Christmas Box Set

by Nella Tyler

“But Mike’s still coming, right?” My baby brother wasn’t quite as self-centered as my older sister, though he was a lot flightier. He’d joined the Peace Corps for a while, which had kept him overseas in Africa for quite some time. He was back in the States now, but on the east coast. Mom would pay for his plane ticket if that was the issue. I’d be happy to kick in, too. I wasn’t rolling in money, but I was doing okay for myself.

  “He’s dating someone new, some girl without a family, and he doesn’t want to leave her alone over the holidays,” Mom answered. She didn’t sound happy about it, but she was the type who didn’t trouble herself about things she couldn’t change for long. It was simultaneously her best and worst quality.

  “He can’t bring her home with him?” As I was asking, I knew it wasn’t an option. Not after last time.

  Mike had a tendency to date women you wouldn’t necessarily want to bring home to your family. The last one had stayed drunk from the time from they arrived on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving until they left the Saturday after the holiday. She’d even brought her own jug of wine, which she had to replenish often with frequent trips to the liquor store. We got to see plenty of fun arguments between them, including a drunken screaming match on the front lawn where she accused Mike of cheating on her. We also got to hear them having loud, angry makeup sex in his childhood room, right next to mine. It had been a relief to everyone when he broke up with Melanie.

  Mom sighed again. “Honestly, dear, I didn’t even ask. After the last girl, I really don’t want any other strange people your brother knows staying at my house. Maybe we can all just do our own thing for the holidays this year.”

  I slumped into the only armchair in my living room and stared at my tiny Christmas tree in the corner, lit with twinkling lights that shone off the hanging strands of tinsel. I had to remember to water it as soon as I got off the phone with mom. It was looking a little dry.

  “Sami? Are you still there?”

  “Yeah, I’m still here.” It was a struggle to keep the disappointment out of my voice. “I was looking forward to seeing everyone over the holidays, but…” Mom jumped in to pick up when I left off, not sure how to finish the sentence without sounding bitter.

  “We can get together after New Year’s. There’s too much pressure around Christmas anyway.

  And, besides, don’t you have someone special to snuggle up with this Christmas?” Mom asked, her tone lightly teasing.

  My mood, already low, sank even further. I hadn’t really wanted to get into this during the phone call, though I supposed it would have come up if we’d all gotten together in person at her house.

  “No,” I admitted, coming right out with it. The woman could sniff out a lie from a mile away. It just wasn’t worth the trouble. “I’m not seeing anyone.”

  “Still?”

  I leaned my head onto the back of the armchair and closed my eyes, counting to five before I let myself answer. “I keep pretty busy with work.”

  “I find it hard to believe that you have absolutely no free time to date, Sami.”

  I abandoned the work argument and went at this another way, hoping to smother this discussion before it became a raging dumpster fire. “It’s not that I don’t have free time, I just haven’t been asked out by anyone I was interested in. I don’t go to the right places, I guess. I don’t know.”

  This conversation was physically painful. My body felt suddenly sluggish and my stomach was tight. I could also feel a headache coming on, starting as a slight throb in my temples.

  “Maybe your standards are too high,” Mom replied.

  “Thanks for that.”

  She made a disagreeable noise, like I was being needlessly obtuse. “I don’t mean pull someone out of the gutter. You know your worth. But life isn’t like a fairytale. You can’t keep waiting for your Prince Charming.”

  “I’m not really that picky,” I said — unless wanting a guy to have a decent job and basic standards of hygiene had suddenly become picky, and then I definitely was. “But no one has asked me out in weeks.” I didn’t count the guy outside of the gas station who had asked for money first and then if I wanted to grab a cup of coffee with him…from the gas station, my treat.

  “This isn’t the eighteenth century, Sami. Remember the women’s liberation movement? You can ask a guy out now. They like that. I saw it on a talk show.”

  I clenched my teeth to keep a smartass reply from shooting out and further sinking this already unpleasant phone call. No family Christmas and now I got to hear about how pathetic my dating life was, which I already knew.

  “What about one of those dating websites?” she asked, soldiering on though I hadn’t said anything in reply to her last unhelpful comment. “Linda was just telling me about some app she was using. You might want to give her a call and ask about it.”

  There were only a few people I would voluntarily discuss my dating life with. My older sister wasn’t one of them. Of course, neither was my mother and, yet, here we were.

  “I’ll look into it,” I said, just to move us off the subject. I knew better than to argue with her. That would only make things worse.

  “You could always light something on fire and ask out the first cute firefighter who shows up. Most of them are great to look at. Maybe a little too young for me, but there’s no harm in looking as long as I keep my hands to myself.”

  I groaned, but couldn’t help smiling, too. “Mom, you are ridiculous.”

  When she started laughing, I couldn’t help but join in.

  Blaze

  Christmas Day

  I sat down across from Johnny at the big wooden dining room table at the station. Hector had whipped up his famous firehouse chili — just about everything we made here had the word firehouse stuck to the front of it — and we were both on our second bowls. Each man at the firehouse had his specialty dish, and we all took turns cooking. Hector had his chili, I had my meatloaf, and Johnny had his chicken casserole.

  “I’ll never get tired of this shit,” Johnny said and scooped another spoonful into his mouth. We couldn’t drink on duty, so we each had a large glass of non-alcoholic sparkling apple cider to accompany our meals.

  I mumbled my agreement, my mouth too full of chili, onions, and cheese to answer.

  We were most of the way through our second helpings when the klaxon went off over our heads, the sound echoing through every corner of the station. We jumped from our seats, leaving our dishes behind, and ran out of the dining room.

  The red lights were flashing in the hallway, the blaring sound of the klaxon seeming to come from everywhere. We ran out to the bays, joining every available man in the station, and went to our areas to suit up. I pulled my turnout jacket and pants on over the basic uniform I wore around the department, put on my helmet, slid my feet into my rubber steel-toed boots, and stuffed my gloves into the deep pockets of my jacket next to several other tools that came in handy when I was out on a call.

  I jumped onto the truck in front of Johnny. Hector was at the wheel. As soon as the rest of the guys had climbed into position, we took off, sirens blaring.

  It only took a little over five minutes to get to the site. Several people were standing around outside, a safe distance from the front of the small condo that had smoke billowing from the chimney. The fire hadn’t gotten too serious, though, as no smoke was escaping out of the front door the homeowner had left open after he or she ran outside.

  We set up the hose and rushed through the open door. The source of the fire was in the corner of the room right inside of the front entrance: a small Christmas tree, fully engulfed in flames. It hadn’t yet spread to the rest of the living room, making it easy enough to put out.

  Once we’d killed the flames, I did a quick inspection of the area, leaning to check out some of the debris. It looked like the trouble had been an overly dry tree combined with old fashioned string lights. It happened all the time. Those bulbs got hot as hell the longer you left them on. In the right conditio
ns, it didn’t take much for them to ignite.

  Fortunately for the homeowner, the tree was right next to a brick fireplace, which had absorbed most of the abuse from the flames, leaving behind some scorching that would be simple to clean up. There was fire damage to the adjacent wall and floor, not to mention the house smelled like an extremely smoky camp fire, but it could have been a lot worse. I couldn’t count the amount of times I’d seen people watch their entire house go down in flames with every material thing they held dear inside of it. I was glad we’d been able to put out the fire before the homeowner lost everything on Christmas Day. Not that there was ever a great time to suffer a complete loss, but it would be extra shitty on today of all days.

  The men and I conferred briefly with each other and then stepped out of the small condo. The crowd had only gotten bigger, the way it always did when something tragic happens. I ignored the spectators and started looking around for the homeowner. It was usually the person standing around in shock, crying, or belting off obscenities faster that you could count. People dealt with loss in their own way, but there was definitely a pattern.

  “Excuse me?”

  I turned and my mouth dropped open.

  A dark-haired woman was standing in the grass right behind me. Calling her gorgeous wouldn’t be right. She was far beyond that, so pretty just looking at her was like staring hard into the sun. You felt a little dazed and like you weren’t seeing clearly anymore — the most you could do was blink to try to get rid of the little sparkling coronas clouding your field of vision. I swore I saw a halo around her oval face, illuminating her high cheekbones and the creamy skin of her forehead.

  Her dark eyes were deep enough to fall into and never reach the bottom. She was dressed simply in jeans and a sweater, her arms pulled tightly around herself to keep warm, and her long black hair draped over her shoulders. Her pink lips curved into a shy smile as she looked up at me. She couldn’t be any taller than five foot seven or eight, so she had to look up quite a bit.

  I was used to that. Lacey was five four. The girl before her had been the tallest at five ten, but she’d still been significantly shorter than I was. Not that I was complaining. I’d rather be well past six feet than struggling to just barely make five nine like Johnny’s short ass. He’d lied for years about being five eleven until we pulled out the measuring tape one night and forced him against a wall to measure him.

  “Can I help you, Miss?” I asked and sincerely hoped that whatever she needed, I was the only man here who could provide it.

  Her smile got a little wider, and she answered in a gentle tone that didn’t match the busyness of the nearly tragic scene around us at all. “I live here. This is my condo.”

  I was finding it hard to answer her. It was that staring into the sun thing. I felt like a man who’d been trapped in the dark for a long time and had finally stumbled back out into the sunshine again. It was taking way too long for me to get over how dazzling she was, not just her smile, but her whole calm, confident demeanor.

  “My name’s Sami Lace,” she said as she extended her small, long fingered hand, her nails painted with cherry red polish.

  I tugged off my glove and shook her hand, holding on slightly longer than I had to. I noticed she didn’t seem to mind. “I’m Blaze Simmers,” I said with the same wide grin I gave anyone when I told them my name for the first time, especially when I was on the job.

  Sami lifted her dark eyebrows, eyes widening in surprise and pretty mouth smiling even more. “Seriously?”

  I shrugged. “What can I say? My parents must’ve wanted a fireman in the family.”

  She gave a tinkling laugh, lifting her hand to cover her mouth. “What could you be besides a fireman with a name like that?”

  “Exactly,” I replied, grinning wider. I could stand out here for the rest of the night just going back and forth with her and basking in the warm feeling of her eyes on me, but I did have a job to do. “Ms. Lace, do you want me to walk you through the damage? It really isn’t that bad. After you air out the area, you should even be able to sleep here tonight.”

  “Really?”

  I nodded and motioned for her to step into the house ahead of me. Another woman darted in front of me before either of us got the chance to walk through the door. I was about to order her to clear the scene when Sami linked arms with her.

  “This is my best friend Amy Green,” she introduced.

  The other woman was dressed in sweatpants and a long sleeved t-shirt, her hair pulled back flat against her head in a bushy ponytail. She was extremely attractive, too — with flawless bronze skin and full lips, long limbs, and a tiny, trim middle — but I could barely appreciate the look of her. Something about Sami kept walloping me in the stomach.

  I nodded at Amy. “Blaze Simmers.”

  She gave me a sardonic grin, her dark eyes gleaming the way Sami’s just had. “Seriously? Blaze Simmers, the fireman?”

  “That’s what I said!” Sami giggled again softly while Amy narrowed her eyes at me, sizing me up the way I was sizing up the both of them. I’d seen the look before and knew she wasn’t quite convinced. This exact exchange happened to me at least a few times every week.

  “That sounds fake as hell,” she said.

  “It’s my God-given name,” I replied. “Scout’s honor.” Amy didn’t appear to be buying it.

  Sami glanced over at her. “He was just about to show me the damage.”

  The girls turned and went in together, still attached at the arm. I followed them, fully enjoying the sight of Sami’s small round ass in her skinny jeans. Amy drew in a deep, gasping breath at the sight of the extinguished fire. Sami just stood staring, seeming thoroughly stunned, and I felt a stab of guilt for looking her up and down so hard just a few seconds ago.

  “It looks a lot worse than it actually is,” I said, for what it was worth. All she had to be thinking about was how badly her living room was ruined. Once she got the tree out of here and scrubbed down the fireplace, she’d see it wasn’t as terrible as it appeared. “I’ve seen people suffer total losses over a Christmas tree bursting into flames. You were really lucky it didn’t spread.”

  Sami turned to look at me with her wide, glassy eyes. “What could have caused this?”

  “You had some old school string lights on a tree that was extremely dry,” I replied. “I’d suggest switching to LED lights next year. They’re a lot safer. You can leave them burning for hours, and they never get hot to the touch.”

  She nodded, still seeming a little dazed, but at least she didn’t look like she was about to burst into tears anymore. That happened a lot, too, and it never got easier to handle. The minute I stopped giving a shit about people who’d lost everything was the minute I knew I needed to find another job.

  “All of your damage is concentrated in that corner, which is really fortunate,” I continued, using my entire hand to indicate the area in question. “Putting the tree next to the fireplace probably saved your condo.”

  She blinked, snapping most of the way out of the lingering shock. She gave me her shy smile again. “I was supposed to go to my mom’s house for Christmas. Instead, I stayed here. I was sure my big gift from the universe was going to be watching my whole condo burn to the ground.” Her eyes were shiny with tears again she was doing her best to blink back. Her friend slid an arm around her shoulder and squeezed.

  “Thank you so much,” Sami said. “I could have lost everything today.”

  I tipped my helmet to her. “All in a day’s work, Miss Lace.”

  “Is there anything I can do to repay you?”

  I could think of a few things, but needed to stay professional. This all felt new to me. I hadn’t even looked at another woman in years, not since Lacey and I had started dating. And since we’d broken up, I kept my eyes mostly to myself, not wanting any more trouble than I’d already stepped in during the course of my last relationship. I was basically a decent guy who didn’t cheat and worked long hours, but I kept
having the same troubles with women over and over again. Cheating, lying, getting pissy because I spent so much time at the station. It was enough to make a guy say fuck it and live the celibate life. But then you ran into someone like Sami Lace, a soft-spoken knockout with kind eyes and the prettiest, most refreshing smile I’d seen in years.

  “The firetruck needs a good washing if you’re free tomorrow,” I said, just feeling out how much she was willing to play along.

  She grinned, eyes gleaming. “Oh yeah? Should I just drop by the station to do that? I have to warn you, I don’t even wash my own car, so…”

  I made a face. “Maybe we’ll just take care of the truck ourselves.” I smiled again, liking the instant chemistry I felt between us. I knew I shouldn’t be doing this — my head still wasn’t clear from all the shit I’d gone through with Lacey; sometimes it seemed like we hadn’t broken up at all, then I remembered she was out sleeping with other guys — but I was tired of feeling depressed and alone. “What about the firemen’s New Year’s Eve ball? I was planning on going alone, but it would be great to have a date.”

  Sami lifted an eyebrow, her dark eyes never leaving mine. I could almost hear the wheels spinning in her head as she tried to figure out how serious I was. I’d kept it light, halfway meaning the offer as a joke — but if she said yes, we were on.

  Amy had quietly slid her arm from Sami’s shoulders and melted into the background to give us some privacy, though I could see by the way she was cocking her head and staring way too hard at a picture hanging on the wall that she was listening in on every detail.

  “It’s not black tie or anything,” I said, keeping my most magnetic smile on my face. I couldn’t really tell if it was working on her or not. She seemed a little off, but her house had nearly burned down, so I doubted it was a result of my stunning good looks. “You just have to dress up a little more than jeans and a sweater.”

  Now her smile changed, got a slyer, giving me a peek into the girl underneath the well-groomed exterior. I liked that little peek. It made me want to see what else she had hiding back there.