Page 42 of Fire and Icing (The Firemen of Waterford TN #1)

“Yes. Love. But please don’t say anything yet. I haven’t even told Emberleigh. She knows I’m head over heels for her. She just doesn’t know how serious I actually am. We’re still new. I don’t want to overwhelm her.”

“New or not, you know when you know.”

“Agreed. And I know.”

“Well, maybe I will have to leave my island after all. Your dad and I are due for a vacation. I’ve heard Tennessee is lovely in the fall.”

“I’d love it if you came for a visit. Maybe Mitzi could come too. Emberleigh’s been dying to meet her in person.”

“It would take some doing, but I think we could get the restaurant covered for at least four or five days so she could join us.”

“I hope so.”

Mom shifts the subject to everything going on with Mitzi and then she tells me about Stevens and Alana.

They’re planning their wedding. I will absolutely come home for that, I assure my mom.

We talk for another twenty minutes or so and then we say our goodbyes.

I’m feeling more hopeful after talking with her.

Emberleigh and I can work through this. We might disagree, but we’ll come back to one another, just like Mom said. At least, I hope we will.

About an hour before Emberleigh gets off work, I joined Mrs. Holt in the front room to watch her game shows. For the past hour, I’ve checked the clock on my phone every few minutes. Mrs. Holt noticed, but she had the consideration not to say anything about my obvious anxiety.

“Hey,” Emberleigh says, walking in the front door.

I take her in. She looks tired, but beautiful. I restrain myself from standing and walking over to her to give her a hug.

“Hey. How was your day?” I ask.

“Long. How about you? How was your day off?”

“I missed you.”

She smiles. “Let me clean up and we can grab something to eat.”

“I’d love that.”

I should have cooked for her. I might not be able to bake, but I can cook. What was I thinking?

Emberleigh heads upstairs. I sit on the couch.

“If you keep tappin’ your foot like that you might just tap right through the floorboards,” Mrs. Holt says to me. “What’s got you so spun into knots anyway?”

“I have an important conversation I need to have with Emberleigh.”

“Ohh. Oh my.”

“No. No! Not that important conversation.”

“Well, shoot. Here I was hopin’ I’d get to be a bridesmaid.”

I chuckle. “Maybe one day. If all goes well. A while from now. Not now. Not soon. We just started dating.” I sputter my words out in a rush. “Anyway, this isn’t that conversation. I have something I need to share with her—to get her input on.”

“Well, whatever it is, I’m sure she’s going to give you wise advice.

That girl always had a head on her shoulders ever since she was little.

I mean, we all have heads on our shoulders.

Just sometimes you wonder why the good Lord bothered to put a head on certain shoulders since the fool who owns the head doesn’t make much good use of it.

Not my Sunshine. She just has a way of seein’ things. ”

“She does.”

“So, you see? You’ve got nothin’ to worry about.”

“I hope you’re right.”

Emberleigh comes down the stairs in a pair of jeans and a graphic T-shirt. “Get me a burger and fries and I’ll love you forever.”

I stand from the couch. “If only I had known it was going to be that easy …”

Emberleigh asks her gran, “Do you want us to bring anything back for you?”

“Oh, no dear. I’ve got canasta with June and the girls. We’re eating at June’s.”

“Okay, we’ll see you later.”

I hold the door for Emberleigh and we head to my truck as if it’s any other night.

She directs me to a burger and ice cream drive-thru out on the outskirts of town. You can’t eat inside, but tables are scattered on the lawn around it. We get our food and grab a table away from the other customers.

“I have something important to tell you,” I say before we’ve even taken our first bites.

“Oh?” Emberleigh picks her burger up, unwraps it and takes a big bite.

She peers at me over her burger. With her mouth still partially full, she says, “Sorry, I was a little hungry.”

I smile at her. My burger sits in front of me, still wrapped in thin paper.

I dive in. This isn’t going to get easier. I just have to say everything and then we can hash through it. “The other night, when we were at the gig at Fork & Fiddle?”

“Yeah?” Another big bite.

“Well, this guy, Gavin, came up to me after the gig.”

“Gavin? I don’t know a Gavin here in Waterford.” Emberleigh wipes a drop of sauce off her chin with the back of her hand.

“He’s not from here. He’s actually from Nashville.”

“Nashville?” She looks at me, her eyes squinted.

I can see the wheels start to turn.

Emberleigh sets her burger down on the splayed paper in front of her.

“He’s with a record label,” I say.

“A record label.” Emberleigh’s arms lower to her side. Burger abandoned. Her face a neutral expression of either shock or self-protection … or maybe I’m projecting.

“He wants me to come record a demo,” I continue.

“A demo.”

“Yes. Three songs. Nothing firm. We’ll have a contract for the demo. But it won’t necessarily lead anywhere. It’s like a trial.”

“A trial to see if you do well so they could possibly sign you.”

“That’s one possibility. A long shot. But, yeah.”

Emberleigh looks down into her lap. Then she glances up and stares off over my shoulder into the distance.

When her eyes meet mine again, she says, “Is this what you want?”

“This, meaning an opportunity in the music business?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe. I’m not sure. I never thought it could actually happen. I think I might have been too afraid of the potential rejection to even entertain the idea. But now it plopped into my lap, so I’m thinking about it—a lot.”

Her face softens. “Of course you are. You love singing. Your voice is special. You almost got me to love country music. I almost fell …” her voice trails off.

Then she’s all smiles. “I’m happy for you, Dustin.

This is big. And it’s … I mean, it’s huge!

And I’m very happy for you. Growing up here in Tennessee everyone and their brother thinks they're going to Nashville. And here you are, going.”

“It’s just an invitation to come record, maybe explore some performance gigs. I’m not going, going.”

“Not yet, at least.” She’s still smiling, but there's a hitch in her voice.

“Hey,” I reach across the table and extend my hands, palms up.

She lifts her hands from under the table and sets them in mine.

“I’m not leaving the day after graduation,” I say.

“I’m not moving to Europe. I’m not taking off without looking back.

I’m actually not leaving at all. I’m going to Nashville to record three songs.

Nothing else is promised to me or from me.

This is just a super-cool opportunity and one I’d never imagined having. ”

She squeezes my hands and then her beautiful green eyes start to fill with tears.

“I know. And I’m really excited for you.

I’m sorry I don’t have a more pure way of showing my support and how much I love this for you.

I just hear the words Nashville and music industry and I picture you singing to sold-out crowds around the world, traveling all the time.

Never being here in Waterford. Leaving this town in your dust. Leaving me. ”

Her voice cracks just the slightest, but she’s got her eyes fixed on mine in a combination of a plea and this warmth that just might break me.

I squeeze her hands. We’re too far apart.

This table is in the way. I stand and walk to her side of the table and settle on the bench next to her.

Well, maybe it’s more of a plop, like a child thunking down onto one side of a teeter-totter, because the next thing I know, the table, our meal and we are all falling backwards in sort of a slow-motion disaster scene.

I instinctively cradle Emberleigh to my chest and wrap my arms around her, cocooning her as we go down with a cry of “Ohhh noooo!” We hit the ground with a thud, the table now perched on its side, the bench under our legs laying on the ground.

Hamburgers and fries are everywhere. Birds start to flock around as a sort of clean-up crew.

A worker runs out from the hut. “Are you okay?”

Emberleigh looks at me and starts laughing. We both collapse onto our backs in a fit of laughter.

“We’re fine,” I finally tell the guy in the checkered apron and white paper hat.

“We’re okay,” Emberleigh echoes.

She looks over at me and we share this moment where everything’s just as it was before I brought a whole other city and a potential lifequake into the mix. She smiles softly at me and I smile back.

Then I flip over and wriggle my way out from the table and extend her my hand. When we’re both standing, the worker and I right the table.

“I’ll get you some fresh burgers,” he says.

Emberleigh looks up at me. “I don’t want to be the barrier to your dreams. This is just hard on me. I don’t do well when people leave.”

“I'm not leaving yet. I haven’t made a decision. But I don’t think I can ignore this opportunity either. This isn’t me leaving you.”

“I know it isn’t. You're not leaving yet, but you're opening the door to the possibility of a life without me in it.”

“I am opening the door to a music career. That doesn’t have to mean a life without you. And if you tell me to stay, I will.”

Emberleigh hesitates. Then she gives me a soft smile. “I can’t ask you to do that. I won’t be the one who keeps you from your dreams. What kind of girlfriend—or person—would I be if I stood in your way?”

“You could come with me,” I suggest. “It would be a fun trip to Nashville for a day or two.”

‘ “And leave the bakery?”

“For a day or two.”

“Maybe. Let’s see when you’re going and I’ll talk to Syd about it.” She pauses and then she smiles up at me. “I’m happy for you, Dustin. Really.”

She says she’s happy for me, and maybe she is. But the look in her eyes says something else—she’s heartbroken. And what if chasing this dream means I risk losing her in the process?