by Vivian Wood
Before he could stop himself, he reached out to touch the tendril. Lily grew quiet, but she didn’t move away.
What will one taste hurt?
Cade bent toward her and she lifted her mouth to his, an offering. Lily’s arms wrapped around his waist, pulled him closer. Close enough that he felt her breasts press against his chest and those nipples rub against him. He hardened instantly as a growl erupted from deep within his chest.
As one of his hands cradled her head, the other wandered to her waist. The dampness of her t-shirt clung tight to her skin. As he inched his hand underneath, he was shocked by how warm her stomach was. He made his way to her breasts, grazed a thumb across her nipple through the thin satin fabric.
“Fucking waterfall, dude.” The voices of approaching hikers made them both freeze.
In the darkness of the alcove, he couldn’t tell if the look in Lily’s eyes was fear, embarrassment, or intrigue.
Maybe all three.
“Shit,” she said, and tugged down her shirt.
As she scrambled to make it look like nothing had happened, he couldn’t figure out if the hikers had just ruined his hookup, or saved him from making a terrible mistake.
Another terrible mistake, he reminded himself.
What the hell is wrong with me? Usually after he’d had a girl, all interest was lost. So what’s the deal? Why does Lily have this hold on me?
Lily led the way out of the alcove, and he squinted into the sunlight. As they passed the hikers, a group of teenagers, he gave a cursory nod to the one who made eye contact.
The silence lasted fifteen minutes before Lily broke it. “So about what happened back there—”
“Forget it,” he said and cut her off.
Something in his voice must have warned her to listen. Neither said a word all the way back to the car.
10
Lily
Lily opened the doors of the European pastry shop and was welcomed with the scent of the familiar comfort foods.
“Lily!” Renee called from a little table against the window.
“Oh my God, you’re so tan!” Lily said as she squeezed her best friend tight.
Renee felt slimmer, tauter. She carried the glow of Italy with her, the hairs on her arm bleached blonde from the foreign sun.
“I can’t believe you’re back,” she said as she released Renee.
“Well, kind of,” Renee said with a small smile.
“What do you mean?”
“Two strudels,” the waitress said as she slipped the desserts onto their table.
“I mean…” Renee said as they sat down and whipped open the thick white linen napkins, “I’m going back.”
“But I thought it was just one term,” Lily said.
She slid the hot spiced dessert between her lips and nearly moaned out loud. Jean-Michel refused to have anything other than authentic French pastries in his shop.
Meeting for strudels was her tradition with Renee, and even after months of not having one it seemed the dessert would always have a hold on her.
“It was,” Renee said. “But I met someone.”
“What? Are you serious?” Lily leaned forward. “Who? Someone in the program? Or—”
“Ew, no,” Renee said. “A local, but acqua in bocca, okay?”
“And what does that mean?”
“Keep it to yourself. I’m not telling anyone here.”
“Why not?”
“I just don’t want all the gossip.” Renee neatly put down the fork after just two bites and gingerly sipped at her espresso.
“Since when do you drink espresso?” Lily asked. She noticed that Renee had ordered the usual almond milk latte for her.
Renee shrugged. “Too much fat in lattes.”
“It’s almond milk.”
“Still. Besides, the coffee here is terrible. I didn’t realize it until Italy.”
“Here, as in this shop? Or Salem?”
“As in America,” Renee said. “You should travel, Lily. It’s so incredibly eye opening.”
“I’d like to think I have a decent palate,” Lily said, feeling defensive. “After all, I went to culinary school.”
“Yeah, in Portland,” Renee said. “One of the guys I dated in Italy? He learned how to make pasta at this nonna’s home in Ravenna—that’s a town in Italy—”
Lily did her best to keep her eye rolls internal.
If this is what traveling does to you, I think I’ll pass, she thought.
Renee had always had a penchant toward snobbishness since they’d met in sixth grade. Lily wasn’t sure if it was spending so much time apart with Renee traveling in grad school, or if she’d always been that way and Lily hadn’t noticed.
“What?” Renee asked suddenly.
“Nothing,” Lily said quickly. She grabbed the latte and took a purposeful long swallow.
“You don’t seem very interested in hearing about my trip. Or the new person I’m dating.” Renee cocked her head to the side.
“You just told me you didn’t want gossip around this mysterious new boyfriend of yours. So how am I supposed to know how much you want to talk about him?”
“Who said it was a boy?”
Lily almost spit out the borderline too-sweet latte, but she held it together.
“Sorry,” she said. “I just assumed—”
“People in America are so closed-minded,” Renee said. She gave a sad shake of her head. “I mean, who cares? Chiodo scaccia chiodo, right?”
“I don’t know what that means,” Lily said pointedly.
Renee sighed. “It means you’ll get over it, okay?”
“I don’t have anything to get over. But when your best friend of almost fifteen years has always dated guys, and she casually mentions that she now has a girlfriend, you have to expect some kind of reaction.”
And I think a reaction is exactly what you were going for.
“Marco is a guy. Okay?” Renee asked. “I just don’t like when people automatically assume that you’re straight. In Italy, nobody cares. Love is love. There aren’t all these games, people will say non posso vivere senza di te on the day they meet.”
Lily rolled her eyes, unable to control it anymore.
“Maybe it’s for the best that I don’t visit Italy,” she said. “Because what you’re saying really isn’t impressing me.”
Renee crossed her arms and leaned back in the chair. “That’s fine,” she said bluntly. “Because you’re too much of a prude for European tastes anyway.”
“And what is that supposed to mean?” Lily was aware of how the coffee had coated her tongue.
She leaned forward and stared into Renee’s light blue eyes. Her best friend looked simultaneously like a total stranger and like the girl she’d ceremoniously buried her Barbies with in seventh grade to declare themselves official teenagers.
“Forget I said anything,” Renee said. She uncrossed her arms and became enchanted with her espresso.
“No,” Lily said. “You brought it up, I want to know.”
“Non sei capace di tenerti un cece in bocca—fine. Look, I just meant that you’ve never been with anyone. You know? Sexually, I mean. You dated Tim forever, and you haven’t even bothered to look for anyone since then.”
“That’s not true!” Lily said.
She was flustered. How long was Renee going to throw that in her face?
“I have been looking, but you don’t know how the dating scene is in Salem. If you can even call it that—”
“You were in Portland for culinary school. Probably absolutely surrounded by men. And not just men, but future chefs who probably had the exact same interests as you. And nothing? For two years?”
“Do you know what patisserie school is like?” Lily asked. She shook her head.
Of course you don’t, because for those two years you didn’t even bother to ask. You just loved having a free apartment in downtown to stay at on the weekends.
“Classes started at four in the mo
rning. I was in classes sometimes for twelve hours a day, then working at Voodoo during the graveyard shift to make ends meet. Dating wasn’t particularly a priority.”
“You always have an excuse. For everything,” Renee said. “Ever since eighth grade when you made up that ridiculous reason for not going to the spring formal with Todd.”
A flood of words built up in her throat, but Lily commanded herself to stay calm. “I just have high standards. You should try it.”
“Yeah, right,” Renee said with a little laugh. “Your ‘standards’ are just a defense mechanism. You don’t want anyone to get over that hurdle.”
“It just so happens that I … I have a crush on someone.”
“Someone real?” Renee asked suspiciously. “Or is this like when you decided Eric from The Little Mermaid was your soulmate?”
“Yes, someone real! His name is … well, it starts with a C.”
“Ohhh. Connor? Isn’t that the name of the delivery guy at the bakery? You sneaky little slut.”
“Connor? Gross, no. And that guy’s name was Omar. And no, before you ask, it’s not the delivery guy. “
“Christian? Your landlord? Wait, no, Cody. I think you mentioned someone with that name last Christmas? Oh my God, is his name Christmas?”
“You’re ridiculous.”
“Lo ami. So, tell me about him, then.”
Lily blushed. She opened her mouth for the big reveal, but realized Renee hadn’t ever met Cade. It was the one crush she’d kept to herself even in middle school and high school.
At the time, she’d thought it was because Renee would laugh at her and how ridiculous it was. Now she thought maybe it had been because Renee would have gone after him. “He’s one of Elijah’s friends.”
“EJ always had hot friends,” Renee said. “Tell me the physical details. Hair, eyes, height—”
“About six foot two. Dark hair and eyes. He’s a firefighter, so—”
“Oh my God, really? Like an actual firefighter? EJ met him at the station?”
“Uh, yeah, like an actual firefighter,” Lily said slowly. It wasn’t technically lying if I just fail to mention we met as kids.
“He must be freaking hot then. But you know what the most important thing is, right?” Renee leaned forward conspiratorially. “Whether or not he’s packing heat.”
“Renee!”
“See?” Renee said. She leaned back again, smug. “That reaction right there is why you wouldn’t do well in Italy. You’re such a prude!”
“I can’t help it if some of us are more modest than you, Renee. And anyway … I happen to know he is.”
“Wait. What?”
“I hooked up with him three years ago.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Tell me everything. Do not leave out a single detail. Three years ago? Isn’t that when you broke up with Tim—”
“It was amazing,” Lily said. She felt not only eager to stop Renee from doing her calculations, but relieved to finally be telling someone about it. “He was amazing,” she added. “And he was there when I needed him …”
“Holy shit! I can’t believe you did that! And that you didn’t tell me,” Renee said.
Lily could hear the hurt in her friend’s voice.
She was still in there, the crazy girl who stood up for me in seventh grade when that group of eighth grade girls made fun of me for not having any boobs.
“How could I not know?” Renee asked.
“We were both about to move,” Lily said. She grasped for an excuse, any excuse. “And it was around graduation, and your grandparents were coming in and everything. I was going to tell you. I wanted to tell you. But, I don’t know. It didn’t exactly end the way I thought it would. Besides, it’s like … kind of taboo.”
“Because of EJ?”
“Yeah. Elijah loves him like a brother, but … well, this guy kind of sleeps around. A lot.”
Renee wrinkled her nose. “He sounds like a player.”
“And he gets into fights,” Lily added. “One time, when he was in high school, we were all hanging out at the big library downtown. Waiting for Elijah to return some book. And Cade got into a fight with another dude over a girl. I was freaking out on the inside, but Elijah just shook his head and said, ‘That’s the shit I’m talking about’ to me. ‘That’s why you’re going to be smart, and not date somebody who talks with their fists, right?’”
“Whoa,” Renee said. “That’s heavy. That’s, like, some serious foreshadowing or something.”
“Yep. So … yeah, Cade is off limits.”
“I wouldn’t say off limits,” Renee said. She sipped her coffee slowly. “I would say he’s a prime candidate for a secret hookup.”
“Right, because I’m such a great liar. And I’m also really good at hiding things from my brothers.”
“Is Cade the jealous type?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Why?”
“If he’s as much of a hothead as you say, you should try making him jealous,” Renee said. “Trust me. If he gets all ragey about that, you’ll know he feels something for you. Especially since he’s such a ho-bag, too. He wouldn’t care about just anyone he’s been with. But if he gets jealous …”
Lily laughed. “You can’t be serious.”
“I totally am! Don’t you want to know? Listen, if I learned anything in Italy, it’s how to figure out what a man really feels.”
“Of course I want to know,” Lily said. “But …”
“Oh! You know what? You should go to Redd’s Bar. Make sure to invite Cade. Get nice and tipsy, and get handsy with some random. Make sure Cade sees everything, though.”
“I don’t know, Renee. I don’t like games—”
“It’s not a game. It’s a strategy. Call it my welcome back party! We can do it tomorrow night. Oh my God, squee! I’m so excited.”
“You really will use any excuse to have a party, won’t you?” Lily asked. She smiled as she finished the last of the drink.
Renee made a face and stood up. “Come on. We need to take you shopping for tomorrow. Let’s go find something that will go with the Manolo Blahniks—only available in Milan, this pair—that I have in the car for you.”
11
Cade
“Cade!”
He could hear his crew’s voices, desperate and choking, even as the fire roared in his ear. He knew instinctively that when the ground had given way beneath him, his ankle had fractured. But the adrenaline kept him going, kept him moving—moving toward his crew.
They sound like wild animals.
Even through the flames, he could see it in their eyes. It was the same look he’d seen in so many animals trapped in gulches as they waited to die.
The year he’d spent fighting wildfires had infused in him all the fears of the animals he’d watched die.
But these aren’t animals.
His crew’s voices pounded in his head and mixed with the rush of blood.
You’re such a fucking idiot. What did it matter that you had less than a second to decide? Boxed in on either side, it had been a judgment call. A judgment call that fucked up your ankle.
“Dominguez, can you hear me?” he yelled into the walkie-talkie. It crackled to life and brought the screams to an unbearable level. “Dominguez, do you copy? Barron? Fields?”
The smoke stung his eyes, and his ankle throbbed all the way to his temples. Cade dragged himself along the charred ground to a ledge that overlooked the gulch. He caught a glimpse of three yellow jackets and heard the wails as they punctuated the night sky. The sounds shot straight up to the heavens.
I’m going to die. The thought was sudden, but not unwelcome. It wasn’t even surprising. I’m going to die now.
He saw Aunt Mary, first in the kitchen as she stooped over a homemade bearberry pie. Suddenly she was skeletal, bald and nearly translucent. He spooned chicken broth into her mouth and hated himself when he was disgusted by having to mop it off her chin when she coughed it up.
“Cade,�
� a sweet voice purred. He rolled to his side and Aunt Mary was replaced with a Hapa girl whose name he couldn’t remember.
“Do you still want to see my hula?” she asked with a laugh.
He couldn’t remember her name, or how they’d met, but he suddenly remembered how she’d felt in his arms. How she’d carried the heat of Hawaii within her. Her face shifted and morphed into a blonde, a redhead, another blonde, the girl with the natural afro and the one with the neck tattoo of a rose.
My God, how many were there?
A girl he’d forgotten about, the one who’d used Altoids before she went down on him, was replaced by the first family he’d ever saved. The wife clung to him, held her baby tighter, and the husband let his happy tears fall freely without shame.
“Charles, you get out?” Barron’s voice crackled through the walkie-talkie, and Cade realized his eyes had been closed.
He opened his mouth to reply, but the defeat in Barron’s voice lulled him deeper into slumber.
“I think Charles’s alright,” he heard Barron say to the other two.
He no longer sounded scared. There weren’t any more screams. All the fear had been drained, and in the quiet they waited to die.
Cade forced his eyes open and used the last of his strength to hoist himself onto the ledge. In the gulch below, the smoke had cleared. He could see his crew, just one fire shelter between him and them. They huddled together like a family, like loved ones, as the flames lapped closer.
As if they sensed him, all three looked up and directly into his eyes. A flame the size of a small child hugged their feet. Barron let out a keen like nothing Cade had heard before. It shot directly into Cade’s deepest, darkest space and wormed in deep. For good, for keeps.
“ … stable. He’s stable.” Cade’s eyes opened to see paramedics hovered over him. He tried to speak, but tubes and masks kept him quiet. “We’re taking you to the hospital. You’ll be okay.” He noticed she was pretty, the paramedic. Young and supple with a long black plait of hair.
