Page 34 of Faking the Heat

I strike a match, and light three pillars, setting them on the kitchen island. The light is soft, flickering, casting long, dancing shadows against the exposed brick. It makes the loft feel smaller, more intimate, as if the rest of the world has been erased by the rain drumming against the industrial windows. Outside, the city is a blur of gray water and shadows, but in here, there's only the amber glow and the smell of vanilla.

"Living room?" she asks, already moving toward it with one of the pillar candles held out in front of her like a lantern. The flame bends and recovers with each step.

I carry the rest and set them on the coffee table, the low light catching the grain of the wood. Mandy drops onto the couch and pulls the throw blanket from the back of it over her legs. Bowie follows at his own pace, stepping onto the cushion between us, turning once, and settling with his back to me in what I can only interpret as a statement. Outside, the rain has become a constant, rhythmic roar, sealing us inside this amber circle. The rest of Chicago might as well not exist.

"Truth or dare?" Mandy asks. She's tracing the rim of a tea light with her fingernail, her face half-hidden in shadow. The flickering light catches the curve of her bottom lip, and I have to look away to keep my head on straight.

"Pick one, Hayes."

"Fine," I say, sinking back into the cushions. I stare at the ceiling, where the candlelight throws slow, shifting shapes against the exposed beams. "Truth."

She doesn't hesitate. Her gaze is level, stripping away the irony of the game. "Why haven't you had a serious relationship since Priya? And don't give me the 'busy with the shift' excuse. I know how many 24/48s you pull, and I know how many nights you spend staring at that wall. I want the real reason."

The honesty in her voice stops the joke I had ready. I look at the candle, the flame dancing in the draft from the windows. I could tell her about the exhaustion, the way the job hollows you out until there's nothing left for someone else. I could talk about the trauma of seeing people at their worst moments and the difficulty of coming home to a quiet apartment after that. But that's only half the truth.

“There isn't just one reason.” I answer vaguely and yet truthfully, but she looks at me and I know she's waiting for a real answer.

“The job takes something out of you,” I say, keeping my eyes on the candle. “Not just the physical part. You come home and sometimes you're still in it, still in the building, still hearing it. Priya didn’t love me, she loved that I was a “hero” like it was some kind of fucked up conversation piece.” I pause and let out a dry laugh. “But she didn't like what the reality of what being with someone like me means and I don't blame her. Not everyone's built for it. The military was the same way. You learn fast who can handle the version of you that comes home.”

“Does it ever wear on you?" she asks. "Being the one who holds everything up?”

I watch the wax run down the side of the candle. “When I was a kid I figured out that people don't throw away the things that they need. Then I was adopted and I figured that the way you make yourself someone worth keeping is by being indispensable. You be the one who shows up. You be the one who doesn't crack. The crew, the people I carry out of buildings, you, when it gets bad, you all know I'll be there. And I need that. I need to be needed."

The flame gutters in a draft and steadies again. "But a fire always goes out eventually. And I genuinely don't know what's underneath all of it. Whether anyone would want the version of me that's just… this. A guy on a floor in the dark with nothing to save."

The silence that follows isn't awkward; it's thick with the weight of the confession. Mandy doesn't look away. She reaches out, her fingers grazing the scar on my forearm, a jagged reminder of a roof collapse three years ago. Her touch is light, but it feels like a physical brand, a tether to the present moment. Her eyes are dark, searching mine.

"You've spent so long being the thing between people and the fire," she says softly, "that you forgot you're also just a person who can get burned." She pauses, her thumb resting still against the scar.

"My turn," I say, my voice lower now, gravelly. I need to move the spotlight before I crack open entirely. "Truth - or - Dare Sparkles?”

It took her a moment to register the sudden shift in mood and conversation. “Truth.”

“Why did you really stop dating after Derek? You told your parents it was about work, but I've seen you work. You don't stop living for a deadline. You use the deadline to hide from the rest of the world.”

She pulls her hand back, wrapping her arms around her knees, hugging herself tight. The flickering light catches the gleam of dampness in her eyes. “My parents' marriage was a negotiation. My mom gave up her art, my dad gave up his weekends, and they both called it love. They called it sacrifice. Then Derek came along and made me feel like I had to earn my spot in his life every single day. If the dinner was five minutes late, if I wasn't the perfect, polished version of the girl he wanted to show off... the love was withdrawn. Just like that. It was conditional.”

She pauses, a single tear tracing a path through the dust on her cheek. “I realized I don't know the difference between loving someone and performing for them. I'm so good at the performance, the 'good daughter,' the 'perfect girlfriend', that I stopped trusting the feeling altogether. I look in the mirror and I don't know which parts of me are real and which parts are just designed to make someone else happy.”

She says it so plainly it hurts. It's the same performance we've been doing for her parents, the same lie we've been living in this loft for the last two weeks. But I look at her, her face washed in candlelight and her hair messy and her eyes honest, and the performance has been dead for a long time. There is no audience here. No Robert and Carol. No Station 99 crew to judge the shift in my posture. There is only the heat between us and the sound of the rain.

"I'm not performing right now," I say. I reach across the small gap between us and cup her jaw. Her skin is warm, softer than I remember, and her pulse is a frantic flutter against my thumb. "Are you?"

She doesn't answer with words. She leans forward, closing the distance, and her mouth finds mine. This isn't the staged kiss from the cafe, the one meant to stake a claim in front of her ex. It isn't a strategy to drive off ghosts. It's desperate and grounding and tastes like vanilla and rain and years of unspoken things. It's a confession in physical form.

My hand slides into her hair, my thumb tracing the line of her cheekbone. She moans into my mouth, a soft, broken sound that shatters the last of my restraint. I pull her closer, my other arm wrapping around her waist until she's practically in my lap.

"Sterling," she gasps, breaking the kiss to bury her face in the crook of my neck.

Her breath is hot against my skin, sending a shiver down my spine that has nothing to do with the storm and I say a silent prayer that the next word out of her mouth is not cereal.

"I don't want to perform anymore. I don't want to be perfect. I just want...this."

"Thank God." I growl, my hands fisting in the hem of her shirt. I pull it up, my eyes devouring her in the amber light. Her breasts are pale, her nipples tight peaks that ache for my touch. I lean down, my tongue swirling around one dark aureole before I suck the entire thing into my mouth, hard. She tastes like salt and desire, a intoxicating combination that makes my vision swim.

She arches her back, her nails raking down my spine, leaving stinging trails that make me want to growl. "Fuck, Sterling. Please."

I don't wait. I stand, lifting her with me, her legs wrapping around my waist with an urgency that matches my own. She's surprisingly light, or maybe I'm just fueled by six years of repressed adrenaline. Turning, I lay her down, the dark fabric of the couch a stark contrast to the ivory of her skin. I strip out of my boxers in one fluid motion, my cock already hard and straining, a thick, heavy weight that pulses with every beat of my heart, demanding to be buried deep inside her.