Page 8 of Heat Advisory

I’ll pick you up so we can save gas.

Cora:

I have some things to do later that day, so I will just meet you there.

I had hoped to pick her up, find out where she lived, and treat this like a real date—and hopefully try to drag it out and spend the whole rest of the day with her, but maybe she had other plans after that.

Me:

That sounds great. I’m looking forward to our date ;)

There. Hopefully, that cleared it up for her.

Because this was a date. At least to me, it was. And hopefully it all went well enough that we had more dates after.

If Cora only knew how much I had thought about her over the past few years, she would probably think I was a stalker.

If she only knew I’d picked Reno because Morgan told me she lived here. I’d had two job offers—Sacramento and here—but the second I realized we could be in the same city again, the choice made itself. Knowing Cora was building a life here made the move feel less like a gamble and more like a second chance at something I’d never quite let go of.

Morgan had been bugging me to move back home to California, but I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t be that close to people I grew up with and see the sympathy in their eyes when it came to my baseball career. Most importantly, I couldn’t face my dad. Morgan told me he didn’t care, but it had been his dream for me to go pro. Being a great baseball player had been my identity for so long that after my career ended, I struggled to find myself.

Firefighting gave me purpose. That job felt more like what I was meant to do, rather than just simply what I was good at.

I took my first job as a firefighter in southeast Texas, and while I’d loved the job, I hated the heat—despised it actually. So I’d transferred to Colorado. I’d enjoyed that job too, and it was definitely busier because there were a lot more forest fires than in Texas, but it still didn’t feel right.

I had been texting with Morgan one day, and she mentioned she was going to Reno to visit Cora because she had just moved there to take her dream job. Reno wasn’t far from where we had grown up. Only about a five-hour drive from our coastal California town. That would put me closer to family, but not so close that they would come to visit me often. Most importantly, it would put me right next to Cora.

The woman I had dreamed about since high school.

Logically, it made no sense. In fact, it was kind of ridiculous, really. I was a thirty-year-old man, yet my brain kept replaying our kiss, our tutoring sessions, and late-night movies over and over again in my head—a loop of nostalgic moments.

Now, years later, I found myself often wondering if my mild obsession with her was simply because we never got to finish what we started, or if it was something deeper. Was it because of the way she used to look at me like I was the only person in the room, and she cared, not just because I was a good baseball player?

I knew I was attracted to her—that was never in question. But I found other women attractive too. They just never had the extra wow factor like Cora had—the thing that drew me in and captivated me like she had.

Maybe the universe was giving me a second chance to get the timing right and give this thing a go and see if it was more than just a high school crush.

“Hey sis,” I said, answering the phone after I saw she was calling.

“Have you ordered your tux in the style I sent you yet?” she practically whined into the phone as she reminded me I needed to order my groomsman’s attire.

“I was planning to do that today,” I responded.

“You are such a terrible liar,” she shot back, and I could sense her rolling her eyes at me through the phone.

“Remind me who all is in your bridesmaid and groomsmen group thing?” Hopefully someone else I knew was in there and I could get some details on where to get this penguin suit, since I had no idea where I’d put the information she sent me.

“They’re called a bridal party, and Lewis’s brother, Pete, is going to be his best man. You’re a groomsman. Laura, Lewis’s twin sister, is my bridesmaid, and Cora is my maid of honor.” I was half listening as she listed off her names but stopped at the mention of Cora.

Logically, I knew she would be a part of the wedding, but still, hearing her name made me smile.

This would give me the perfect excuse to keep texting her about all things wedding related.

“Also, you haven’t responded about whether you are bringing a plus one to the wedding or not,” she grumbled.

“No, I’m not. I want to be able to focus on my groomsman duties and help out with anything the rest of the bridal party might need.” That was a half-truth.

Even before I knew that Cora was going to be in the wedding, I knew she would definitely be attending since she was Morgan’s best friend. My original plan was to use that event to make my first approach in trying to secure a second chance with her. I hadn’t realized fate would intervene and bring us together for the event in Las Vegas weeks before.