Page 26 of The Fire

“Christ Almighty. Forwhat?”

“To know whose fault it is that your idiot ass is here on the side of the road waiting for a rescue instead of sunning itself in the desert. Were you forced into last-minute shopping?” He nodded at the box in my hands. “Grindr hookup you couldn’t miss?”

“Yes,” I shot back. “Yes, you caught me. There’s something so thrilling about a roadside blizzard hookup I couldn’t resist, but I’ve been waiting for hours and the only person who’s shown up is… Oh! Hey, wait! AreyouOldFatCreeper87? Because I’ve gotta say, you looked way cuter in your picture, otherwise I probably wouldn’t have wasted my time.”

Jamie rolled his eyes. “Would it kill you to admit that you spent too much time eating baked goods and didn’t bother listening to the weather?”

I gaped at him. That was eerily accurate. But, “How did you know I was at the bakery?”

“Parker, this is O’Leary. Everything’s news.”

Which was possibly true, but… “Why do you need me to say this is my fault?”

Jamie stood a little taller and shrugged one broad shoulder. “Just wondering if you’ve changed since we were kids, that’s all.”

“What’sthatsupposed to mean?” I demanded.

Jamie rolled his eyes. “If you don’t know, I’m not gonna tell you.”

“You’re infuriating.”

“Andyouhave never taken responsibility for yourshit.”

“How dare you!”

“Me?”

“You don’t even know me anymore! We haven’t spoken in—”

“In over adecade,” Jamie said. “And not a damn thing has changed. You still need—”

“Ineleven years, four months,” I corrected. “It’ll be five months. On Sunday.”

Jamie’s eyes narrowed. His nostrils flared. He stared at me across the foot of snowy ground that separated us, and the weight of that stare was almost palpable.

I wrapped my hands more tightly around the box since I wanted to wrap them around his neck. Either that or… or…

I huffed out a breath that fogged the air between us. “Fuck it. You know what? I don’t even know why I bothered trying to talk to you for so long. There’s really nothing left between us, is there?Trot along,Jameson.” I made a shooing motion toward town. “Thanks for giving me closure.Finally. Eleven years too late.”

“Giveyouclosure? Fuck that. Your memory is faulty, Parks. I’m not the one who left town.”

“No,youwere the one who practically booted me down the road!Your parents want you to go to college and they’re so sad you’re not? Boo hoo. Why the hell are you whining to me about it?”I growled in my best Jamie impression.“I have better things to do than listen to your needy ass bitching about how hard your life is.Don’t plan your future around me, because as far as I can see, we don’thavea future together. This isn’t love, Parker, it’s something to pass the time. Grow up. Make a decision on your own for once.”

It felt like another lifetime, and yet it still squeezed my heart remembering it.

“And you did!” Jamie countered. “Didn’t take you too long to come to your senses. You were gonethenextfucking day.”

“What the hell would I have stayed for?” I yelled.

“Why the hell did you comeback?”

We stood there staring at each other for a ridiculous amount of time. Hours and minutes and years. Jamie’s jaw was working like he was trying to swallow, and I had lost all feeling from the knees down thanks to my wet jeans. The snow kept falling, unrelenting in the oddly pink night sky, and I wondered which of us would break first.

But it was me. It had always been me.

“I said,trot along, Jameson,” I said tiredly. “You don’t want to have to explain to Brian why you’re late.”

Jamie still didn’t move. At least, not toward his truck. The muscles in his face were twitching, though—his eyes narrowing and widening, his nostrils flaring and contracting, his mouth pinching and relaxing, and he kept rolling his shoulder like his old injury still hurt when it couldn’t possibly.