Page 17 of Reunited with the Hometown Hero
Clean this up, Riley.
I should be insulted. I should throw the note away, go upstairs, and pretend this didn't happen. Instead...I clean.
Not because he told me to. Not because of the note, or the look on his face, or the way his voice went low and rough.
I clean because I need to do something with my hands before they start shaking. Because Mabel doesn't deserve a scorched kitchen. Because if I stand still for one more second, I'll have to sit with the fact that Noah Morgan just looked at me like I was the most infuriating, precious thing he'd ever pulled out of a fire.
So I scrub. The stovetop, the tile, the counters. Polish every surface until the lingering smell of burned metal fades beneath lemon-scented cleaner. I take out the trash, open the windows, and straighten the chairs around the tiny table. I move with a kind of furious precision, channeling every tangled feeling into the simple rhythm of clean, rinse, repeat.
Because ten years ago, we had a rhythm too. He moved, I followed. Not because I had to, but because I wanted to. Because everything between us was effortless in a way that terrified me then and terrifies me now.
One look from him used to unravel me completely. One word in that low, steady voice could melt every ounce of my resistance.
God help me, it still can.
Still does.
By the time I finish, the house is silent again. No firemen. No alarms. No witnesses to the quiet unraveling of my composure.
I press my hands against the counter, breathing deep, but it does nothing to steady me. If I still react this strongly to Noah Morgan... If I still care this much about what he thinks of me, then I’m nowhere near over him.
And maybe I never will be.
I kill the lights in the kitchen, my fingers brushing the crumpled note one last time before I toss it into the trash. But his expression stays with me like a bruise.
That look. Not anger—fear. Fear for me.
Even now, hours later, the echo of it reverberates inside me. Not the frustration. The worry underneath. The maddening, almost unbearable tenderness he tried so hard to hide behind that tight jaw and those clipped words.
I slip between cool cotton sheets, exhausted yet oddly alert. My body thrums with a nervous energy I can't shake, my skin too sensitive, my mind too full.
My phone glows in the dark as I scroll through emails and messages, answering my editor's increasingly curious questions with deliberately vague assurances.
My thumb hovers over the photo app. I know what I'll find there—an album I never deleted, not even through three phone upgrades. Pictures from before. Noah and me at Alpine Lake. At prom. On his father's boat. Evidence of a love I've spent a decade pretending wasn't real.
I close the app without looking. No good can come from that trip down memory lane.
Instead, I let my mind drift... to the firehouse.
To Noah in that navy-blue uniform, authority written in the proud set of his shoulders, in the way he saidRileylike it was both a curse and a promise.
God, I wanted him to do more than lecture me. I wanted him to close the distance between us and finish what that look started.
I imagine it now—his office door clicking shut behind me, that low voice saying my name the way he used to. His hands cupping my face, tilting it up, making me meet those glacier-blue eyes while the last of his composure crumbled.
You could've burned the whole place down. You know better.
My breath catches as I picture him backing me against the wall, his forehead dropping to mine, breathing hard. Not angry. Not distant. Just a man tired of pretending he doesn't still feel this. A man finally letting himself want what he wants. Because I always was his. I don't think I ever stopped being his.
My thighs clench under the sheets, my fingers gripping the pillow as heat blooms low and deep. The ache is sharp, familiar, unbearable.
I want the weight of his body pressed against mine.
I want to feel that fire in his eyes as he finally stops pretending we're nothing but a distant memory.
I want to hear him say mine and know he means it.
I press my face into the pillow, groaning softly. This—this is exactly what I was afraid would happen. One day back in Angel's Peak, and already, the walls I spent a decade building are cracking. Fast.
