Page 6 of Melting for the Firefighter
“In case you need me.”
My heart gives one hard, hopeful beat.
Lance lifts the vase and turns toward the door.
Before he leaves, he looks back.
“Unplug the cooler.”
“Bossy.”
His eyes travel over me once more, lingering long enough to leave a trail of heat.
“You seem to like it.”
The bell chimes behind him before I can produce a convincing denial.
I stare at the door.
“I do not,” I tell the rosemary.
It leans farther left.
Traitor.
Lance returns just before eight with enough ice to preserve a small fishing boat.
He carries the bags into the workroom, refuses the money I offer him, and checks the cooler twice before leaving.
“Unplug it,” he reminds me at the door.
“I will.”
Then he leaves me standing beneath the bell with my pulse misbehaving and a smile I cannot quite suppress.
By nine, the peonies and roses are settled in buckets packed with the ice he brought. The hydrangeas fill my bathtub, turning the tiny room into a pond with plumbing.
I unplug the cooler.
Its metallic rattle dies.
Silence settles over the shop.
Real silence.
The kind I have missed all week.
My apartment sits directly behind Grandma’s Garden, a tiny one-bedroom connected through the workroom. Grandma raised me here, where every meal smelled faintly of flowers and damp earth.
The scent used to cling to my clothes.
As a teenager, I hated it.
Now I would bottle it if I could.
After Grandma died two years ago, I stayed because the building is my home, my livelihood, and the last place I ever felt completely wanted.
I check the locks twice.
