Page 26 of Faking the Heat

I grab my keys and head down to the truck. The drive downtown is a blur of aggressive merges and the low rumble of the engine. I feel the weight of the evening pressing on my chest, a physical sensation not unlike standing too close to a door you shouldn’t open. I know the risks. I know Mandy is fragile right now, her confidence blown apart by a gas leak and an ex who treated her like a project rather than a person. I tell myself I’m just being the good guy. Saint Sterling. The hero of Station 99.

But then I pull up to the curb outside The Inked Teacup and see her through the window, and my heart does a frantic, uncoordinated thing that has nothing to do with heroism. She’s sitting with Kayla, her fingers drumming against a mug, her auburn hair taking the late afternoon sun in a way that makes me lose my train of thought entirely. Her shoulders are bare above some cream-colored thing with flowers stitched up the front of it, and there’s something long and pale swinging at her jaw every time she turns her head. I can’t make out what it is from the truck. She looks small, and beautiful, and absolutely terrified.

I cut the engine and take a second to breathe. Containment, I tell myself. This is about containment. I get out, the Chicago wind whipping at my hair, and adjust the charcoal shirt. I spent twenty minutes on my hair in the mirror, a level of vanity that would earn me a lifetime of mockery at the station. I did it because I want her to look at me and see something other than the guy who cracks jokes. I want her to see a man who can handle her parents, her past, and whatever else is making her hands shake.

The bell above the shop door chimes with a cheerful, warning sound as I come in. The smell of toasted almonds and high-octane espresso hits me first, and then it’s the gravitational pull of Mandy’s gaze. She spots me, and the air in the room shifts and narrows until it’s just the two of us in a space three sizes too small.

I give her the slow, lopsided grin and watch her eyes widen, watch her take in the shirt and the hair. There’s a surge of proprietary heat in my chest that is entirely unauthorized by the Roommate Rules. Up close I finally get a read on the things hanging off her ears. They’re seed packets. Little painted ones, three to a side, strung under each other on silver rings. The edges cut in a ragged scallop like somebody tore them open with a thumb. Corn, bell pepper, pumpkin down the left. Beans, carrots, tomato down the right. They don’t match. They aren’t supposed to match. .

“Ready, Sparkles?” I reach the table. I don’t just stand there, I occupy the space, making sure Kayla can see I’m here to take over the heavy lifting. I can smell the tea, the cedar of my own cologne, and the faint sweet scent of Mandy.

“As ready as I’ll ever be for a three-course interrogation by the Peterson High Council.” Her voice is thin; her sarcasm is a shield made of tracing paper. She stands, and the rest of it arrives at once. Red and blue flowers climbing the front of the blouse and repeating down both sleeves, which stop at her elbows. Fitted jeans that go wide from the knee down and a belt with a brass buckle the size of a drawer pull. She has put herself together like a woman going to war who wants the war to think she’s relaxed. I reach for her bag, a soft tan thing with fringe on it that has been shedding in my truck all week. Our hands brush in the handoff, a brief spark of static that lingers on my skin like a burn. The phantom heat travels the whole length of my arm and settles in the middle of my chest.

Kayla is watching us with malicious glee, her eyes dancing with a look that suggests she has already drafted the seating chart for our wedding. “Have fun, kids.”

“Cereal,” Mandy mutters under her breath as we head for the door. It’s a desperate attempt to reset the tension, to remind us of the rules we wrote in that blue notebook. No being weird about this.

I huff a laugh, a low vibration I feel in my chest more than I hear. I don’t say anything, but I put my hand on the small of her back to guide her out. The heat of her through the thin layers of her blouse is a steady, grounding weight. It’s a gesture of protection, but it feels like a claim. I feel her leaning into me for a fraction of a second, a micro-adjustment of trust that nearly undoes my resolve before we even reach the truck.

Mandy is quiet during the drive, rolling the bottom seed packet between her thumb and finger like a worry stone. I watch her from the corner of my eye, cataloguing the way the streetlights find the curve of her jaw and the concentration in her brow. She’s overthinking. She’s building the disaster in her head before it arrives.

“You’re quiet,” I say, keeping my eyes on the road. “Internalizing the bakery awning story? Or running the math on how long before you have to say cereal.”

“Both,” she admits, small. “Sterling, if this goes south. If they see through us. I don’t want you caught in the blast radius. My parents have a way of making people feel like they’re being audited by a very polite but very thorough branch of the IRS. They don’t mean to, but they look for the damage in everything.”

I reach over and cover her hand with mine on the center console. Her skin is cool, and she’s trembling just enough that I feel it in my marrow. I squeeze, trying to channel some of the professional calm I use on calls. “Mandy. I’ve faced structural collapses in buildings older than your father. I think I can handle a retired insurance adjuster and a school secretary. Just follow my lead. We’re the happy couple, remember. We’re gross and in love and entirely too focused on each other to notice them prying.”

“Gross and in love.” She repeats it like a language she’s learning by rote. “Right. I can do gross. I’m a professional.”

The restaurant is one of those Loop establishments that prioritizes shadows and high-end linen over actual lighting. It smells of expensive Chianti and the kind of perfume that costs more than my mortgage payment. The Petersons are at a round table in the center of the room, a perfect portrait of suburban stability. Robert is checking his watch. Carol is adjusting a centerpiece with the focus of a bomb technician.

“There they are!” Carol’s eyes light up with a predatory delight that makes me tighten my grip on Mandy’s hand. She’s scanning us, her gaze going from my shoulders to the way I’m holding her daughter, and then it snags on Mandy’s ears and stays there half a second too long. Mandy’s hand comes up to touch the tomato, stops halfway, and goes back down. She’s looking for the cracks.

“Evening,” Robert says, standing to shake my hand. He gives my arm a firm, appreciative pat. The universal masculine signal for I approve of this structure. “Good to see you again, Sterling. Still keeping the city from burning down? I saw the report on the North Side warehouse fire. Tight work.”

“Doing my best, sir.” I pull out Mandy’s chair with a flourish that feels entirely too natural and settle into the seat beside her, our thighs brushing under the table. I don’t move away. I want the contact.

The first twenty minutes are a tactical dance of small talk. I handle the questions about the firehouse and the apartment repairs with practiced ease, laughing at Robert’s dry jokes, and listening to Carol’s stories about the school choir. I’m hyper-aware of Mandy beside me. There’s nothing on her shoulders but skin, so I can watch the tension sitting in them, and the shallow careful way she’s breathing. She’s a coiled spring and I’m the only thing keeping her from going off.

“So.” Carol leans in as the waiter pours the wine. Her eyes glitter with the specific hunger of a woman already mentally browsing bridal registries. “We were talking last night at the hotel about how we never really heard the full story of how you two transitioned. From friends to this. There must have been a moment. A turning point where the friendship just wasn’t enough anymore.”

Mandy freezes. I can see it in the tendon standing out along her neck. I watch her hand hover over her calamari, her knuckles going white. This is a flashover. She’s about to bolt, or she’s about to tell them the truth.

I don’t let her. I reach out and settle my hand on her bare shoulder before sliding to her back, my thumb moving lazily at the base of her neck. A painted corner knocks the back of my knuckle when she turns her head. I feel the shiver go through her, a tremor of surprise that I convert into a gesture of intimacy. I look directly at her, ignoring her parents, letting the world narrow until it’s the two of us in the candlelight.

“It was that night outside the jazz bar.” My voice drops into the low register I’ve been holding back all evening. There’s a texture to it now that I did not practice in the loft, a resonance that feels less like a script than a confession. “About two years ago. Do you remember, Mandy? The rain was coming down so hard we couldn’t see the streetlights across the park.”

She nods, her eyes wide and fixed on mine. She looks like she’s seeing the memory for the first time, even though we wrote it together on a notebook page forty-eight hours ago.

“There was this sax player. He was terrible, honestly, wearing a fedora that had seen better decades, but the music didn’t matter. I think we talked for four hours about everything and nothing. And I realized I’d never actually listened to anyone the way I was listening to her.”

I pause. My fingers tighten slightly on her shoulder, pulling her a fraction of an inch closer. I can smell her shampoo, the wine, the heat of her skin. I’m not looking at the Petersons anymore. I’m looking at the way her mouth has parted, the way her breath has gone shallow. I’m lost in the story I’m telling and for the first time I’m not sure where the fiction ends.

“We tried to walk home and worked out pretty fast that the rain was too much, so we took cover under the awning of a little bakery.” A small, genuine smile pulls at the corner of my mouth. My hand slips down along her spine, and I feel her shiver again. “We were soaked to the bone. She was shivering, so I gave her my coat. And I remember looking at her under this flickering neon sign, and she just looked so... beautiful. Hair plastered to her face, glasses completely fogged, those gold and red cherry-bomb earrings dangling off her ears. And I realized I didn’t want to be anywhere else. I didn’t want to walk anyone else home. Ever.”

The table goes silent. The clink of silver on china at the surrounding tables fades to a distant, muffled roar. I made the earrings up. She wasn’t wearing cherry bombs two years ago, because I have no idea what she was wearing two years ago. I said it because there was a painted pumpkin swinging under her ear and my mouth needed somewhere to go so I didn't lean into it. Carol has a hand pressed to her chest, her eyes wide and damp. Robert is staring into his wine glass with a look of profound, silent contemplation. I can’t breathe. The story was a masterpiece, the perfect blend of real detail and high-stakes emotion. But it’s the way I said it, the way my voice cracked a fraction on the word beautiful, that has my head spinning. It didn’t feel like a rehearsal. It felt like a testimony.

“That’s- that’s lovely,” Carol whispers, genuinely damp-eyed. “Simply lovely. Robert, wasn’t that lovely? So much better than how you asked me out at the bowling alley.”