Page 87 of Spark
“Be like what?”
“Lonely, but only for one person.”
“You’ve never been lonely for anyone else?” he questions.
I shake my head. “I didn’t even really miss my dad after he left.”
“Tell me about him.”
“There isn’t much to tell. He wasn’t a great dad. But I guess I should be grateful that he at least stuck around until I was eighteen so I didn’t end up in foster care. He put the apartment lease in my name and took off after he told the landlord that I’d cover the back rent he owed.”
“I’m sorry, amore mio.”
Laughing softly, I shrug. “I got evicted the day I finished paying back everything that Dad owed. After that, I lived in a car that someone gave me for a while and worked at a diner. I got fired for taking home the leftover fries at the end of the night instead of putting them in the trash. That’s how I ended up at BJ’s. No one else would employ an eighteen-year-old high school dropout, so I became Cherry Pie.” This time my laugh feels bitter. “I’m a mess, Warrick. Why do you want me?”
“I don’t want to hear you say that about yourself ever again, Verity. You are not a mess; you’re a survivor. You did what youhad to do to keep yourself safe, and ultimately those choices led you to me, right where you’re supposed to be.”
“The others told me about the Barnett legacy.”
“I figured they might,” he says, smiling. “Do you believe it?”
“Do you?”
“I didn’t. I thought it was all bullshit. But I’ve seen it happen. I watched Cody and Bay lose their shit over Betty and Missy. Then I watched my brothers fall one by one. I don’t know if it’s some kind of weird voodoo magic shit, and I still doubted it all, right up until the moment I saw you. You had your cap pulled so low I couldn’t even see your face, but I still knew, right down to my core, that you were mine. When I saw your face for the first time, I thought my knees were going to buckle and I was going to end up on the floor at your feet. I’ve never felt anything like it before, and I doubt I will again, until the first time I hold our babies in my arms.”
“So you think the reason you love me is because of some mystical force?” I ask uncomfortably.
“No, amore mio. I love you because you’re sweet and kind and sexy and beautiful. I love you because your face lights up when you watch hockey, and you smile so wide when I do things you don’t expect. I love you because you’re a fighter, but you’re still soft. I love you because when you come, your pupils blow wide, like you can’t believe it’s happening. I love that your nipples get hard when you see me, and your cunt drips for me. I love that you’re mine and that I get to have the rest of forever with you. Loving you has nothing to do with magic, and everything to do with you.”
I didn’t know I needed to hear those words. To have him tell me that whatever is happening between us is real and not fueled by the idea of us being fated to be together.
Parting my lips, I start to say it, to form the words that I managed to say out loud to Henry but that I haven’t been braveenough to admit to Warrick yet, but before I have a chance, a loud alarm starts to sing.
Groaning, Warrick sighs. “I have to go, amore mio. Go to sleep, and I’ll call you in the morning. I love you.”
The screen goes black, and I wish I’d said it. I wish I’d told him how I feel. But I don’t want to text him. The first time you tell someone you love them shouldn’t be via text. It should be in person, when you can touch and kiss and fuck.
The next three days are the longest of my life. My cell never stops buzzing with incoming messages from all the group chats I’ve been added to. There’s the Barnetts chat that is a constant stream of invites. Dinner, barbecues, movies, coffee, and lunches in town. They are literally the most social people alive, and because there’s so many of them, it never stops. I don’t know if they all genuinely enjoy company, or if there’s just so many of them that adding one more person to the mix makes no difference at all.
The chat with the partners of Warrick’s brothers is almost, but not quite, as busy. Unlike the Barnett women, who are all at home pregnant or taking care of the children they already have, most of the smoke jumpers’ significant others all seem to have jobs.
James works for the council; Tori has her patisserie. Etta does social media and marketing for the tattoo studio that Betty Barnett owns and Octy works at. Parker is a mechanic in the same shop that Henry runs the office in. And then there’s me, still unemployed, still mooching off the man I love.
I groan when the cell buzzes several times in succession. Part of me knows that I should be grateful to have been so easilyincluded into these fully established friendships, but I miss Warrick, and every time a new message comes that isn’t from him, it makes me miss him even more.
According to Warrick, these last few days have been some of the busiest he’s ever experienced since he started working in Rockhead Peak. We’ve only had a handful of short conversations that haven’t been interrupted by the alarm sounding and him having to rush off to fight a fire, attend to a car wreck, or help look for lost hikers.
Out here, the fire service isn’t just for fighting fires, they’re used as an additional emergency service and are regularly called in to assist on any kind of incident when they could be needed.
Reaching for my cell, I tap on the screen. I have new messages from Octy, Henry, and Bonnie, but it’s the message from James that catches my attention.
James: Hi, are you still looking for a job? Because this just popped up on the internal server at the council.
Attached is a link to an advertisement for a part-time adviser to work in the ranger’s office in town.
James: I remember you saying you’d been volunteering for them, which would definitely work in your favor if you were interested.
I reply so quickly my fingers hurt.
