Page 23 of Fire and Icing (The Firemen of Waterford TN #1)

I unpack my suitcase into the dresser drawers, then I stow it in the hall closet.

Dustin comes out of the restroom while I’m settling in and places his suitcase on the luggage rack, not bothering to unpack anything.

I pull out the itinerary for the week and look it over while Dustin runs his fingers through his hair in the mirror over the dresser.

“What’cha reading?” he asks.

“I’m just combing over the details of the week. They didn’t give us much. We won’t know the contest categories until the moment they tell us at the start of each round. But there are time slots blocked off for filming and times for other things.”

I expect him to ask for a rundown, but instead, he stares into the mirror and catches my eyes. “Predictable? Firecracker, you know I’m anything but predictable. Why would you choose that word? My brother Stevens is predictable. Greyson? Predictable. I’ve never been called predictable in my life.”

“I changed my answer,” I remind him. “And … Did you just call me Firecracker?”

“I’m trying on names ‘til one sticks. You know, like throwing strands of spaghetti at the wall?”

“I don’t mind Firecracker.” Especially not the way he says it.

“I kinda like it.” He smiles into the mirror. “I’ll give it a test drive today.”

I laugh lightly.

Dustin takes the seat on the love seat next to me and extends his hand. “Let me see what they’ve got planned.”

I hand him the itinerary and then I sit back, watching him while he reads it over.

Predictable . I didn’t mean that in a stodgy, boring sense of the word.

I’m a fan of predictability. I can count on Dustin.

Maybe not in the way a woman deeply needs to count on a man.

I don’t really think there’s a man alive I can count on in that way, but Dustin’s definitely been steady and constant.

“Surprises are overrated,” I accidentally say out loud.

His eyes lift from the printed brochure to meet my gaze.

“Surprises can be fun,” he counters. “Sometimes the best things in life come out of nowhere and surprise us.”

I beg to differ, but I don’t tell Dustin that.

I’ve had enough surprises to last me a lifetime … Surprise! We’re moving to Italy! … Surprise! I’m leaving you for brighter horizons … Surprise! Vanessa got another contract in town that should have been mine.

No more surprises, please.

At dinner, we sit with three other couples at an eight-top.

There are a total of twelve couples in the contest, all of them seated around different tables, chatting away excitedly.

Conversation flows easily and the food is delicious.

After dinner, we’re all eager to retire to our rooms to get some sleep.

Tomorrow the actual competition begins in the morning. We need to be rested so we can focus.

Back at the room, Dustin changes into his pajama bottoms and a thin white undershirt in the bathroom. He’s moving pillows off the head of the bed when I walk out of the bathroom in my pajamas.

True to his word, Dustin constructs a barricade of pillows down the center of the bed. Each of us will end up with a third of the mattress on each side of the pillow wall.

“Is that going to be enough room for you?” I ask.

“Not after all I ate tonight,” he jokes. “I think I have a food baby.”

I laugh. “Seriously, though. Are you going to be okay?”

“I’ll be fine. You?”

“I’m good. Great. It’s good.”

Dustin just smiles at me. And then he climbs into his side of the bed, reaches his arm out and turns off the lamp on his side table.

I stare at the bed for a beat. Then I take a breath, climb in on my side and turn off my lamp.

The room is dark. Out in this part of Tennessee, there’s no noise at night except the chirping of the crickets and the high-pitched rhythmic trill of tree frogs.

And Dustin’s breathing, slow and steady.

I shift around on the mattress. Then I flip onto my other side, tuck the blankets up around me.

Flip again. Rearrange the blankets again.

Fluff my pillow. My eyes are wide open. I shut them.

My mind hums like the buzz of a thousand cicadas in the summer branches.

“I can hear you thinking from all the way over here, Firecracker.” Dustin’s voice is low and sedate.

“You can not.”

“Can so,” he rolls over, props himself up on one elbow and peers down at me over the wall of pillows. “Everything okay?”

I roll onto my back and look up at him. The darkness muddles his features, but I can make out his eyes, fixed on me, and that irrepressible smile he’s always wearing.

“I can’t settle,” I admit.

“Pre-contest jitters,” he aptly diagnoses.

Well, that and the fact that he’s in the same bed. We might be separated by two feet of down and stuffing, but I’m acutely aware of him. How am I supposed to sleep?

“Why don’t I sing you to sleep?”

“Sing me to sleep?”

“Give it a try,” he suggests.

I snuggle down into my side of the bed, and Dustin starts singing softly. His voice is sweet, melodic, and soothing. I inhale and blow my breath out in an attempt to release my nerves. My eyelids start to feel heavier the longer he sings.

Dustin keeps singing … and I feel myself drifting.

When I wake, I’m warm. So warm. And cozy.

I nestle into the bed. It’s actually hot in here.

My eyes pop open and I scream. I was curled up against Dustin, his arm wrapped around me and my body tucked in against his.

I shove myself backward, away from him. Dustin wakes to my shriek of surprise and all my flailing around to disentangle myself.

He jumps up, tripping on the sheet wrapped around his leg.

He falls forward, but catches himself. He’s hopping around trying to free himself from the sheet.

As soon as he’s loose, he starts running back and forth from the head of the bed to the foot and back, shouting, “Fire! Where? Where’s the fire?”

He must stub his toe or shin in the dark because he shouts, “Ouch! Oh, man!”

I’m laughing—hard. “No … fire!” I say between laughs. “You’re here in the estate. For the contest.”

“The contest?” He pauses. “Oh … yeah.”

Dustin rubs his hand along the back of his neck. “Right. No fire. Just you.”

“Are you okay?” I ask, still laughing lightly.

“I’m fine. I nicked the edge of the bed frame with my big toe. Did you scream?”

“I … uh … we … uh … the pillows must have slipped off the bed.”

Dustin looks around. The space between us has one pillow remaining down by our feet.

I was snuggled up in his arms. He may not remember. I doubt I’ll ever forget. He was warm. Strong. Comforting. And he smells so good.

“I didn’t mean to roll over,” he says, grabbing a pillow off the floor and setting it back in its place between us. “I hope I didn’t crowd you.”

“I think the crowding may have been mutual.”

He stops picking up pillows and gazes at me.

“I mean, we both participated … and we ended up … touching,” I clarify.

“Touching.” He sets the pillow in his hand on the bed, but not in the middle. “Oh, man. Did I cuddle?”

He says it as if he trespassed on government property.

“You cuddled-ish. Sort of. You’re a big guy, Dustin, and this bed’s not made for two adults and a pillow fort.

Especially not when one of them is built like …

” I wave in his direction, sweeping my hand from his head to his toes.

“It happens.” I want to crawl under the covers and never come out.

Maybe there’s a secret tunnel under the bed that I can just shimmy into and slither away.

Was Dustin snuggling?

A little.

Was I wrapped around him like a baby koala?

That would be a yes.

He might have been the last living eucalyptus tree on earth with the way I was clinging to him.

We can’t help what our subconscious minds lead us to do.

Then again, maybe I should take the floor.

If I’m capable of crossing my own lines so blatantly against my own will in my sleep, who’s to say what I’ll do next.

“Smoke,” Dustin says.

I look around. “What?”

“Your ears should be emitting smoke with the amount of thinking you’re doing right now.”

He chuckles, sets another pillow in place, then pauses to stare right into my eyes.

The room is still dark, but my vision has acclimated enough to make out his features.

“Emberleigh,” Dustin says in a soft voice. He drops down onto the mattress and his weight shifts everything, including me, in his direction. “We’re friends. And we’re adults. So, we ended up snuggling. We didn’t break the law. We didn’t even break one of your—our—rules. Let it go, okay?”

“Okay.”

I want to. But he wasn’t the one to wake up all cozy and warm, nestling further into his arms. Not that he could nestle into his own arms, of course. Just … I was the one. I was nestling. And I don’t nestle. Not even a little.

“Are we good?” he asks, a soft smile on his face.

“Yeah. We’re good.”

“Good. Let’s get some sleep so we can kick some baking booties tomorrow.”

Dustin gives me one last look—something unreadable in his eyes—then he lays down and shifts his weight around a bit.

I lie on my back, staring up at the ceiling. We’re good. I didn’t lie about that. But as for me, I’m a mess. Dustin makes me feel safe. Safe enough to push a pillow wall away and curl into his arms while I sleep.

And I learned a long time ago that there’s nothing more dangerous than a man who makes you feel safe.