Page 65 of Honeyfires

Soon, I told the ceiling.

Because she deserved to know I'd fallen so completely, so early, so irrevocably that there wasn't a version of events in which I climbed back out.

And I was almost, nearly, very close to being ready to stop being afraid of that.

Almost.

It Was on the Way to You

Chapter Twelve

The key turned smoothly, muscle memory carrying my hand even though exhaustion had settled into every joint like fucking concrete.

Forty-eight hours. One wildfire in the neighboring mountains, close enough to San Jacinto that I'd spent the last two days acutely, uncomfortably aware of the distance between me and Vera in a way I hadn't let myself examine too carefully while I was still on the line. She'd sent exactly one text.

Be safe.

Then nothing else, because she understood the system, understood I couldn't text back, understood the water droplet would come when it came.

It had come six hours ago. She'd responded immediately.

I'll be waiting.

I'd showered at the station, scrubbed the smoke off until my skin was raw, changed into clean clothes, and then driven not to my apartment but to the bakery on Main Street. Past closing. The owner, Amber, whom I'd known since we were both seventeen and making questionable decisions in the San Jacinto High parking lot, had kept it waiting for me exactly as promised when I'd called her a week ago in what I would describe as a controlled panic.

"You're ridiculous," she'd said, handing over the box.

"I know."

"She must be something."

"She's everything," I'd said, which was the most embarrassing thing I'd said out loud in recent memory and also the most accurate.

Now I was standing in Vera's hallway with a mocha chiffon cake with coffee buttercream and a wrapped box in my messenger bag, and carrying the peace of mind of someone who had pulled off a logistical miracle on four hours of sleep and significant smoke inhalation.

The shower was running. Perfect.

I slipped into the bedroom, set the cake on the nightstand, and pulled the candles from my jacket pocket. Thirty. I'd counted twice in the truck, because I was absolutely the kind of person who would show up to a surprise birthday with the wrong number of candles and have to spend the rest of the evening explaining myself, and I refused to be that person for Vera. Beside the cake went the wrapped box—the one we'd discussed in hushed, laughing whispers over a bottle of shiraz three weeks ago, when courage and wine had briefly and productively overlapped. The one I'd spent an embarrassing amount of time researching, because I wanted it to be right, and nothing involving Vera was worth doing halfway.

I lit the candles, stepped back into the hallway, and leaned against the wall just as the bathroom door opened.

Vera emerged in a cloud of vanilla-scented steam, wrapped in a towel, her wet hair dark gold against her shoulders, humming the same 1940s song she'd been cycling through for two weeks. Completely in her own world. Completely unaware.

"Hey, birthday girl."

She shrieked.

The towel slipped. I caught her before she could go anywhere, arms wrapping around her warm, damp self as the towel pooled at our feet.

"Hi, baby," I tried again, grinning.

She grabbed my shoulders with both hands and stared at me like I'd manifested through the drywall.

"Petra." She was attempting outrage and making very little progress on it. "You scared me half to death. When did you get here? The water droplet was hours ago, I thought you weren't back until—"

"Wanted to surprise you." I kissed her jaw. Her cheek. The corner of her mouth. "Happy birthday, baby."

She made a sound that was attempting to be indignant and failing comprehensively. "You're supposed to give some kind of warning. I could have been—" She looked down at herself and then up at me. "I'm not wearing anything."