Page 27 of On Fire

But Luke is mentally jumpy and he’s off on another subject. “Here’s another weird thing. I saw Nic walking along the road toward The Inn this morning on my way over here and I honked, but I don’t—” Suddenly he stops talking.

This is not good.

He also stops whisking eggs. “Wait a fucking minute. Did he?” He turns to face me. “Did you? With Nic? With Mr. Don’t Mess With Me, Nic Silvano?”

My closest kinship right now is to a deer. There are way too many headlights, and I’m caught in all of them. I start to open my mouth but Luke cuts me off.

“Luke, he just spent the night and I wish—”

Luke can’t contain himself. He clasps me by the upper arms and then wraps his arms around me in a bearhug.

“Oh, this is sweet!” he shouts, releasing me.

“Okay. Enough. That’s enough. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

He steps back to pour eggs into a well heated pan. It crackles and bubbles and he quickly scrapes the bottom with my best wooden spoon.

“Ahead? You’ve been so far behind I don’t think that’s possible.” He peers at the pan and then a second wave of realization hits him. “And you thought I was him. I get it now.”

Despite his glee, I am still concerned Nic left before I was awake. In movies this is never a good sign.

Luke sets down a plate of steaming eggs in front of me. “I made six. You can have half. Toast?” Not waiting for an answer, he pushes down the lever on the toaster.

“There’s homemade strawberry jam in the cupboard,” I say, and my voice sounds disappointed to my own ears.

“Hey. Don’t get weird. He—”

“He left. What am I supposed to think?”

“Do not,” he says wagging a finger at me, “self-sabotage.” Then he pauses. “He probably got a text from Finn asking for a meeting. That guy’s up at like six for his swim with Claire. It makes sense.”

“Why didn’t he say goodbye then?”

“You’re so freakishly sensitive.” He waves the spoon around. “Because maybe he didn’t want to wake you up. You’re adorable when you sleep.” He wipes a finger down from the corner of his mouth. “That drool, so sexy.”

“Stop it. He could have texted.”

“Or left a note.”

I nod. “Yes. Or left a note.”

“Hmm. You mean like this?” Luke takes an index finger, places it on what looks like a light blue piece of paper and pushes it in my direction.

I snatch it up. “Did you read this?”

Scowling he dishes up his own eggs. “I just now saw it. Besides, I am all too well aware of boundaries bro. No.”

He could have started with the “No.”

It’s exactly what Luke predicted. In flawless print is: Left for meeting with Finn. Join when you’re up. Then in smaller print, underneath is: Wish I could have stayed.

My mouth goes dry. Finn and Nic are close, like brothers. And Finn is about to marry Claire Russo, of the Russos—one of the oldest families in Mid-Coast Maine.

This is a nightmare. What the hell was I thinking? It takes only one misstep, one mishandled conversation, a slight slip and I’ll lose my job. The only Russo who knows about my other life, sort-of, is Devon. Luke told her I was gay when he was doped up in the hospital.

To be fair, Devon’s a vault. She hid her marriage to Luke from her own sisters for two years, so she’s discreet. They are both former smoke jumpers and fearless. Her heart is tender.

But this is Claire. This is me with Nic, who is essentially a brother to her. This is all fucked up.