Page 71 of At First Spark
“Productively.”
He huffs once through his nose, like he doesn’t believe me but isn’t going to call me a liar just yet.
I drop my bag by the door and move toward the sink to wash the dust off my hands. The kitchen smells like garlic and butter and something roasting in the oven. It’s domestic in a way the inn will never be. Lived in. Cared for. That should make the ache under my ribs easier to ignore. Except it does the opposite.
“He’s useful,” I say, because apparently I’m determined to make this harder on myself.
Holt leans back against the counter and crosses his arms. “That wasn’t the question.”
I dry my hands slowly and turn.
“What was it?”
His eyes hold mine.
“Did he make it harder?”
The answer comes too quickly.
“Yes.”
Something in his jaw shifts.
“Explain.”
I should refuse. Instead, maybe because I’m tired, maybe because his kitchen has become a place where the truth slipseasier than it should, I say, “He acts like if he plans enough ahead, nobody else gets to change the shape of things.”
Holt is quiet. I keep going before I can stop myself.
“Every decision has an angle with him. A purpose. A way it should unfold. He doesn’t understand how to let a thing breathe long enough to become itself.”
The room stills around that.
Then Holt says, very softly, “And you think I do.”
It’s not a question.
I look at him. At the soot long gone from his skin now, replaced by clean lines and damp hair and a T-shirt stretched across shoulders that still make me think of the way his hands felt on my waist in that hallway.
“You try to control things too,” I say.
His mouth curves, but there’s no humor in it. “Yeah.”
“But it’s different.”
Those words settle between us and change something in the air. He steps closer. Just one step.
“How?”
I swallow. Because the answer is too big and too simple and far too dangerous.
“You make room,” I say. And then, because apparently I’ve already given the game away and don’t know how to stop, I add, “Even when you don’t want to.”
His gaze drops. Not to my mouth this time. To my hands. To the way my fingers are twisting the dish towel around themselves without my permission, then back up.
“That feels like a bad thing to say to me right now.”
My breath catches slightly.
