Page 5

Lila

I freeze at the kitchen table, tears still streaming down my face. I can't face them like this—red-eyed and sobbing over a burnt casserole.

This is exactly what I was trying to avoid. Day two of my independence experiment and I'm already requiring emergency services to save me from basic cooking.

Maybe if I stay quiet, they'll think it was a false alarm and leave.

"Fire department! We're coming in!" "Stand back!"

The door explodes inward with enough force to send my makeshift repair flying. The hair tie snaps, door knob pieces scatter across the floor, and two firefighters in full gear flood into my entryway, helmets and heavy coats and serious expressions that immediately scan for danger.

One of them is Dean.

Even under all the protective equipment, I recognize his warm brown eyes and the way his shoulders fill out the bulky coat.

He takes in the scene—me on my knees surrounded by door knob pieces, the lingering smoke, my tear-streaked face—and his expression shifts from professional concern to something softer.

Great. The one person who was nice to me yesterday gets to witness my complete domestic breakdown.

"Lila," he says, pulling off his helmet. "Are you hurt? We got a call about smoke and fire alarms."

"Mrs. Jones next door called it in," the other firefighter explains, looking around for signs of actual emergency.

He's shorter than Dean, with graying hair and the kind of weathered face that suggests he's seen every possible domestic crisis.

"Said she saw smoke pouring out the windows and heard alarms going off. "

I want to disappear into the floor. "It's just... I burned dinner. I'm fine. Everyone's fine. There's no fire."

The older firefighter—his nameplate reads "Mitchell"—relaxes slightly but continues his assessment. "Mind if we take a look around? Make sure everything's secure?"

I nod miserably and watch him head toward the kitchen, leaving me alone with Dean in the wreckage of my front door.

This is humiliating. Twenty-four hours ago I was determined to prove I could handle things myself, and here I am, kneeling on my floor surrounded by the evidence of my failures while Dean looks at me with what's probably pity.

"Hey," Dean says gently, crouching down to my level. "I'm so sorry we broke your door knob."

"I tried to fix it this morning when it fell off," I explain, my voice still thick from crying. "It broke earlier but I spent hours fixing it and used my hair tie to hold it together. It was working... until you had to break in."

"Mitchell!" Dean calls toward the kitchen. "Everything good in there?"

"All clear!" comes the response. "Just some burnt food. Oven's off, windows are open. No structural damage."

Mitchell emerges from the kitchen and notices the scattered door hardware on the floor. He crouches down to examine the pieces, picking up the broken hair tie.

"You broke it when you shouldered the door," Dean points out. "You were too rushed."

Mitchell shrugs, unimpressed. "Someone tried to fix this with a hair tie. That's not gonna hold anything. Stupid way to fix it—no wonder it fell apart when we entered."

The words hit me like a physical blow. My one small victory today, the thing I was actually proud of figuring out myself, dismissed as "stupid" by some alpha.

The tears start again, harder this time. Not just frustrated tears, but the deep, ugly crying that comes from feeling completely and utterly incompetent. From realizing that even when I try to handle things myself, I'm apparently doing it wrong.

"Hey, hey, no," Dean says immediately, his voice taking on a slightly panicked edge as he drops to his knees beside me. "Don't cry. Please don't cry."

The sudden proximity hits me like a physical force, his scent cutting through the lingering smoke, the heat radiating from his body, the way his firefighter gear makes him seem impossibly solid and safe.

My omega instincts, the ones I've been trying so hard to ignore, practically purr at having a capable alpha this close when I'm vulnerable and distressed.

This is exactly what I was trying to avoid. Falling apart so completely that I need an alpha to rescue me.

I try to stop, but it's like a dam has burst. Every failure from today—the door knob, the oven, the ruined casserole, and now this humiliation—pours out of me in messy, embarrassing sobs.

"I can't do this," I manage between sobs. "I can't even heat up a casserole without almost burning the house down. I can't fix a door knob without it being stupid. I don't know how to use an oven or what tools to buy or how to be a person who lives in a place like this."

"Mitchell, you can head back to the station. I'll finish up here," Dean says, and I hear Mitchell's heavy boots retreating toward the front door.

Then it's just me and Dean in the sudden quiet of my disaster zone.

"Okay," Dean says, settling cross-legged on the floor beside me like he has all the time in the world. "Talk to me. What's really going on?"

"I came here to prove I could handle things myself," I say, wiping my face with my sleeve.

"I wanted to learn how to be independent, how to solve my own problems instead of always relying on other people to take care of everything for me.

And I can't even make it twenty-four hours without requiring emergency services. "

Dean is quiet for a moment, and when I finally look up at him, his expression is thoughtful rather than pitying.

"You know what I see?" he says finally. "I see someone who figured out a creative solution to a broken door with the materials she had available. That hair tie held for what, six hours? And it would've kept holding if Mitchell hadn't shouldered the door like we were responding to a structure fire."

"But he said it was stupid."

"Mitchell's been doing this job for twenty years, and he's forgotten what it's like to not know how to fix things.

He's also kind of an ass." Dean's mouth quirks up in a small smile.

"His real name's Courtney, but he hates it because everyone assumes it's a woman's name, so he only goes by Mitchell. Don't tell him I said any of that."

Despite everything, I let out a small snort of laughter. "Courtney Mitchell? That's... unfortunate."

Dean grins, pleased he's managed to make me laugh. "See? You're not a complete disaster. And as for the casserole," he continues, "that oven's been giving people trouble since 1986. The temperature gauge is off by about fifty degrees, and the timer doesn't work. You were set up to fail."

"Really?"

"Really. I should have warned you, but I figured you'd be eating out at the diner for a few days while you settled in.

" He glances toward the kitchen, where the smell of burnt cheese still lingers.

"Tell you what, I can bring you some meals until you get that oven figured out.

Can't have you going hungry because of faulty appliances. "

The offer is sweet, but it's exactly what I was trying to avoid. "That's really kind of you, but I should probably learn to handle these things myself. I can't keep having you solve my problems for me."

"It's not about solving your problems," Dean says gently. "It's about being neighbors. And sometimes neighbors help each other out while they're learning."

The way he frames it, as temporary assistance while I figure things out, not permanent rescue makes it sound less like failure and more like... community.

"You didn't have to stay," I say, gesturing around at the mess. "I'm sure you have more important emergencies to get back to."

"Nah," Dean says easily. "Tuesday nights are pretty quiet around here. Besides, I can't leave a neighbor dealing with a broken door and no dinner. Aunt Maeve would disown me."

He stands up and offers me his hand. "Come on. Let's get this door situation handled properly, and then we'll figure out food that doesn't require that cranky old oven."

I take his hand and let him pull me to my feet, struck by how warm and steady his grip is. Even in the bulky firefighter gear, he manages to project calm without making me feel more inadequate.

"You have tools for this?" I ask, gesturing at the door hardware scattered across the floor.

"Got a whole toolbox back at the station.

I like fixing things properly." He kneels down and starts gathering up the pieces of the door mechanism, arranging them on the kitchen table.

"But first, let me show you what each piece does.

That way, next time something like this happens, you'll know what you're dealing with. "

The offer catches me off guard. Most people would just fix it and move on, but Dean seems genuinely interested in making sure I understand the process.

"See this spring here? It's what makes the latch retract when you turn the handle. And this piece connects to the mechanism on the other side of the door." He glances up at me. "Your hair tie was actually holding the most important connection. Without proper tools, it was pretty ingenious."

"You're just being nice."

"I'm being honest. There's a difference." He stands up, brushing dust off his hands. "Mitchell knows how to fix things, but he's never had to figure out how to fix them with whatever's lying around. That takes a different kind of problem-solving."

I watch him work, noting the way he moves with quiet confidence and how his hands handle the delicate door mechanism with surprising gentleness. He automatically explains what he's doing without making it sound like a lecture, and there's something deeply attractive about competence in action.

But more than that, there's something attractive about someone who wants to teach instead of just taking over.

"Dean," I say as he's organizing the door hardware. "Thank you. For yesterday, for today, for not making me feel like a complete disaster."

He looks up from the scattered pieces and gives me that beautiful smile. "That's what neighbors do, Lila. We take care of each other."