“Wait!” Rose was forced to scrunch her eyes shut as his human form dissolved into incandescent light. “Don’t go!”
“No choice.” The words hissed and crackled, formed by fire. “He’s calling. I have to obey.”
“Who?” His blinding form seared her sight even through her closed eyelids. “Who’s calling? Who are you?”
“I am the Phoenix.” Burning wings spread wide. “My name is Blaze.”
Chapter 3
You’re a fully grown, mature woman, Rose told herself firmly as she pulled pints. You’ve got no call to be pining after a man like some melodramatic heartbroken teenager. Let it go.
She’d offered; Ash had refused; that was the end of it. The
re was no need to feel awkward about it.
Nonetheless, she couldn’t quite bring herself to look Ash in the eye. And it might have been her imagination, but he too seemed to be giving her rather more space than normal. He’d gone directly to his shadowed corner with barely a nod of greeting rather than coming up to the bar to chat—or rather, to listen in silence as she chatted at him—as he usually did.
Still, at least her rash declaration hadn’t scared him off entirely. She’d been worrying all week that she’d embarrassed him so badly that he wouldn’t want to set foot through her door ever again. And as far as she knew, Alpha Team’s weekly after-work gathering was the entirety of Ash’s social life. She’d fretted over the thought of him sitting abandoned and alone in the fire station, working on reports while everyone else went out for drinks.
But there he was, as usual. A still, quiet shape amidst the banter and laugher, sitting in his customary place at the edge of the group.
And if he was even more reserved and silent than usual…well, it would take someone who knew him well to spot that.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t the only one who knew him well.
“So, Rose,” Griff murmured in his rich Scottish accent as he waited to collect the drinks. The firefighter’s gaze flickered from his commander to Rose. “Just how badly did that conversation go?”
Rose scowled at him over the bar taps. “And what conversation would that be, Griff?”
“I told him that you were angling to get Ash alone last week,” Griff’s curvy mate Hayley confessed. “Sorry, Rose. It’s hard to keep a secret from your mate, especially when he’s a griffin.”
“Not that you need eagle eyes to see that something’s up,” added Chase. The pegasus shifter had ostensibly come up to the bar to help carry the drinks, but his black eyes were bright with curiosity as he too looked between Rose and Ash. “Our glorious leader is never exactly over-brimming with exuberance, but at the moment he’s so rigid I could use him as a tire iron. I just told him the filthiest joke I know and he didn’t even make the tiniest sigh of irritation.”
“Stop staring,” Rose hissed. “He’ll think we’re talking about him.”
“We are talking about him,” Hayley pointed out. “Come on, Rose! We all know that you’ve had a crush on Ash for years. Did you finally tell him? What did he say?”
“Judging from the way he looks like he’s had his entire body Botoxed, I think we can guess,” Chase said. He flashed a warm, sympathetic smile at Rose. “But do not despair, lovely Rose! No doubt he was simply paralyzed by astonishment. Give him a month or five, and he might be able to wrap his head around the idea to the point of being able to articulate a response.”
Rose focused on getting the foaming head of beer perfectly to the top of the pint glass. “Oh, he made his position very clear.”
Griff’s brow furrowed. “That’s odd. Ash is hard to read even for me, but I could have sworn he had a bit of a thing for you.”
“Evidently not.” Rose set the glass down on a tray rather too hard, beer slopping over onto her fingers. “And apparently he doesn’t think that I truly have feelings for him either.”
That still rankled, despite her best efforts to rise above it. It was one thing for Ash to say that he wasn’t interested in her romantically. It was quite another for him to tell her that she couldn’t really be interested in him. As if she couldn’t be trusted to know her own mind.
It was almost insulting. No, it was insulting. Ten years they’d been friends, and he was suddenly insisting she didn’t know him at all?
Griff was studying her expression. He winced. “Oh dear. Ash did not express himself well.”
“For a man of few words, he does occasionally have an uncanny ability to open his mouth wide enough to insert his entire foot,” Chase agreed. “But I’m sure he didn’t really mean whatever he said, Rose. Perhaps he finds it hard to believe that a gorgeous, vivacious woman such as yourself could truly be interested in a graying and boringly responsible man like himself.”
“I think he’s scared,” Hayley said.
“Scared?” It was so nonsensical that Rose let out a snort of laughter. “Ash? The man could incinerate this entire city with a snap of his fingers.”
“And I think he works very hard to make sure that he doesn’t,” Hayley said. “He’s so controlled and formal, it’s like he doesn’t dare to let himself feel any emotion at all. I mean, I’ve known him for a while now, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard him laugh.”