and start fanning until I remember that’s how we ended up in this mess. I search my brain for any useful information. What are the differencesbetween a regular fire and a grease fire? Is this a grease fire or a regular fire?
I need to fix this on my own, because as soon as she calls the fire department, Hudson, and everyone else in Heartwood, will know what a complete fuck up I am. But my mind is jumbled, and Poppy has already dialled the numbers and is shouting my address into the phone.
Time feels warped, like the minutes are hours and seconds all at once, and pretty soon, there are red and white lights flashing in front of the house, and a very large man is clomping through the entryway. He’s clad in yellow, fireproof gear, a helmet, and an oxygen mask obscuring his face except for those piercing blue eyes which immediately find mine as he passes me to head to the kitchen.
Someone else ushers us out onto the lawn and wraps Poppy and I in a scratchy, grey wool blanket. Once my breathing finally settles, I’m able to look around and take in the commotion outside, the crowd gathered in front of our house.
Great.Fucking great. For sure one of our neighbours will immediately be on the phone with my dad, letting him know his delinquent daughter, the one who is a so-called structural engineer, has burnt his house down in less than forty-eight hours of them being gone.
It all happened so fast, I’ve barely had time to process that Hudson Landry is putting out a fire in my house. A fire that started because I tried to recreate a pizza he made for me. If that’s not humiliating, I don’t know what is. Poppy shivers next to me under the blanket, though the air outside isn’tcold, and I realize I’m shivering too as the adrenaline wears off.
My pulse picks up again as Hudson steps out of the house and lifts off his helmet. His sandy blond waves stand up, all mussed and slightly sweaty. His cheeks are flushed, and I can tell he’s out of breath. The sight of him like this transports me back to the night we shared on grad night. He was sweaty and flushed, and breathing hard then, too. We both were.
His eyes flash with something I can’t decipher as he nears us. His mouth quirks up to the side, dimple flashing, and I recognize the playful teasing expression now.
“Care to explain what happened, ladies?” he asks. I square my shoulders, getting ready to defend myself and regain the upper hand.
“Not really, no,” I say, tugging the rough blanket around me tighter.
But at the same time, Poppy blurts, “We were making pizzas and got distracted.”
I cringe while Hudson’s smirk widens into a grin, the corners of his eyes wrinkling, his irises sparkling with mischief.
“Why don’t you leave pizza to me from now on, Miller?”
Miller. He says it the way he used to, the way we used to address each other by last name only. It was part of our playful games, like two rival hockey players on opposing teams.
“You get off on this, don’t you?” I snap.
And without missing a beat, Hudson fires back, “You should know how I get off.”
Anything I was about to say comes out as a squeak in my throat, and my cheeks heat from the flush spreading up my neck.
“Is the damage bad?” Poppy asks.
“Not too bad,” Hudson says, his tone returning to something resembling professional. “You’ll need to replace the tile behind the oven. But you’re lucky it wasn’t worse.”
“My dad’s going to kill me,” I mutter, dropping my head into my hands. A heavy, solid hand lands on my shoulder, and when I look up, Hudson’s teasing expression is replaced by a softer, empathetic one.
“No, he won’t,” he says. His voice rumbles through me, warming me and making me feel something I haven’t felt in years. Support? Comfort? All I know is the look on Hudson’s face, the warmth behind his eyes, and the soft reverberation of his voice makes me feel like everything will be okay. “I’ll help you fix up the kitchen before he gets home. It’ll be as good as new.”
I don’t know why Hudson is offering to help me now, or what has shifted within him, but the way his blue eyes are pinning me in place has me transfixed, and it makes me believe him. I can only nod back. Poppy thanks him for me since my brain has suddenly forgotten the English language.
“I gotta get going,” Hudson says, and I nod again. “I have a date to get back to.”
A date. The words feel like a physical blow. Poppy was right. The blonde bombshell in the coffee shop was more than a friend, and Hudson has well and truly moved on after all these years. It doesn’t matter how he spent the last decade, whether he was completely celibate, thinking about me, ornot. What matters is after all this time, he’s decided once again that I am not who he wants. That I’m not enough.
Hudson walks back towards the firetruck where his colleagues are packing up the hoses they’d gotten out, even though they weren’t needed, thankfully.
