by Kim Fielding
“Impressive equipment,” said Noah.
“I guess. We have a couple of machines at the firehouse, but I like to get a decent workout even on my days off.”
“I’ve never been very good about sticking to an exercise routine.” Noah ruefully patted his belly.
Bryce longed to pat it too but instead fixed his gaze on the weight machine. “Well, you’re really busy, between work and Harper. My mom was a single parent, so I have some idea what a tough job that is.”
“I guess. But I still ought to exercise more.”
They ended up in the master bedroom. Not awkward, Bryce told himself. Nope. Not at all. At least his bed was made, and no dirty underwear or porn magazines were in view. He didn’t actually own any porn magazines, but he still had the guilty feeling that one would somehow manifest atop his comforter along with an array of sex toys.
Noah, on the other hand, seemed pretty comfortable. He admired the room’s layout and nodded at the french doors Bryce had installed to replace a window. “That’s a nice idea. Easy access to the backyard.”
“And an easy emergency exit in case of fire.” Bryce smiled to show he was kidding. Mostly. But when Noah paused to inspect the crown molding, a clear image sprang into Bryce’s mind: Noah naked, spread across the mattress, leering up at him invitingly.
“Are you okay?” Noah asked, after turning around to look at him.
“Huh?”
“I thought I heard you groan. Shit. I’m keeping you from—”
“No! You’re not. I just, um, moved the wrong way. I’m a little sore from work today.” Horrible bald-faced lie.
“Well, I should get home anyway. Harper will be returning soon.”
Bryce resisted the urge to tackle him onto the mattress. They walked back to the front door, and Noah put on his coat.
“Oh, your plate,” Bryce said.
“Return it when the cookies are gone. Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Do you not celebrate Christmas? You don’t have any decorations. No tree or anything.”
“Fire hazard.”
Noah rolled his eyes. “How come no nonflammable decorations, then?”
Bryce scrunched up his face and scratched an imaginary itch on his bicep. “Not in the mood,” he mumbled.
As Noah took a step closer, his expression softened. A man could drown in those warm brown eyes. “That’s right. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to remind you.”
Great. So Mrs. Foster had divulged those details too. Had she informed Noah that Bryce was gay? Probably. He didn’t seem put off by it, though, which was good. But then, he was from California, where people were undoubtedly more comfortable with such things than were the residents of rural Kansas.
“It’s fine,” Bryce said with a shrug. “I’ve never been all that into the holiday thing anyway.” His ex, Owen, had been. He’d dragged Bryce to endless parties and festooned their house with pine boughs, sparkling glass, and tinsel. It wouldn’t have been so bad if he hadn’t insisted that everything look absolutely perfect all the time, like scenes from a magazine. They’d had more than one nasty argument over Owen’s insistence on candles. In the end they’d compromised with the electric kind, but Owen had complained they weren’t the same since they didn’t smell nice. Bitter feelings had prevailed.
When Bryce was a kid, he and his mother loved Christmas. He’d make paper chains and popcorn garlands, and she helped him cut snowflakes from folded sheets of newspaper. They baked cookies and watched all the holiday specials—the Grinch, Charlie Brown, Frosty, Rudolph—and if there was enough snow, they built snowmen on the front lawn. They always had a Christmas Eve dinner, just the two of them, with placemats and fabric napkins and the good dishes. Then they’d meet up with friends for eggnog and mulled cider and for caroling if the weather wasn’t too cold. After opening presents on Christmas Day, they’d go over to the Bernards’ for another feast and lots of good company.
But that had been a long time ago, and now his mom was gone.
Noah nodded solemnly. “I understand. Well, thanks for the tour.”
“And thanks for the cookies.” Bryce wanted to thank him for more than that—for an hour’s worth of nonjudgmental company, for his bright smile and rumbly voice. Yeah, that was a good idea. Scare the poor guy away.
Still, Bryce had to say something. “Tomorrow’s Saturday and I’m on shift,” he blurted. “I mean, if you and Harper want to stop by—”
“Yes!”
They both laughed at Noah’s eagerness, and he shrugged. “She’s been bugging me about it, but I didn’t want to annoy you.”
“You wouldn’t.” Understatement. “My offer was totally sincere.”
“She’ll be seriously thrilled.”
“I’ll see you then.”
Bryce stood in the open doorway, ignoring the cold as he watched Noah walk away. After the door was closed, he leaned back against it like a lovesick teenager.
Shit.
FOUR
Dear Ruth,
I’m 14. I really want a smart phone for Christmas, but my parents won’t buy me one. They say I don’t need one and it’ll only distract me or get broken. I’m a really good student and I do all my chores, and all my friends have smart phones. How can I convince my parents to join the 21st century and get me one too?
—Technology Deprived
SATURDAY MORNING was busier than usual at the station, mostly because of a kitchen fire at the greasy spoon out near the highway. Despite passing Bryce’s inspections and those of his predecessor, the diner had fires on a fairly regular basis. Nobody had ever been hurt, and the mess from the fire-retardant foam was often worse than the fire itself. The restaurant crew, well practiced at cleaning up, would be back to serving gristly burgers and limp fries in no time.
Once everyone got back to the station and cleaned up, it was lunchtime. Most of the guys went a few doors down for pizza, but Bryce stayed up in his cubbyhole of an office with some paperwork and a sandwich. He’d overindulged on cookies the night before.
He was halfway through an endless state-mandated report when a loud male voice called from below. “Hey, Reynolds! You got company!”
It was fortunate nobody saw how eagerly Bryce shot out of his chair.
The entire crew stood looking at Harper and Noah, both of whom were swathed in winter clothing. Bryce marched into the middle of the group. “Hey, guys. This is Harper Costa. In a few years she’s going to be joining us, so I thought maybe we could give her a job orientation today. Whadda ya say?”
Novelty and distraction were always welcome at the station, and it was hard to resist such an eager visitor. Within minutes Harper was out of her parka and scarf and nearly hidden under a helmet and turnout jacket. While the men started her tour, Bryce and Noah hung back near the door.
“This is seriously cool of you,” Noah said. “You’ve made her year.”
“Glad to do it. I wanted to be a fireman too when I was a kid.”
“That certainly turned out well.”
“How about you? What did you want to be?”
Noah huffed quietly. “Not a marketing director, that’s for sure. I dunno. I sort of… floated, I guess. It took me a while to find myself.” His grin flashed. “I’m a late bloomer.”
“Have you, uh, bloomed now?”
The laugh he received in reply echoed through the garage bay. “I’m past the budding stage. And I don’t know if I’m fully in flower yet.”
Harper’s tour was thorough and took a long time. The crew let her inspect all the equipment and explore the ladder truck, including how to work the lights and siren. She looked ready to die of happiness when one of the guys suggested that the truck needed to be taken out for a test run and Noah gave permission for his daughter to ride along. The truck rumbled away, leaving Noah and Bryce alone in the firehouse.
“That’s kind of a waste of taxpayer money, isn’t it?” Noah asked. “And possibly a safety violation?”
“Eh. Take it up with the chief.” Who was out of town visiting family in Nebraska and wouldn’t care even if he’d been in Bailey Springs. “Oh, hey. I have those coupons for you. Want them now?”
Shortly after they arrived in the office, Bryce realized that the space felt far too intimate. Desperate to deflect another wave of lust, he focused on his search through a desk drawer. “Glamorous place, huh? Let’s not let Harper see this little corner of the station.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Bryce saw Noah gazing at the photos that hung crookedly on the wall. “You’re on a baseball team?” Noah asked.
“We play against the sheriff’s department every summer. We kick their asses.”
Bryce found the coupons, but Noah was too busy looking at the pictures to notice. “What’s this one over here?” Noah pointed to one of Bryce in his dress uniform, shaking the hand of the mayor of Wichita.
“Oh. Um, yeah. I was getting a certificate.”
“For?”
“There was this, um, kid.” Scrunching up his eyes and rubbing the back of his head wasn’t keeping Bryce’s cheeks from burning.
“A kid?”
Shit. “Car wreck. A sedan ended up wedged underneath a semi, toddler trapped in a car seat in the back of the sedan, whole mess on fire.”
“Jesus! But the certificate?”
“I got him out. He had a broken leg and smoke inhalation, but he ended up fine.” Which was good, because Bryce could still remember the sensation of the seemingly lifeless little body in his arms, the small ash-gray face splattered with blood. But that image was countered by the sound of the kid crying once he’d had a little oxygen; that had been a sweet sound indeed.
Noah’s eyes were huge. “You went into a burning car wreck and saved a child.”
“It’s my job.”
“You’re a hero.” Noah shook his head. “My marketing copy never saved anyone.”
“You’re a single parent. That’s heroic enough.”
They stared at each other, and for a moment Bryce almost thought…. But then the fire engine rumbled into the bay beneath them, and Noah glanced away. “We probably better go rescue your guys from my daughter.”
As it turned out, nobody needed rescuing. The crew was obviously having almost as much fun as Harper, who was totally wound up with excitement. “I rode on a fire truck!” she screamed to Noah.
“I see that.”
“A really real fire truck! And we did the siren and made the lights go and we drove down the street and I got to wave at people!”
They weren’t supposed to run the siren unnecessarily. Bryce hoped they wouldn’t get any complaints.
Noah took a lot of photos of Harper in gear and on the truck, and then the guys hammed it up for some “action shots” of Harper handling the hoses and wielding an ax. Finally, everyone gathered for a group shot.
“C’mon, Reynolds,” said one of the crew members. “You too.”
“Oh, I don’t think—”
“Definitely you,” Noah said. He winced. “Um, you arranged it, after all.”
So Bryce ended up kneeling beside Harper while his crew made jokes about how he ought to appear in a charity muscle calendar instead.
“Take off your shirt, Reynolds, and we could earn a fortune for the widows and orphans fund.”
Another guy quipped, “We don’t have a widows and orphans fund. But if he takes off his pants—” That earned him an elbow in the ribs from the colleague standing next to him, a reminder that a little kid was in their midst.
Bryce, meanwhile, went as red as the truck behind him, and Noah covered his own face with his hands.
“Time to get back to work!” Bryce yelled.
It took some time for Harper to get her coat, hat, scarf, and gloves back on, even with Noah’s help. After he had donned his own outerwear, he and Bryce stood at the door, Bryce with a renewed feeling of awkwardness.
“Thanks again,” Noah said. He glanced at Harper, who was deep in discussion with one of the crew. “This was… amazing. Truly.”
“Glad we could do it.” And that was true. Aside from the thrilling but dangerous opportunity to be near Noah again, Bryce loved that he’d made Harper so happy. After all, how often did someone have the chance to bring pure delight into someone else’s life? And perhaps cultivate a future firefighter?
“Maybe, um…. I’m sort of a mediocre cook, but I can manage a few things passably well. Maybe I could repay you with dinner sometime?”
Bryce wanted that very much. But he had to be honest with himself—he was developing a thing for Noah, and it wasn’t fair to the guy if Noah’s thoughts were purely platonic. It was the opposite of leading someone on. Was there a name for that? “Sure. Sometime,” Bryce replied vaguely.
After a pause, Noah nodded and patted Bryce’s shoulder. “Yeah. Well, thanks! We’ll see you around.” He took Harper’s hand and led her out the door.
The entire crew stared as Bryce trudged toward the stairs. “Work?” he reminded them, and he didn’t stick around to see their response.
THAT NIGHT, Bryce ignored the cold and dark and went running. Fast. Through downtown—where only Louella’s, the pizza place, and the theater remained open—across the railroad tracks, and past the grain elevator and the pet food plant. Up and down the streets in the expensive part of town and then in the neighborhood of postwar bungalows that had been built for employees of a candy factory. The factory was long gone; it had burned to the ground when Bryce was a baby. Years later, he’d heard stories about the historically spectacular fire from some of the department veterans. Nothing remained but a large flat lot, weedy in summer and now dotted with patches of ice and dirty snow. Bryce ran past that too.
He ran, in fact, all the way to Memorial Bridge outside of town. It was too dark to see the river flowing beneath him, but he could hear it churning along on its way to the Missouri. He turned and ran back toward home.
The weather was a little warmer than it had been in recent days, the sky too overcast to show stars. The forecasters said snow was on the way, and although some people were happy at the prospect of a white Christmas, Bryce was not. A lot of people traveled on Christmas, and slick roads increased the likelihood of holiday mishaps.
As he ran he tried to keep his thoughts in safe territory. But most of the houses sparkled with holiday lights—white, red and green, blue—and front yards sported Santas, reindeer, penguins, and various other seasonal characters grinning away. The decorations, of course, reminded him of Noah. Dammit.
The thing of it was, Bryce didn’t have a lot of friends. Even when he was a kid, he had only a couple of close pals, and that was it. In Wichita he’d slept around a bit but hadn’t really socialized all that much. Then he’d found a steady boyfriend, and they’d had mutual friends, and that was fine. Until they broke up. Back in Bailey Springs again, well, there were the guys at the station, but he was their boss.
Noah was probably just as lonely. He was new in town, after all, and didn’t even have coworkers to hang out with.
Noah and Bryce enjoyed each other’s company. They could be friends, right? Bryce had straight friends. Except… he wasn’t attracted to those men. He didn’t imagine them naked, didn’t picture them when he jacked off, didn’t dream about them. Bryce could either fess up to drooling after Noah or keep his big mouth shut, but that elephant was going to be in the room whether he acknowledged it or not.
Maybe the best thing was to give up on Bailey Springs entirely. Move back to Wichita. Move anywhere. Because there was nothing to tie him to this dumb little town in the middle of a flyover state.
Nothing but history, blood, and memories. Nothing but his mother’s grave, the job he loved, the little speck of real estate he’d painstakingly made his own, and the Bernards—who were the next best thing to family.
Gasping for breath, he reached his front door. The Bernards. Maybe talking to Alma would help. He glanced at his phone and saw that it wasn’t too late, so he turned, jogged
down the porch steps, and headed south.
“BRYCE! WHAT on earth!”
“Can I come in, Alma?”
She tsked. “Of course, of course.”
Alma and Gene had decorated lavishly for Christmas, but not the way Owen used to. His décor had said Martha Stewart Living or House Beautiful; theirs said Walmart clearance bin. Not that Bryce minded. In fact he preferred the Bernards’ choices, which were gaudy and cheery and didn’t look like they’d bankrupt anyone. Even better, a lot of them were handmade by the Bernard grandchildren—mysterious conglomerations of popsicle sticks, cotton balls, construction paper, and tempera paint.
Alma led Bryce to the couch and gently pushed him onto it, then stood looking down at him with hands on hips. “Gene’s at his brother’s, playing cards.”
“That’s fine. Wanted to talk to you.”
“Okay. Stay put.”
While he caught his breath, Alma bustled around the kitchen. It looked as if she’d been enjoying a quiet evening at home. A glass of wine sat beside a splayed-open mystery novel on a small table next to her armchair. Flames crackled merrily in the fireplace, and the stereo system showcased Bing Crosby crooning about silver bells. Bryce walked over and peered suspiciously at the fire. “Alma?” he called. “When’s the last time you had your chimney cleaned?”
She came back into the room holding a laden tray. “September. We have it inspected every year.”
“And you always make sure the embers are completely doused before you leave or go to bed?”
“Sit down, Bryce. You’re off duty.”
She’d made him cocoa with little marshmallows, which she served along with chocolate balls that tasted of rum. “I’m going to end up too fat for my uniform,” he protested.
“Then buy a bigger size.” She sat in her chair and, after taking a sip of wine, fixed him with a sharp stare. “What are you trying to run away from tonight, Bryce?”
“I’m not. I was exercising.”