by Nella Tyler
“I wish I’d waited around to hear all of this on New Year’s Eve.” I chanced a look at him, avoiding his eyes completely and a sheepish smile on my face. “I just thought you were the one cheating on her. I didn’t want to be any part of that.”
He smiled patiently, his green eyes widening a little, so I could see that sad, hopeful shine in them. He’d resigned himself to never seeing me again, considering things over between us. That made two of us, really. It had taken time to get over him, but everything was flooding back at the sight and smell of him, that openness in his eyes pulling me in.
“I get it,” he said. “I wasn’t happy about it that night, but I could see things from your perspective and it looked pretty fucked up. That’s how Lacey wanted things to go down the minute she saw us together.” He shrugged. “I’m sorry for how things turned out. I’d thought…”
He let his voice trail off before starting over at the beginning of a different sentence. “I’m glad I ran into you and got the chance to explain, even if it doesn’t change anything. You look really good, Sami. I hope you’ve had a great year so far.”
I smiled, even with my cheeks still burning bright red. “Thanks, Blaze. You, too.”
He nodded at me, green eyes taking in every inch of my face, like he wanted to remember it for later, and then turned to walk away from me. I reached to touch his shoulder, my fingers lingering for a precious second on the soft fabric of his sweater before I pulled my hand back. He turned to face me, his auburn eyebrows lifted into a questioning expression.
The smile I gave him this time felt more comfortable and genuine, but I couldn’t get the blush to leave my face. “Maybe you could give me a call sometime.” I couldn’t just let him walk off. Whatever I’d felt between us on New Year’s was still there, even weeks later.
The grin he flashed me was playful, like the shine in his eyes all of a sudden. “I already tried that, but you never answered me.”
I laughed a little as I pulled the phone from my purse. “I blocked you,” I admitted and then took the necessary steps to reverse it. “There. You’re back in.”
He pressed his smiling lips together as he ran a hand over his dark red beard, those emerald eyes as hot as the air was getting around us. “I’ll think about it.”
“You do that.” This time, I let him leave, taking in the lovely view of his muscly jean-clad ass as he strolled off before I got back to the last of my shopping.
Blaze
Early February
I did a quick one-mile jog on the treadmill to get my muscles warmed up and loose before I hit the free weights, working my biceps first, followed by my triceps while I waited for one of the other guys to wander in and spot me on the bench press.
I hadn’t called Sami yet. Two days had passed while I tried to decide what to do. I was still in mild shock at running into her in the first place. I’d been shopping in that grocery store for years. It was right around the corner from my apartment. I knew Sami lived on the other side of town. And, it wasn’t like I’d glimpsed her from across the store. She’d literally run right into me.
Whatever ended up happening, I was at least glad to have been given the opportunity to explain the truth of the situation between Lacey and me. I wished I’d been able to do it the night of the confrontation when it actually might’ve made a difference, but in the middle of a busy grocery store was better than never, I guessed. And then, she’d told me to call her. I’d been itching to hear her voice all day every day since.
If I was being truthful, I hadn’t be able to cast her out of my head since the night of the fire. We had a connection. I’d felt it throughout the night on New Year’s Eve, until Lacey showed up.
But now I wasn’t sure what I wanted or what I’d actually felt. I’d just jumped out of a pretty serious relationship. I couldn’t discount the possibility that what I was actually craving was a rebound woman to wash the taste of Lacey out of my mouth. And, Sami was Lacey’s opposite in a lot of ways. I didn’t want to call her if all I was really interested in was a quick fuck. It wasn’t fair to her after all that’d happened.
I shook my head, trying to get my focus to stay on the weights I was alternating. The sweat was pouring down from my hairline. I needed a nice cold shower after this, and not just because of the workout.
I wanted Sami. But if that was all this was about, I shouldn’t call her. She was clearly looking for more. If I couldn’t give her that, I didn’t deserve to have her in my life. Look at how messed up I’d been over Lacey screwing around on me. I didn’t want to do something like that to anyone else, especially not a woman as sweet as Sami.
I set the weights down and grabbed my water bottle, mopping my brow with the towel first to keep the sweat from getting in my eyes. I was gulping some water when Hector came in. He usually did a long session of cardio on the treadmill, going for miles in the double digits before lifting weights. But today he went straight for the bench press, looking over at me and lifted his dark eyebrows.
“Will you spot me?” he asked.
“Sure,” I said and walked over. I kept sipping on my water and wiping away sweat while he added weight to the bar. He situated himself on the bench, and I moved behind him.
“How have you been, man?” Hector asked me, making brief eye contact before lifting the bar and starting his first rep.
“I ran into Sami the other day.”
He didn’t reply, just keep lifting.
“I was at the grocery store of all places. I haven’t seen her since that night at the ball.” I chuckled a little, not really with humor, but just to relieve the pressure that built up inside of me every time I thought of her. “She was surprised to see me and didn’t have that much to say at first. It gave me the chance to explain how shit had really gone down with Lacey and me. I hated knowing that she thought I was the type of asshole who would have a fling behind his fiancée’s back.”
Hector finished his rep and put the bar back on the rack. He sat up and turned to face me, taking a second to catch his breath. “You really ran into her randomly like that?” he asked, dark eyebrows lifted.
I nodded.
“That’s really surprising. Seattle’s a pretty big city. The chances of you running into the same woman you didn’t even know before the call to her house a few weeks ago are pretty low.”
I frowned down at him. “What do you mean? Do you think she followed me there?” I wasn’t sure how she could have done that. She didn’t know where I lived or worked besides the generic fire department, and there were several stations spread out all across Seattle.
He gave a genuine laugh, his dark eyes shining. “I’m not saying she’s a stalker. That doesn’t make any sense. She called things off with you, not the other way around. She has no reason to run after you.”
He swallowed his smile, and I could tell he was about to make a serious point. He was just a few years older, but had his life completely in order, so I tended to listen when he decided to tell it to me like it was. “What I meant was that it seems like something in the universe is conspiring to push the two of you together.”
Now I had to laugh, not deeply, but enough to let him know how crazy I thought that was. “The universe?”
“Fate,” he said with a shrug. “Kismet. Divine intervention. Whatever you want to call it.”
I rubbed the back of my neck with the towel and then left it draped over my shoulders. I decided to just leave that fate shit alone. “I don’t know how I feel right now. It was great to see her again, but I just got out of a serious relationship. Maybe I need time to sort through some of that shit with Lacey before I move on with anyone else.”
Hector narrowed his dark eyes as he scrutinized my face. “What are you afraid of?”
“I’m not afraid of anything,” I said, too quickly.
“Then listen when the universe gives you another chance. You went on for days after that ball about how Lacey blew things for you and Sami. You finally send Lacey packing for good an
d then, as if by magic, Sami reappears in your life. Don’t take that chance for granted. It’s fate. It has to be.”
I wasn’t so sure, but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t seriously consider what Hector had to say. He had a unique way of looking at things that never occurred to me until he brought it up. We called him Yoda at the station because he always knew the answers to shit. It didn’t hurt that he was short as hell and talked about obscure shit like fate and the universe speaking to us.
“Yeah, I don’t know about that,” I said.
He watched me for a long moment, his dark eyes revealing nothing of what he was thinking, before he sighed. His eyes opened up, the warmth in them reminding me of the way I sometimes caught my father looking at me. Hector was only five years older than I was, but it seemed to make all the difference.
“I’m going to tell you a story I don’t tell most people,” he started, and I lifted my eyebrows. “It’s about how I met my wife.”
“I already know that story.” As I said it, I realized I really didn’t. I just knew they’d met in high school.
“You know when I met my wife, but not how.” He rested his hands flat on his legs, not taking his eyes from mine. He drew in a deep breath, and I could tell this was going to be one hell of a story.
“I was driving my father’s car to a party one night and pulled into a gas station to fill up. As I was finishing up with the car and screwing the gas cap back on, I noticed a man pull a young woman out of the gas station by her arm, yelling at her the whole time. Really screaming in her face. She was crying, but not trying to fight him. You could tell she was used to that shit.
“He pushed her really hard in the direction of their car. She tripped over her own feet and fell onto the hood. He really started screaming at her, telling her she was scratching the paint and calling her names.” Color had risen into Hector’s cheeks, and I could see he was getting worked up just thinking about this incident. “I walked over, wanting to calm the situation before it turned even more violent than it already was.”
“Hector the peacemaker,” I said with a small smile. That was his other nickname around the station.
He gave a shadow of his usual sunny grin, but kept on with his story. “The guy was so busy screaming at this girl, he didn’t even see me until I was almost right in front of him. He told me to go mind my own fucking business before I even had a chance to say anything.
“I ignored him, speaking to the girl, instead, and asking if she needed help. She nodded her head, but was too upset to answer me. The guy was trying to get her into the car. He was a lot older than we were. I told her she could come with me, that I’d take her wherever she wanted to go.
“That’s when the guy stepped to me, threatening to lay me out if I interfered one more time. When the girl tried to step around him and come to me, he put his hands on her, throwing her backwards against the car.
“That did it for me. I punched the guy right in the face, just knocked him the hell out.” He paused, his eyes bright with the heat that just thinking of this incident stoked in him, even after all these years. I could see he was proud — not of punching the asshole guy, but of putting a stop to him abusing the girl.
“What happened then?”
“The girl left with me. I took her to a quiet restaurant to compose herself, and we hit it off. After that night, she was my girlfriend. Now, she’s my wife and the mother of my children.” He waited for me to absorb the information. “That first night, we realized there’d been several other times our paths had crossed without us noticing each other.” He beamed at me. “Sometimes the universe gives you a gift, and things work out the way they’re supposed to.”
I didn’t stop to consider what he’d said. I didn’t even think. I just pulled out my phone and dialed Sami’s number, striding out to the hall to talk to her.
Sami
Mid-February
I parked my car and hurried down the street to the restaurant, my heels tapping on the sidewalk. Blaze called me last week a few days after we’d run into each other at the grocery store — about the time I resigned myself to the fact that he wasn’t going to call me at all — and asked me out to dinner. I’d said yes, but also that I planned to drive myself in case I needed to make a quick getaway again. He laughed, though I’d been completely serious. I wanted a way to drive myself home that didn’t end up costing me thirty bucks. If he had another pissed off ex-fiancée, maybe he wasn’t the guy for me, after all.
I stepped into the restaurant, sighing at how good the warm air felt on my cheeks and hands. It had been cold all day with showers off and on. Horrible weather for a busy realtor, in other words. Even in this part of the country, people acted put out when it rained. Welcome to the Pacific Northwest, I wanted to tell them, but, of course, I couldn’t do that. Instead, I just smiled sympathetically and pretended to agree, lending them my umbrella while I covered my hair with a folded newspaper.
The hostess looked up and smiled professionally when I came in, like any good realtor would do. I should know. I’d done it all day at an open house.
“How may I help you, ma’am?” she asked, light eyebrows raised high.
“I’m meeting someone here…” I let my voice trail off, hoping she’d pick up the slack the way most people did. I unbuttoned my wool coat and slid it off, folding it over my arm.
Her crystal blue eyes lit up and the smile she gave me this time was much more genuine. “The seven foot tall red-haired gentleman?”
I laughed at the description. “That’s him.”
“Right this way.” She led me further into the restaurant and to a table where Blaze was waiting, his green eyes tracking my progress across the room. I thanked the hostess and went to sit across from him. He stood to pull out my chair.
“I thought maybe you’d decided to stand me up,” he said, grinning bashfully in a way that told me he wasn’t really joking.
“I couldn’t find a place to park,” I said as I deposited my jacket and purse in the empty seat next to me. I took my time admiring Blaze, from the top of his slicked-back red hair, to his trimmed beard, to the crisp dress shirt he was wearing tucked into dark dress pants. He had on the same sweet and spicy cologne from the night of the ball and was gazing across the table at me with an amused shine in his eyes. He’d already ordered wine, there was a glass in front of each of us. I lifted my eyebrow at him, a smile starting at the corners of my mouth.
“I thought you might like a drink waiting for you when you arrived,” he explained. “The waiter suggested it. I hope you don’t mind.”
“No, it’s fine,” I replied, taking my glass by the stem. I gently swirled the wine and brought the glass to my nose to smell it. I took a sip, relishing the taste on my tongue before swallowing it. “It’s very good.”
Blaze smiled and so did I. We each picked a piece of bread from the basket in the center of the table. He spread butter on his piece, but I just tore off small pieces and stuck them directly into my mouth while I reviewed the menu. I hadn’t eaten much all day. I’d been too nervous about tonight. Now that I’d started, my stomach roared to life, demanding more. The bread was still warm and melted in my mouth. It was a struggle to keep from snatching all the bread out of the basket. I was starving.
As though on cue, the waiter arrived to take our order. I asked for the chicken saltimbocca and Blaze ordered the shrimp alfredo. Maybe it was getting rid of the menus, but things changed between us as soon as our orders were placed. We both loosened up at the same time, the tension just leaving the air circulating around our table, delivering us back to where we’d been the night of the ball before his ex-fiancée showed up.
“You look very pretty tonight,” Blaze said, his emerald eyes extremely warm. “I like your dress.”
I grinned at the compliment. “Thanks. You look pretty great yourself.” I loved this dress and felt confident whenever I put it on, like magic was stitched into the fabric and could enter my skin somehow. Naturally, I wore it sparing
ly, not wanting to wear out whatever spells it contained too quickly.
“There’s something I’ve been dying to ask you,” I blurted, my cheeks already burning red hot. “I’ve wondered about it since the night we met.”
He lifted his reddish eyebrows, a small smile on his lips. “What is it?”
“Were you really born with the name Blaze Simmers?”
He stared at me a moment before chuckling at little. “Yeah, I really was.”
“You’re sure you didn’t change your name after you became a firefighter? It’s just too perfect.” I had to stop going because I was laughing so hard. It was the amused shine to his eyes and how it lit up the rest of his face. He was blushing, too, but only a little. My entire face felt like it was on fire, the feeling even creeping up past my hairline to tingle on my scalp.
He waited for most of my giggles to subside before he answered, that high shine not dimming in his eyes. “My mom always wanted to name a son Blaze when she grew up. She didn’t give up on that even after marrying a man with the last name of Simmers. The rest is history.”
I giggled at that. “I’m convinced that name is singlehandedly responsible for your career choice.”
His grin sharpened. “You think so, huh?” He waited for me to nod. “So you think if my name was something like Justice Law, I’d be a cop or a lawyer or something like that?”
I nodded, swallowing back more giggles. “That seems perfectly reasonable. Imagine if your parents had named you Real Estate and you were stuck selling houses all day.” I gave an overdone roll of the eyes.
He looked at me and said, deadpan, “Why haven’t you changed your name to Real Estate? Think of the business you’d attract.”
