by Shey Stahl
Playful blue eyes find mine, winking. “Oh, I plan to, baby.”
At the bar, Mila orders a cranberry-ginger drop and I order three fingers of Basil Hayden’s Bourdon. I don’t drink much these days. Actually, this is the first time in a month I’ve had a drink.
It’s quiet in the bar as we stare out at the mountains surrounding the lodge, quietly talking about what the future holds for us when this chick at the table beside us insists on talking loud enough the people outside can hear her. I want to laugh because this reminds me of the night we met and the loud, obnoxious kid licking ketchup off his shirt beside us.
I tip my head toward Mila. “I’m going to tell her to shut up.”
“No, you’re not,” she tells me, her lips wrapping around the black straw in her drink.
“Watch me.”
Setting her drink on the coaster, her hand slaps over my mouth. “Don’t, Caleb.”
I take her hand away from my mouth. “I was enjoying a nice relaxing evening looking at the water with my beautiful girlfriend, and she won’t shut the fuck up.”
“Ignore her.” And then she distracts me with, “Do you think about that night at all?”
I don’t want to talk about this. I avoid it all together, but for her, I shrug and offer, “I try not to.”
Her eyes hold worry. “But I think we should.”
“Why?”
“I have nightmares about it.”
Guilt hits my chest, my muscles tightening. I hate that I can’t take it away for her. “They’ll go away eventually.”
“Do they?”
“No,” I admit. I shouldn’t lie to her because they never will. Some memories never leave you. They become part of you, the blood in your veins, the beat in your chest. That’s when you know you love someone. When it’s impossible not to see what they give you. I only hope she can see the light she gives me in the darkness surrounding her in those moments when she can’t forget. “But happiness is accepting the fact that not all tragedies end in devastation. Sometimes new beginnings come from the embrace of forgiveness.”
She’s quiet, my words wrapping around her, the flickering of the candle on the table shown through her uneasy eyes.
“Do you think you’re to blame for anything that happened that night?”
“You know I am, Mila. If I wouldn’t have got in his face, he wouldn’t have reacted that harshly.”
Dropping her eyes from mine, she shakes her head, staring at her drink of the table. “You don’t know that.”
I lean into her. “No, I don’t, but nothing you can say is going to take that away for me. It’s something I’ll always struggle with.”
“I know you will, and I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” I kiss her temple. “I have you now, and that’s all I care about. He didn’t win. I did.”
Mila has incredible strength. Who else could have gone through what she did with Nixon and be okay? I don’t mean physically either. She healed quickly but I think it had to do with her will. Her determination not to let what happened define her future, or our future.
I know fires. I know how they live, how they breathe, how to contain them, what they do, how they’ll react to the conditions in which we had them, and why they move the way they do.
Just the same, I know Mila.
This . . . fire . . . her . . . it’s my gift, and I didn’t look at it that way until recently, because she had that way about her to make me see through the smoke.
I could have had a different life, a less dangerous one.
But I didn’t. I chose this. Maybe because of what was taken from me before I knew any better, or maybe because it was in my blood to do so. I think in many ways, firefighting chose me when I survived that fire at two.
Because of it, I saved Mila’s life.
She saved mine, too.
Mila’s the life I thought I could never have.
I TAKE HER to dinner at the small restaurant inside the lodge and it’s a nice romantic evening until that lady from the bar earlier shows up, talking just as loud as she did before.
I mean, honestly, does she have no sense of volume control?
She’s talking about how it’s her birthday and she’s here celebrating, but I’m just fucking annoyed. “Why does she have to be here too?”
Mila giggles, covering her mouth with a napkin and chewing her bread slowly. “Stop it. Just enjoy my company.”
“I’m trying.” I nod, winking at her and shift in my chair to slouch to one side. “Talk dirty to me.”
Mila never backs down from anything. Now won’t be any different. Her eyes dart around the room, a tender smile forming. Setting her napkin on the table, she reaches under the table, removes one of her heels and then slides her foot up my leg.
“You like that, Daddy?”
I laugh, thinking of the lap dance she gave me. My dick stirs to life—how can it not? Every little move she makes turns me on.
Just as I’m about to take her foot in my hand and show her just how much I like it, our waitress comes by and everything goes downhill from there.
And happens rather quickly.
It starts by Mila jumping at the waitress’s question and you can imagine what happens next. Or maybe you can’t so I’ll just tell you. She kicks me in the balls.
Her hand flies to her mouth. Mine knocks her foot away and then cups my balls that might as well have been kicked up into my gut because that’s exactly how it feels. “Goddamn . . .” I breathe out, or try to.
“I’m so sorry!” Mila reaches across the table for my white-knuckled fist. “So sorry.”
In the process of her reaching for my hand, she knocks over the candle next to her which then catches her napkin on fire.
I can’t make this shit up if I tried to.
“It’s a good thing you know a firefighter,” I say, shaking my head before dumping my water on the napkin.
When it’s steaming, I glance at Mila. Despite what just happened, she’s a gorgeous chaos. God. Damn. Chaos never looked so adorable.
The waitress is still standing there, looks at me, and then Mila, who bursts into a fit of laughter and holds her stomach. “Is she okay?”
I wave the waitress off. “Go away.”
I know, rude, right? I can’t help it. Not only am I still in pain, but I can see under the laughter, Mila’s moments away from crying and I don’t want this ruining the evening for her, despite how much pain I’m in.
Standing, or trying to—I’m a bit hunched over—I take Mila’s hand in mine and make her stand with me. Her eyes cloud with emotion, but it’s her shaky inhale that catches my attention.
“You okay?”
She nods and wraps her arms around my neck. “I’m a little embarrassed that just happened though.”
“Don’t be. One of the things about you that I love the most is how unpredictable our time together is.”
That earns me another laugh. “Unpredictably crazy.”
“I love your crazy.”
Company
Two or more firefighters organized as a team, led by a fire officer and equipped to perform certain operational functions. Compare with platoon and unit.
Though the trip has been a complete disaster, Caleb takes me out on the dock our last night here. I think it’s a dumb idea, but he insists I go with him.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” I warn, careful of my every step, fearing at any minute I’ll be taking a plunge into the water. “I might fall in the water, and you’ll have to rescue me from drowning.”
“I’ll be sure to slip you tongue when I give you mouth to mouth.” Caleb teases, pressing his lips to my temple. “Close your eyes,” he whispers in my ear, wrapping his arm around me. “I’ll guide you.”
I let him because I trust him. The dude could tell me to jump off a bridge and I’d trust the bastard would catch me before I died. That’s how tight our bond has become.
“We remember certain experiences for a reason.” Caleb press
es his lips to the side of my head as we walk. “I want this one there as a day you spent with me.”
“You mean the day I set a tablecloth on fire with a candle, was bit by a duck, and covered in hives from massage oil?”
He laughs. “Yep. Exactly like this.”
Opening my eyes, I shake my head. “Nice.”
“Keep your eyes closed,” he whispers in my ear, moving to come around to stand in front of me. I do as he says and his hands drop from my hips. “Okay, open.”
When I do, his smile is warm.
My eyes drop to his hands. In his palm is a gold lock and key.
“In Paris, they have this thing called a Lock of Love. The key is thrown into the water to symbolize an unbreakable love, and the lock is chained to a fence.” His breath comes out like steam as he laughs lightly.
Immediately I’m crying.
Turning the lock over, he shows me what’s engraved on it. We’re everything we can’t control. Together we burn, her desire, his fire.
He holds the lock up. “Usually the lock is put on a fence or something like that. I don’t really know the details, but it represents a symbol of unbreakable love.”
Though I’m not sure where this is going, and I certainly don’t want him throwing the lock away because I love the quote on it, there’s something incredibly romantic about this moment, so I keep my damn mouth shut.
“I say we keep the lock. A reminder of our unbreakable love.” He holds it grasped in his palm, fingers closing around it. He nods to the water. “And we throw away the key.”
I don’t know if you can hear a heart fluttering like unicorn tummy tickles but mine just did.
I nod, agreeing and we look over the dock as the key hits the water and he whispers in my ear, “I love you.”
His lips trail across my jaw, stopping in their path to kiss my lips and forehead, his nose delicately nudging against mine. “You make me burn, in a good way, in a way that I found parts of me in the aftermath and, in you, I found a love I no longer believed was real.” His lips are there next, brushing lightly against mine, soft and featherlike.
For someone who rarely said what he felt he sure has a way with words, doesn’t he?
When he finally closes the distance, pressing gentle kisses to my lips, a sigh of contentment falls from me. My hands soon find their place in his shirt, where I fist the fabric in my hands. “I love you,” I tell him over and over again.
It’s times like this when the truth behind what we know and what we feel gives way, and we’re left with what we need. Words we need to say. Parts of our lives we need to feel. And more importantly, what we need to believe. We need to believe in this.
There’s also a point when we’ve had enough. Enough pain, enough sadness, and enough loss.
Caleb smiles at me, his eyes searching and pulling me in. He inhales again, deeply, searching for words. Or maybe he has them and he’s searching for how to say them to me.
“What now?” I ask.
He waits and then glances at the water, then back to me. “Do you want to know why I haven’t proposed to you yet?”
I’m completely caught off guard by this one. We’ve only been seeing each other since December, and here it is, July, and he’s talking about proposing now?
I nod slowly, unsure what else to do because I won’t deny I’m a bit excited as to where this is going.
“I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately, and I want nothing more to make you my wife, especially with how dangerous my job is. I just think the words marry me seem like nothing compared to what I feel for you. A ring, a piece of paper, that’s not what you need. You need me. You need us. But if it’s marriage you want, I’ll give you that. To me, it’s not about tying myself to you in every way but being with you in every way. There’s a difference. You just say the words, tell me what you want, and I’ll do that. If it’s marriage you want, I’ll get down on my fucking knees right here and beg for your hand. Just tell me what you want.”
“I want you.”
Most people don’t believe you choose who you fall in love with.
I’m one of them. But I do believe in how you love someone.
There’s no fairy tale. Life is what you make of it.
Sound familiar? It should. It’s in countless works of literature and even commercials for Nissan and Chevy trucks, but you never think about what it really means until you’re forced to.
We were forced to.
Until we were everything we couldn’t control.
Until we burned, her desire, his fire.
Loving someone doesn’t have to be perfect. It just needs to be with someone you can burn with.
I CAN’T SLEEP that night. I don’t know why, maybe because of what tonight has given me, but I think about his words on the dock and their meaning.
I glance down at him wrapped around me. I can tell by his breathing he’s still asleep, his pulse against my belly. He shifts a little, and his scruff tickles my tummy. I giggle softly, a whispered smile, a breath of contentment that we were here, together, loving, feeling, and dealing with what life has handed us.
Silently twisting into each other, we tangle, turning on top of the sheets as he pins me to the mattress. I feel bare when he looks at me like this but incredibly beautiful. Like I’m a portrait on display being raved about.
Curving his finger under my chin, he tilts my chin, and my gaze finds his. A smirk greets me. “You want my dick, don’t you?”
Leave it to him to turn a tender moment sexual. I fucking love it.
Licking his lips, he looks at me like he’s about to speak. I blink and swallow, afraid of what he might say. Pushing his thumb over my collarbone and over my chest to my heart and the puckered skin of my scars, my eyes hold his.
Caleb leans in so our noses and foreheads are touching before kissing me softly. “You’re beautiful,” he says softly, kissing my scared skin. “And I’m sorry for these.”
“Don’t be.” It’s not the first time, nor is it the last time he’s going to apologize for that night. I let him because it makes him feel better.
I don’t hate my scars. Beauty isn’t defined by great skin. Don’t get me wrong, it pisses me off I was burned so badly wearing a tank top isn’t ideal, but it doesn’t dictate how I live my life.
What happened—and everything that happened between Caleb and me—it changed the dynamic of our relationship. If I’m honest, I would say that this, between us, is a work in progress and might never be what it needs to be or even what some would consider healthy, but that’s okay. It doesn’t have to be. I want his demons and the destruction that comes with it. Some would say that’s bullshit and we can make it what we want, but they’d never met Caleb Ryan or been through what we have. It’s not up to them to decide what’s right for us.
BACK AT WORK on Monday, I can barely keep the smile off my face when I’m walking inside the hotel that morning.
Everything seems perfect, and there’s even breakfast waiting for me in my office. Not from Caleb. His idea of breakfast would be me with my head between his legs drinking his protein.
The pancakes on my desk are from Henry, our cook, with a note that says, “Today’s special. Let me know what you think.”
He’s always making me food. While he’s enthusiastic about his inventions, I think he’s trying to fatten me up and then eventually I’ll find myself in a dungeon where he throws lotion down to me and I apply it faithfully. Wait . . . no, that’s a movie, isn’t it?
Same difference though.
It took four months from the fire for us to be able to open the doors at Wellington Plaza again. It took me three just to be able to do any work at the hotel with the medical issues I had, but I still worked nearly every day from my laptop.
In many ways, I felt responsible for the fire, but my dad and I kept pushing on and didn’t let it destroy his and my dream. For a while I thought to myself, is this my dream? Do I want to one day run this hotel? Maybe there’s something to steppin
g back and doing something less demanding.
The moment those thoughts surfaced, I thought of Caleb and what he does for a living. He makes me try harder, be better and for that reason, I kept going, because giving up wasn’t an option.
I’m in my new office, eating my blueberry and honey pancakes, on the first floor this time with Scarlet sitting on my couch. Though this is a familiar situation, one I’ve longed for over the months with my best friend, a lot has changed between us.
She’s no longer a maid. Girl got promoted after my dad fired Heather.
She also fulfilled her lifelong dream of sleeping with Shade Sawyer. Last night actually.
It’d been a while since Shade stayed at the hotel. I’m sure you can imagine why. Various reasons. Mostly because we were down for renovation with the fire, but I think in some ways, he was afraid to return after what happened the last time he was in Seattle.
But he did return and found his way between Scarlet’s legs when she presented herself, naked, in his room. I may or may not have given her the passcode to the newly remodeled penthouse suite.
“How’d he seem?” I ask, waiting for her to tell me every detail, but starting with how Shade was handling life. Last time I saw him he was crying.
“Fucked up, but whatever. It was still fun. How was your weekend with the firefighter? He knock you up yet?”
I smile, the memories of our last night and the lock flooding my brain. “Maybe.” I laugh, teasing. Caleb always uses protection so no babies just yet. I still plan on making him give me some though.
I motion to her vagina. In an attempt to make my next question more apparent. “Was it everything you hoped it would be?”
Scarlet shrugs, never appearing overly excited about anything, and then a wide smile cracks her face into a beaming glow. “Fuckin’ right it was. It’s no wonder that motherfucker has an endless stream of women in his bed. Dude like that needs to share his gifts.”
Tossing my napkin on my plate, I shake my head at Scarlet. “I can’t believe you.”
“Look at this!” Scarlet stands up, carefully—she appears almost sore—and lifts her shirt up over her head to show me her hips and neck. “He gave me all these bruises and marks. I’ll wear them like bandages of Shade.”