This Spells Love(77)

“Hello?” I’m still half-asleep. My eyes are too heavy to open. The heat from Dax’s body is too pleasant to even consider leaving this bed.

“Gemma?” My aunt’s voice wakes me enough that I’m now coherent.

“What’s up? What’s going on?”

“Well…” There’s a distinct hesitation in her speech. “Mr. Zogaib just called me….” She pauses again, and I roll my eyes beneath my closed eyelids.

“It’s still dark outside. If Mr. Zogaib’s mother needs moisturizer, she’s gonna have to wait like the rest of the city.”

“No—” Her voice takes on a new tone. One I can’t quite place. “There’s been a fire. We’ve been trying to get a hold of everyone, but…”

I don’t hear the rest of her sentence. It’s as if the world around me goes silent for a moment. Like time freezes, and the only thing that’s allowed to move is my hammering heart.

“Wilde!” My body fills with adrenaline, and I sit up so quickly that the mattress shifts, and Dax lets out a soft groan beside me.

“Wilde is fine, sweetheart. No troubles on that block, but, um, is there any chance Daxon is with you right now?”

The vise around my heart wrenches another notch tighter. “What happened? What’s wrong with Kicks?” As the words leave my mouth, Dax lifts his head so quickly that he grabs his side in pain.

“What’s going on?” he asks.

“Aunt Livi,” I say into the phone, pulling it from my ear. “Dax is right beside me. I’m putting you on speaker. Hold on, okay?”

The next minute is a blur. It feels like I’m watching a movie. Like the words fire, quickly spread, and significant damage all belong to someone else and not me. And they do, in a way. My store and my block escaped all harm, but Kicks and two others were collateral damage from a kitchen fire at the new Nashville-style chicken shop that opened only a week ago.

Dax takes it all in without saying a word. I swear he’s a shade whiter, although it’s hard to tell in the light of my phone.

“Do you want to go down there? See what the situation is?” I ask.

He nods, but he heard Aunt Livi as well as I did. Significant damage. Firefighters are still working. We won’t be allowed in for days.

“Are you okay?” It’s the world’s stupidest question to ask. How can he be okay? I’m far from okay, and it’s not my store, my dream that has turned into ash.

Dax doesn’t say a word as he dresses, as we descend the stairs of his building, or as we get into the waiting cab.

We see the fire trucks and the smoke long before the block where All the Other Kicks comes into view.

“Fuck.” He says it so softly under his breath that I almost miss it. We pull up, and the small span of space in between two fire trucks drains any hope still left in my heart. His storefront is black. The big beautiful glass window that once looked out onto James Street is now shattered into a million pieces, mixing with puddles of water and ash.

“It looks like the fire is out now.” I point to the group of firefighters standing on the sidewalk, talking. Not clutching hoses. Or running into burning buildings. That’s good news, if there can even be good news in this entire fucked-up situation.

When Dax doesn’t answer, I turn to find him with his head between his hands, drawing deep breaths.

“Hey.” I rub slow circles into his back. “I’m so sorry, Dax.”

He continues the deep breaths. I make eye contact with the driver in the mirror and give him a silent nod that says, No rush. Let him take all the time he needs. At least five minutes pass before Dax raises his head.

“I’m so fucked, Gem.”

I stare at the charred pit that was once his beautiful space. “I know this feels so shitty now, and it’s gonna take some work to rebuild it. But I’ll be here to help. And I’m sure Dougie and Brandon will too. We’ll all—”

“No, we won’t,” he interrupts. “It’s done. I’m done. This is the end of the road for Kicks.”

His eyes look so resolute that it scares me. Dax is the guy who tells you not to stress. That life always turns out the way it’s meant to be. In the worst of the worst moments, he’s the one saying, I bet one day we’ll all look back and laugh at this fuckery. He’s an eternal optimist to the point that I’ve often wondered if anything can get under his chilled-out skin. But slumped in the back seat of this Ford Explorer, staring at his charred dreams, it looks like the last glimmer of hope has been snuffed from his body.

I press my lips to his temple. “Let’s wait until we talk to your insurance adjuster. It may not be as bleak as you think.”

Dax unclicks his seatbelt, opens his door, and steps out onto the street before I even realize what is happening. By the time I thank the driver and find my way to the pavement, he’s halfway down the block, and I have to run to catch up.

“Dax! Wait up.”

His pace slows, but he doesn’t stop.

“Hey.” I finally catch him. “Where are you going?”

He runs his hand through his hair and looks around like he’s not entirely sure how he wound up where he is. “I have no idea. I had to get out of there. I couldn’t look at it anymore.”