Page 33 of Christmas with Three Firemen

“I know.”

“You don’t have to wait.”

“I know that too.”

Something shifts in the quality of the silence. Not uncomfortable. The opposite of that, which is almost worse, because comfortable silence with Noelle Meadows is the kind of thing a person could get used to, and getting used to things is how you end up surprised when they go away.

I lean forward a little. She doesn’t lean back.

“Hi,” I say, for no reason.

The corner of her mouth curves. A real one this time, small and involuntary and completely unguarded. “Hi.”

I close the distance.

The kiss starts the way I intended it to.

Her mouth is soft, and she tastes like the spearmint gum she’s always chewing, and she makes a small sound of surprise against my lips that lasts approximately half a second before her hand comes up and finds the front of my shirt.

Then it isn’t light or easy anymore.

She kisses me back like she made a decision and she’s committed to it, her fingers curling into the fabric of my shirt, and I bring my hand up to her jaw and angle her face.

I feel the shift before I hear anything.

A change in the air, or maybe just a change in her. Some new awareness that moves through her like a current. Her mouth stills against mine. Not pulling away, just pausing.

I open my eyes.

Wes is in the kitchen doorway.

He’s in his off-duty clothes, gray henley, dark pants, and he’s holding a water glass and standing with the particular stillness that I’ve spent three years learning to read. He’s not embarrassed. He’s not apologetic. He’s just there, his gaze moving between us with an expression that gives away approximately nothing.

He doesn’t leave.

He doesn’t announce himself or make a noise or do any of the polite social things a person does when they walk into a room and find two people in a compromising position. He just stands there, calm and present, and looks.

Noelle has gone very still against me.

I can feel her pulse under my hand where it’s resting against her jaw. It was already quick from the kiss. Now it’s doing something different, something that has nothing to do with me, and I know it because I can feel the exact moment it changes.

I’m not oblivious. I never have been.

I lower my hand and step back, not because anything is wrong but because the moment has become something larger than what it started as, and I’ve always known when to give a thing room to breathe.

Wes moves into the kitchen. He crosses to the sink, fills his glass, and turns to lean against the counter a few feet away. He looks at Noelle. She looks at him. Whatever that exchange is, it doesn’t require words and it doesn’t include me, which I find significantly more interesting than offensive.

“Power flicker still going?” Wes asks, to no one in particular.

“Half the station,” I say. “Should sort itself out.”

He nods. Drinks his water.

The coffee machine beeps. Done.

Noelle turns toward it like it’s the most important thing that has ever happened in this kitchen, and I watch her reach for a mug with hands that are almost completely steady, and I decide that she is significantly more complicated than I originally gave her credit for.

Which was already a high bar.