* * *
I sat bolt upright in bed gasping for breath.
I looked around, delirious, until I realized I was in my own bedroom. It was still dark. A quick glance at my phone showed that it was only three in the morning.
My hair was wet with sweat.
I sighed and fell back on the sheets. I stared up at my ceiling as my heart hammered away in my chest.
That had been the most intense dream I had ever had. Every second of it had felt so real. So vivid. The ache below my belly told me my body had been enjoying it as much in real life as it had in my dream.
I slipped a hand beneath the waistband of my shorts. My fingers grazed my clit and were instantly soaked. I closed my eyes and traced a circle around my swollen clit.
I needed to see Hayden soon. Very soon. I thought of him every waking hour, and now I dreamed about him at night. I wanted him to do the things to me in real life that he had done in my dreams.
I wanted him to use his mouth, his fingers, and his cock. I wanted to come with him inside me.
I bit my bottom lip as my body strained for a release. Apparently, an orgasm in a dream didn’t reach me in real life. All my muscles were tight. I pressed down hard on my clit and came within seconds.
I held my breath and let it roll through me.
When I was done and my fingers were soaked, I rolled out of bed and went down the hall to the bathroom, where I washed up and wet a cool face cloth. I wiped my face and the back of my neck and went back to bed feeling a little more refreshed.
And hoping that I might be lucky enough to dream about Hayden again.
21
Hayden
Trace tossed his paddle down on the ping pong table and threw his hands in the air. “Victory is mine!” he cried before turning a slow, dramatic circle and taking a sweeping bow.
The rest of us clapped slowly, chuckling as Allen rolled his eyes and pushed his paddle into Maddox’s hands. “It’s on you to knock him down a peg, rookie. Be useful for once, will you?”
Maddox spun the paddle in his hand, all cocky attitude and no class. “Bring it on, Trace.”
Trace planted his hands flat on the ping pong table. He arched an eyebrow. “You sure look cute with that paddle in your teeny tiny little hands.”
Derek snorted beside me and leaned back on the kitchen chair he was in. “Ten bucks on Trace.”
“You’re on,” I said, nodding at Maddox. “I’ve got money on you, kid. Don’t let me down.”
Trace plucked his paddle off the table and served. The two of them went back and forth for a while, and it was obvious that they were evenly matched. Trace trash talked Maddox, who threw it right back at him with less wit. It wasn’t his fault. He was young.
When they were closing in on the end of the game, Derek nudged my ribs. “How’d your date go with the mom?”
“Stop calling her that. I’ve told you her name is Mel.”
“It went that well, huh?”
“What?” I asked, confused.
Derek chuckled. “You’re defending her. You really like her, don’t you?”
I rolled my eyes. “Is it that obvious?”
Derek grabbed my shoulder and shook me. “I know you like the back of my hand, man. I can see it written all over you. Don’t be embarrassed. Love gets the best of all of us sometimes. Except for me, of course. I can’t be tied down by one woman.” He sighed and clasped his hands behind his head.
I laughed. “All right, Casanova.”
Allen interrupted us by cupping his hands to his mouth and calling out, “Game point!”
The ping pong game captured mine and Derek’s attention once more. Both Trace and Maddox were so focused on the game that their brows were creased, their jaws were locked, and their knuckles were going white as they held the paddles.
Maddox served the ball across the net. Trace wound back to strike it back.
And then the fire alarm started screaming.
We all leapt to our feet. The paddles hit the floor, and the ping pong ball bounced across the kitchen and rolled under the fridge. By the time it struck the back wall, we were already out in the garage, suiting up.
Derek swung up into the truck. Rinehart got in beside him. We all loaded in the back of the cab as the bay doors rolled open. Derek pulled out of the drive and down the street as the address of the fire was broadcasted through our radio.
A duplex. Four units. Two stories. Called in by neighbors.
It wasn’t a good sign if the neighbors called it in. Usually, that meant the home didn’t have working smoke alarms, or the people inside couldn’t get past the flames to get out of the house—or get to a phone.
Best case scenario: nobody was home.
But with four units, there was a slim chance that nobody would have been inside when the fire started. There were a couple common culprits, such as a cigarette in a waste bin, a grease fire that got out of hand all too quickly, or a candle flame catching a drape or falling upon a carpet.
I was getting into the zone when Maddox’s voice muttered from behind me, “So, since I was ahead, does that mean I won the game?”
“There’s no real winner if it gets interrupted by a fire. You’ll have to have a rematch when we get back.”
“But—” Maddox started.
I held up my hand. “Rules are rules, kid. You’ll just have to beat him again. I’m sure you could do that, right?”
Maddox shifted and his gear creaked. “Yeah. I guess so.”
“Good.”
It took us four minutes and fifty-five seconds to get to the fire. I spotted the smoke climbing into the sky when we were ten blocks away, and the closer we got, the higher the column stretched upward, like a hand clawing upward for more air.
More air to feed the flames.
We were out before the truck came to a complete stop. We worked to pull out the hoses and attach them to the closest hydrant. Neighbors had gathered around and were covering their faces from the heat that wafted off the building.
The fire was an inferno.
It raged furiously, sending flames out of shattered windows to lick the siding of the house. Rinehart was there, assessing, and I awaited my orders to go in.
Somebody on the other side of the street screamed that there were people missing. Somebody might be inside.
My stomach rolled. Rinehart needed to give the order now. By my calculations, there was no air left in that place that human lungs could breath. It would be too hot to withstand unless somehow the people inside had managed to block themselves off from the flames. Even that was unlikely. When a fire got this big, it destroyed everything.
Rinehart gave Derek and me the signal, and we ran across the front yard. The others came up behind us, using the hoses to break some of the walls of flame down for us.
I stepped over the threshold of the first unit and climbed the stairs straight up to the second story. Derek was right behind me as heat swallowed us. I was sweating profusely already. It dripped down my brow and nose.
I pushed down the hall, which was barely intact. The drywall had all burned away. The kitchen was empty and so were the one bedroom and bathroom. The living room was burning too fiercely to enter. If someone was in there, there was nothing we could do for them.
We moved out and back down the stairs, minding where we placed out feet, and rushed to the next door to take the other upper level. It, too, was empty.
Then we moved into the unit on the bottom right. That was when I started breathing in smoke. I coughed and waved it away from my face as we pushed in deeper and deeper, until my path was blocked by the unmoving body of a woman in a charred tracksuit.
“Fuck!” I pointed down at her for Derek and then motioned for him to get her out of the house. I knew she was dead. Nobody survived the wounds on her body or breathed in this smoke for as long as she had and lived to tell about it.
I didn’t look back to see if Derek had listened to me. He would.
I moved in deeper, cou
ghing up a lung, until I found the charred remains of another person in the bedroom. A man. Her husband or boyfriend perhaps.
I went low to try to get out of the rising smoke. I’d been inside for too long. I should have pulled out. I should have got fresh air before coming into this unit. My lungs burned, and my eyes started to sting.
But I had to get the body out of there. At least then, the family would have something to bury.
I took a knee, tucked my arms under his armpits, and started dragging him backward. I coughed the whole way. My vision darkened around the edges. I knew all the signs of pushing myself too far, but I was already in too deep. I had to keep going. Keep pushing.
I hadn’t made it halfway down the hallway when a part of the ceiling above my head collapsed, raining down charred pieces of wood and hot embers. A piece of timber broke across my shoulder and tore my jacket.
The heat inside the unit burned at the torn part of material.
I gritted my teeth. Only another twenty feet or so and I’d be clear of this.
Then I could see Mel.
I kept dragging him.
Then someone grabbed my shoulder. Derek had come back. We locked eyes for a brief second, and then he grabbed an arm, and we both pulled the body down the hall. More of the ceiling caved in around us. Bursts of flame shot out as the fire now had access to dry materials up above and on the floor. We skirted it and kept going.
Just a little farther.
We burst through the door and crossed the yard. My legs felt like lead. They were so heavy.
Derek grabbed the front of my jacket and hauled me out to the sidewalk. I hadn’t realized that I was still fucking coughing.
My suit was smoking. Someone threw water on me and Derek.
Derek took off his mask and helmet and did the same to me. “Hayden! Hayden, are you all right? Fuck, man. I thought you weren’t coming out.”
My lungs screamed with agony. I couldn’t find my voice to tell him I was okay. My throat was burning, and everything hurt.
Rinehart appeared on my other side. His eyes were concerned. “Miller. You all right?”
“Get out of the way!” a familiar female voice yelled. “Medics coming through.”
Derek and Rinehart moved aside as two medics, both of whom I knew by first name, rushed over to me. Joshua and Claire. They were good at their job, and I was in skilled hands with them. As soon as Claire hit her knees on the ground beside me, she clamped an oxygen mask over my nose and mouth.
Her eyes flicked back and forth between mine as she calculated my state. “Let’s get you laying down, Hayden. You took in a lot of smoke.”
She and Joshua put me flat on my back on the sidewalk.
I found myself staring up at the bright blue mid-afternoon sky. It was stained with thick black clouds of smoke billowing upward. I could hear the rush of water and the roar of the fire as my team worked to put it out. I should be on my feet helping them, not lying here on my back like a turtle.
I tried to sit up, but Claire put her hand in the middle of my chest and pushed me back down. “Oh no you don’t, champ. You’re not going anywhere.”
I wanted to argue with her, but the edges of my vision were getting darker and darker, and the ability to control my breathing left me. My breaths became shallow so as not to hurt my aching lungs, and the fight to keep my eyes open was lost.
I was enveloped by a quiet stillness, and it carried me away to a place where I could no longer feel the pain.
22
Mel
I glanced at the clock above the stove. We still had two full hours before the restaurant opened for the dinner hours, and Tara and I were having a good time experimenting with a new dish to put on the menu. It was a pan-seared halibut recipe with a pineapple glaze and plenty of garlic. I thought something was missing, so we’d played around with a couple different things, and I still hadn’t gotten it quite how I wanted it.
And we’d made a hell of a mess of the kitchen.
After popping a piece of fish in my mouth, I nodded. “This one is the best out of the four we’ve made so far. What do you think?”
Tara nodded. “Yeah, but you know, I don’t know about this whole pineapple thing. I like it with the fish but not with the garlic. Are you hellbent on keeping the garlic?”
“I’d like to if I can,” I said.
“What about orange instead then?”
“Instead of pineapple?”
“Yeah.” Tara nodded.
I tipped my head to the side and considered the suggestion. “It could work. Let’s try it. We probably have time for one more go at getting it right.”
Tara and I bustled around the kitchen, moving around each other like we had perfected some insane dance routine. As we worked, we chatted and giggled, and eventually, she asked me if I had talked to Hayden since we went on our walk down to the pier.
“Maybe a little bit,” I admitted.
“Oh? Define a little bit.”
“Well, we’ve talked on the phone the last two nights. But that’s it. He’s been working, and I’ve been busy, so we haven’t had time to meet up again. But I think we’re going to.”
Tara put down the orange she was about to cut up and put her hand on her hip. “I beg your pardon? After all that fuss, you actually want to see the man again?”
I giggled and looked away. “I definitely want to see him again.”
Tara laughed and shook her head at me. “Don’t tell me I never did anything nice for you.”
“I’d never say that.”
“I know.” She shrugged. “So, what do you guys talk about while you’re on the phone?”
I licked my lips. “Anything and everything?”
“That’s my girl.”
I put more oil in the pan before taking another piece of fish out of the fridge. “He’s just so easy to talk to. I can talk to him about Kylee, and I don’t feel like I’m boring him. And he asks me questions about her, too. Like he actually cares. And we laugh a lot. He’s really funny, actually. And—” I stopped when I caught Tara giving me a funny look. “What is that look for?”
“Girl,” she said slowly. “You’re gushing over him.”
I blinked. “I am not.”
“You are too.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
“Of course not! It’s a great thing. I’m happy for you. It’s about time you spent time with a guy who sees how awesome you are—and how awesome Kylee is. Not only that, but he seems genuinely sweet and smart, and those two things very rarely go together in the male species. Know what I’m saying?”
I chuckled. “I hear you. I guess I should also tell you that we have plans to get together this weekend too. He invited me out, and he wants me to bring Kylee this time.”
“Really?” Tara asked, eyes wide with excitement. “What are you guys going to do on this little outing?”
“Well, he won’t tell me actually. He says it’s a surprise. But apparently, Kylee will love it.”
“Have you told her yet?”
I shook my head. “No. And I’m a little nervous about it. I don’t know why, but it feels like this is a really big step for me and her. If I invite her out to hang out with him, then there’s a risk she might get attached. And if things don’t work out, I don’t want to have to take him away from her. Does that make sense?”
“Of course it does,” Tara said.
I sighed. “And that really sucks.”
Tara nudged me with her hip and then started slicing the orange. “Listen. Just because there’s a chance that things might not work out down the road doesn’t mean you shouldn’t just see what happens. You can’t protect her from everything, Mel. Sooner or later, she’s going to have to learn these lessons for herself.”
“Yeah. But isn’t it my job as her mother to protect her from this sort of hurt?”
Tara arched an eyebrow at me. “It’s also your job as her mother to show her what a healthy, loving relationship looks like.”
&
nbsp; “Touché.”
“You wouldn’t, by any chance, be using Kylee as an excuse not to get too close to this guy for fear of your own heart getting hurt, would you?”
I hung my head. “Maybe just a little bit.”
Tara pointed her knife at me. “Well I get it, but cut it out. That’s how you’ll ruin a perfectly good thing.”
“Yes, mother.”
We kept working to perfect the new fish recipe. As it was searing, I sprinkled on a bit of brown sugar. We finished up with the new recipe, and once the fish was cooked, I cut off a bite for each of us. I handed Tara a fork, and we both put our piece in our mouths at the same time.
Tara nodded slowly. “Oh yeah.”
I covered my mouth as I chewed. After I swallowed, I nodded too. “Yep. I think that’s it. Way better than pineapple. Good suggestion, Tara.”
She grinned. “Thank you.”
Then we set to work cleaning the kitchen before my chefs and line chefs showed up for their shifts. It took us a good hour to get everything back in order, and I’d just finished wiping down the counters when Joey strolled in. “Good afternoon, ladies,” he said in his deep, jovial voice. “How are you?”
“Good,” Tara and I said in unison.
“Smells great in here. Oranges?”
I nodded. “We were playing around with new recipe ideas, and I think we might have found one. You and I will have to carve out some time next week to go over it, and I want to make a couple changes to the menu next month. Just to keep things fresh.”
“Good idea,” Joey said. “You just let me know what time works best for you, and I’ll make it work. You’ve got that little girl, so I’ll adjust to your schedule.”
I smiled. “You’re the best, Joey.”
“You’re right. I am. Now the two of you get out of my kitchen. I have things to do.” He waved us away with a hand towel, and we left giggling to go sit at the bar and have a drink before the restaurant opened. The staff rolled in one after another, and I said hello to each and every one of them. The waitresses and hostess made sure the tables were set up and went through a rundown of the evening.
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