The one who was worth it had blocked him from her life.
19
Blue was burning up. The heat was rising in the hallway of the apartment building as his firefighters fiddled around with the door, trying to make entry into the unit that was on fire. Stone and Wade were off on vacation, and the two guys filling in were brand new and apparently had never seen a simple apartment door before. Nikolai was out at the pump panel, pumping water that they would need—if they ever made it inside.
Every second that passed, Blue’s discomfort climbed. His guys would have had the door open, the fire extinguished, and the residents moved back in by now. But Blue had to give these new guys a chance to do it themselves before jumping in and taking their tools away.
The increasing heat was just too much like his life since the skybox incident. Even after nine days he was still burning up about it. Lucy hadn’t returned his texts. Hadn’t even seen them as far as he could tell, and every call he made got the same unavailable pre-recorded message.
Ten more seconds, Blue told himself as the two new guys struggled with the Halligan tool and sledgehammer, trying to force the lock.
He still couldn’t get the headlines and quips from the news stories out of him mind. “Former New Mexico State Standout Blue Reed puts the hurt on Lobo fans intent on trashing Dad’s skybox.” “Six dozen hospitalized after rivalry turns ugly.” “NMSU Athletic Director to step down after mascot scandal in his skybox.”
The media always got the story wrong—firefighting had taught him that—and this time they’d left out the biggest character in it. Lucy. That was a blessing. He didn’t want her name and reputation dragged through the mud and criticized in every online forum as his father’s had been. In small part, blame was being put where it was deserved—on his dad. Jesse’s little punk lawyer friends had so far escaped unscathed. They’d taken a good beating from some fans and would probably come out on top once the lawsuits from both sides went through.
The way the situation had ended up for everyone, and especially his relationship with Lucy being severed at the head, made him growl with anger. That and the ineffective actions of his current crew. They were cooking like tri-tip in a smoker here and these guys were playing patty-cake with the door lock.
“Just bash it!” yelled Blue. The door was already smoking on this side from heat applied on the other side so there was no use trying to salvage any part of the door itself. They just needed to get in there and put some water on the fire so it would stop spreading. There were two stories above this one, and in this kind of building with large common hallways, evacuations could be tricky.
The young firefighter, Maxwell, was slapping at the doorknob with the sledgehammer as if he was afraid he was going to hurt it. At this rate, Blue and his crew would be sitting in this hallway when the building was a pile of cold embers. Enough sitting around and waiting for these booters to figure it out.
“Give it to me,” said Blue, stepping up next to one young firefighter.
Reluctantly, Kendall held out the sledgehammer. Even through the mask, Blue could see the kid’s reluctance. At least Kendall knew enough to realize that Blue was about to do his job for him.
Blue grabbed the sledgehammer and flexed his hands around the handle, feeling his smile stretch from one edge of his face mask to the other.
“Get that nozzle ready and stand back!” Blue ordered, then he took aim at door knob, pulled back and focused all of his pent up anger in the head of the sledge. The doorknob flattened under the blow and the door hasp came free of the catch, but something big and heavy blocked the door from flying open. Flames and the accompanying heat licked out from the narrow crack.
Blue drew back again but this time hit the door on the hinge side. All three hinges came loose, but again, something in front of the door prevented it from flying across the room. Someone had planned this fire and didn’t want pesky firefighters to get inside and extinguish it too quickly.
There were other ways into this apartment, and nothing was going to keep Blue and his guys out. With the head of the sledge, he signaled the wall a couple feet from the door and his guys readied the nozzle. Blue went to work on the wall, bashing it like a kid with a piñata.
Seconds later, fire poured through a two-foot by two-foot hole in the wall.
“Hit it, boys!” called Blue, stepping out of their way. The hallway was really hot now, but the water being applied by his men would take care of that soon enough. Blue was sucking in huge breaths from his air tank, feeling so much better after bashing through a wall and finally facing the beast that had eluded him.
If only there was a wall between him and Lucy that a sledgehammer would work on.
The fire was out and the investigators were inside doing their thing, working out the details of how the disgruntled resident who was being evicted had lit the place on fire instead of moving away. Blue, Nikola, and the two young firefighters were outside loading hose back onto the engine.
The new guys were on the ground feeding the hose up to Blue and Nikola “I’m flying back to New Mexico in the morning,” said Blue.
“Oh good,” said Nikola. “It’s about time you and Lucy put aside your petty arguments and make up.”
“Petty arguments?”
“Petty,” repeated Nikola. “Puny. Paltry.”
“Yes, congratulations on learning alliteration, but you don’t know what you’re talking about.” Blue had told him everything that had happened and shown him the video and the commentary and news coverage. How could he claim that dozens of people being injured, his dad being fired, and Lucy blocking him from his life was insignificant?
“Hold,” called one of the guys from below, and Blue and Nikola each took a knee to give them a minute to make the hose coupling connections below.
“I see this every day in America. People making fights over stupid, inconsequential things.”
“This is not stupid or inconsequential,” insisted Blue.
“Ready,” called the guys from the ground.
Nikola and Blue began pulling the hose up and laying it in layers again. “In my country,” said Nikola, “people fight, they die, they kill. If you are a Serb and I am a Bozniak, that is enough reason for us to kill each other. So when I see people act like sports rivalry is a real reason to hate or to treat another person badly, I cannot condone it.”
“This isn’t about Lobos and Aggies, Nikola.” Blue hadn’t heard him open up about life back in his country very much before. Apparently on the top of a fire engine, hours after dark, was as good a place as any for deep conversations. “I … there’s more than just …” More than just what? Blue didn’t want the divide between him and Lucy, and no matter the cause, he just wanted it to be over.
“Last brass,” called Maxwell, handing up the end of the hose.
“Petty,” said Nikola.
Blue was inclined to agree with him, but that didn’t mean he knew how to make anyone else believe it. “The trip to New Mexico isn’t for that,” said Blue, wishing more than ever that it was. “I have to talk to the police again in Las Cruces. And my dad’s lawyers.” Blue wasn’t in anyone’s crosshairs, but they all wanted to talk to him to figure out exactly what had happened and build their cases, whether for or against the Reed family.
As Nikola climbed down the back of the engine he said, “Maybe someone will figure out how to make things better instead of worse for once.”
“We can only hope,” said Blue, turning to dismount.
He could only hope.
20
Lucy couldn’t believe that what Blue’s dad had said was true. After ten days, Blue still hadn’t called or texted anything new. Just that final message about them being done that had made her want to throw her phone across the room. Of course, when the news broke about his father resigning as Athletic Director and police still considering charges against Jesse Reed and some of the other men involved, she understood how serious it was.
It made sense that Blue
didn’t want anything to do with her, but the way he’d just cut her off completely and left her out in the dark was still hard to swallow.
So she went to work and did her job and tried to think of ways to make amends for the people who had been hurt, but kept coming up empty. Charges were being pressed against the people who had started the fight and destroyed property. The only thing Lucy could really think of to help the situation was to refuse to press charges against anyone.
Beth, Sheila, and Jazmine—all loyal Lobos, though not as rabid as Lucy—were furious at first and pushed her to sue, but once Lucy explained where she was coming from, they had backed off into supporting roles, and helped keep her spirits up. Going out with them a few times over the last week and a half had been a lifesaver for Lucy. That and a bunch of exercise to try to keep her mind off it all.
The university was covering the hospital bills of the people who’d been injured, but it still killed Lucy that she’d been the trigger of it all. If only she could go back and change that one decision
Lucy hadn’t been able to avoid the coverage of the event entirely, but she’d avoided what she could. It was just too painful to watch. That guy who had filmed the whole thing had put it up on YouTube. Part of Lucy wanted to see everything and know everything, but a big part of her knew that she’d see Blue, standing back and not coming to help her. Whether he was laughing along with his dad, or just too bored, or whatever, she didn’t want to see it.
Then she’d see him suddenly decide to step in and suddenly become her protective Hulk, barreling through guys in the skybox, then leading her through the crowd like a bulldozer, then once she thought he was done for and was going to be torn apart, emerging explosively so that he could lead her to safety again.
She didn’t want to relive the sense of being abandoned.
She didn’t want to fall in love all over again.
It seemed contradictory that she could feel both of those simultaneously, but nothing made sense ever since the stupid skybox decision.
Lucy’s cell phone rang and she grabbed for it like a falling woman reaching for a handhold. Then she relaxed. It wouldn’t be Blue. Not at this point. Not after so long.
Chato. That was weird. He hadn’t called her since she’d gotten home from Peru. What was wrong? What else could possibly go wrong?
“Hello?” said Lucy.
“Lucía,” said Abuelita, then launched into a string of Spanish too fast and unexpected for Lucy to follow.
“Abuelita,” said Lucy, switching her mind into Spanish mood. “Slowly. Please.”
She translated in her mind as Abuelita said, “What is going on up there? I saw the videos from the university. What is going on with you and Blue?”
Also in Spanish, Lucy responded, “Well, nothing really. Ever since … well, you saw it. No, his father and I talked and he hates me, and basically Blue doesn’t want anything to do with me.”
“Oh, you forget all about his father,” said Abuelita in her confident, colloquial Spanish. “You think anyone wanted your little princess of a mom to get involved with the son of immigrants? The Rhoades were like some sort of royalty in Albuquerque and here she comes and falls for a guy who barely speaks English.”
“Sounds like she had a hard decision to make.”
“No,” said Abuelita immediately. “Her decision was easy. It was already made because she knew she could fall in love with whoever she wanted. It was her family that had to decide if they would keep loving her.”
Having grown up much closer to her mother’s side of the family, since they lived in the States, Lucy had never heard the story from this angle. She knew it was a rich girl-poor guy story like Rose and Jack from Titanic, but until falling in love herself, it hadn’t meant so much to her. Money wasn’t an issue between her and Blue, but family sure was.
Abuelita was still talking and Lucy had to rush to translate it all into English so she didn’t fall behind. “You are going to have a hard time with that Mr. Reed. I saw him in the video. Imagine punching your own father.”
“What are you talking about?”
“In the video,” said Abuelita. “Chato showed it to me.”
“On YouTube? Wait,” Lucy wondered if she’d misinterpreted. “Golpear?” she said in Spanish. “Un puñetazo?”
“Of course,” said Abuelita. “A punch in the face.”
Lucy still couldn’t believe it. “Blue gave his dad a punch in the face? Why?”
“Well, girl, because he was trying to stop him from rescuing you. Don’t tell me you haven’t watched it.”
That explained a lot but also raised a lot of questions. At least now Lucy knew why he’d taken so long to come to her aid once things took a bad turn. But why would he go so far as to punch his dad in the face, only to completely turn his back on her and ignore her? Lucy’s phone was working; she’d checked it over and over, but he hadn’t responded to a single text and he hadn’t called her. She was going to have to watch that video after all.
“No, Abuelita. I couldn’t bring myself to watch it. I shouldn’t have been up there at all. The mascots are supposed to stay down on one corner of the field.”
“Garbage,” said Abuelita. “You made a bad decision. No one can blame their decisions that were far worse on you.”
“But people got really hurt, and a lot of property was damaged, and Blue’s dad was fired.”
“More garbage.” Abuelita was hearing none of it. “Did you punch anyone?”
“No.”
“Tell anyone to start a revuelta?” Revuelta? The word was unfamiliar. Oh, it was a revolt or a riot.
“No.”
“Throw chairs?”
“No, Abuelita,” said Lucy. Apparently the story had reached South America in full.
“That is right. So stop blaming yourself. Make your apology and move forward in your life. And talk to Blue. At least talk.”
“But he won’t return my calls or texts.”
“When your grandfather courted me, we didn’t need phones or emails or any of that. When Blue fell in love with you, it wasn’t because of a text.”
Could Lucy really do it? Could she approach him face to face when he’d made it so clear that he wanted absolutely nothing to do with her? After that text about how he wanted her to leave him alone forever, how would he react to seeing her in person? It could be very, very awkward.
But everything had started with a bad decision on Lucy’s part, and like Abuelita said, she needed to apologize, then move on. And until she knew that Blue had heard her apology and acknowledged it, even if he couldn’t accept it, she’d never be able to move on and forgive herself.
“I’ll do it,” said Lucy. “It’s going to take a few weeks to get a trip to Utah together, but I’ll go, and I’ll make him see me.”
“Chica,” said Abuelita. Girl. She went on in Spanish. “You can’t wait three weeks. Find a way to go sooner. Find him, before he starts thinking he can live without you.”
“But I can’t take any more time off work after that trip to Peru. I’m stuck here in New Mexico.” Maybe she could swing a Friday night to Sunday trip. Her bank account would let out a death rattle, but two days was more than enough to show up and make him listen to her apology.
“Then get him to come to New Mexico or catch him when he is there. Don’t wait.”
Lucy was still making flight plans in her head when Abuelita said, “I love you, bye,” and ended the call.
“Adios,” said Lucy into the dead phone.
There was no time to waste. It was Tuesday and there was no way she could go any sooner than Friday. A quick internet search brought up airline tickets for $300. She could swing it, but she wouldn’t be able to afford to eat once she got there. But Friday was three days away and after talking with Abuelita she didn’t think she could wait that long to see him. Driving was a cheaper option, but at ten and a half hours each way, it would have to be a there and back trip. So many options, but none of them good
W
ait. The YouTube video. Abuelita had seen what Lucy had experienced through a vision-obscured helmet. Abuelita knew why Blue hadn’t come directly to her aid, and there was more behind it than Lucy imagined.
At YouTube.com she searched “Lobo Lucy at NMSU” then reluctantly added “fight”. The first search result was what she was looking for, what she’d been avoiding, but the title called it a riot instead of a fight. Just don’t read the comments, she told herself as she clicked Play.
And there she was, standing in the skybox as a group of five or six guys surrounded her. The guy with the video was standing a ways back from the door so he couldn’t catch the entire scene, but she could see Blue coming to stand next to the man she now recognized as Mr. Reed and two other, smaller men. He only stood there for a few seconds as the men’s taunts grew more vicious and lewd. Thankfully the audio on the recording couldn’t pick up what they were saying.
Just as the men started spinning Lucy around by twisting her shoulders, Blue came forward, but one of the short men with Blue stepped in front of him and put his hands on Blue’s chest. Blue side stepped and the guy put his hands out to still block him. Blue spun like he was trying to get past a lineman, but the other short guy was there blocking him.
Even from the grainy video, Lucy could see shock on Blue’s face as he looked at his father’s friends or associates or whatever they were to his father. When his eyes came back up to look at Lucy in trouble, they grew wide and he put one hand on each man’s chest and pushed. They tumbled back like bowling pins, but as Blue stepped forward with murder in his eyes, his shirt collar clothes-lined him back.
Blue’s dad had a hold of Blue’s collar from behind. He was much closer to Blue’s broad stature and had been bracing for the impact. Lucy couldn’t hear what he said but she saw his lips moving. She also couldn’t see Blue’s face, but for a long second or so he looked at his dad. Maybe he said something back, but it seemed as if there was only time for recognition of who had horse-collared him.
Sparks Will Fly: Park City Firefighter Romance: Station 2 Page 13