Burn

by Shey Stahl

  I can totally relate to her. “Maybe you should see Izzy Bizzy this afternoon,” I tease.

  Scarlet winks. “Only if you’ll help me stalk Shade in California . . .”

  She’s totally serious right now. “What did he say afterward?”

  Scarlet’s eyes lift to mine, disappointment flickering. “He said he’d call when he was in town next time.”

  Goddamn him. How dare he use my best friend?

  “Mila,” she sighs, knowing by the rage in my face what I’m thinking. “It’s okay. I knew what would happen when I got in that bed. I can’t expect a guy like him to fall in love with me after one night.”

  She’s right. She can’t, but still, after my weekend with Caleb, why can’t Scarlet be happy too? Is that too much to ask?

  After moving toward me, she puts her hands on my cheeks, kisses me on the lips and then pulls back. “I love you. Not in a sexual way, though if you ever want to swing that way, I’d totally try you out . . .” She pauses, laughs, and then continues, “You deserve to be happy. Let yourself be and don’t you dare think for one minute I’m not. I am. I’m happy for my friend that she’s in love, and alive and living with a boy who treats her with some goddamn respect.” She speaks calmly, tenderness in her words. “Happiness doesn’t come all at once for everyone.” Shrugging, she lets go of me. “And eventually, Shade’s going to call me because I won’t let him get away with not calling me.”

  There’s truth in her words. All of it. Even about Shade calling because Scarlet’s determined.

  With her palms on my cheeks, Scarlet makes me listen once more. “You will always be my best girl, Mila,” she says with a wink, then taps my lips with her index finger. “And my offer remains.”

  Laughing, I shake my head at her.

  There’s a knock at my office door before it opens and Caleb steps in with a pink and white box of cupcakes. Everyone’s making me fat these days. Pumping me full of sugar and sweets.

  He smiles when he sees Scarlet and holds up the box of cupcakes from Cupcake Royal. “There’s some in here for you too, Scar.”

  Near the door now, Scarlet looks over her shoulder at me. “I won’t tell him about our plan to become lesbians if there’s red velvet in there for me.”

  Caleb perks up as he takes a seat on the couch with the box on his lap. “I’m definitely ready to hear this conversation.” He nods playfully to Scarlet and hands her two red velvet cupcakes. “I get to watch, right?”

  “That depends. Can you track someone in California for me?”

  “No, but Kellan might be able to.”

  Scarlet taps her finger to her chin. “That won’t work. I slept with your brother and then didn’t call him back.”

  Caleb hands her another red velvet cupcake. “I like you more already.”

  Taking her cupcakes in hand, Scarlet tips her head at the door. “I must go. I need to see Ms. Izzy Bizzy about my soreness.” And then she limps her way out of my office, leaving Caleb and me alone.

  It’s the first time he’s been in here since we re-opened and I think I know why he’s here. Don’t you?

  “What are you doing here? I thought you were picking up an overtime shift this morning?”

  He doesn’t look at me. Instead, he pulls out a sticker from the pocket of his cargo shorts he’s wearing. “I got this for you.”

  It’s a Cupcake Royal sticker that says, “I am a frostitute.”

  Laughing, I take it from him and then reach for my own red velvet cupcake.

  We’re sitting on the couch together when he glances over at me. “I met Trevor. He said to tell you hello.”

  Unsure what he’s going to say next, I detect condescension in his words, but you never know with Caleb. “Oh yeah?”

  A shadow of alarm touches his face. “Do I need to worry about him?”

  Slowly licking frosting from my fingers, I steal a look at him. “No, I’m pretty sure my father made it clear to every one of our contacts I’m no longer friends with any of them.”

  After the fire, my father severed a lot of business relationships he had with clients he didn’t trust, including Shaw Investments.

  Trevor wasn’t a client but he apparently came to see me in the hospital, and my father laid into him letting him know nothing would become of our friendship if he wanted his business to survive in Seattle. And you’re probably thinking, how can an owner of a hotel have that much pull in a city to shut down a business?

  You’ve clearly never met Weston Wellington.

  Drawing in an aggravated sigh, Caleb frowns, wrapping his arm around my shoulders. “I’m having cameras installed in your office. I’m not taking any chances this time.”

  Deciding I need to distract him, I set my cupcake aside and then straddle him. “Why? So you can watch the footage of you fucking me on my new desk?”

  The unease falls from his face easily. “Damn right.”

  And then I’m carried over to my desk for a proper christening of my new office.

  Occupancy

  Zoning and safety code term used to determine how a structure is permitted to be used and occupied, which in turn dictates the necessary safety structures and procedures.

  2 months later

  When I leave the station on a call, I know there’s a very good chance something will happen and what I’ve seen that day will eat away at my soul. Mentally preparing yourself to face death, disfigurement, madness and disease becomes the norm, while working or not, it becomes normal after a while.

  Unfortunately for firefighters, it tears at our humanity, our compassion, and our ability to love freely and without guile. It destroys our abilities to have normal relationships, to tell someone you love them or give them the relationship they deserve.

  It doesn’t mean we don’t want to. It’s just because we’re feeling impending doom will always blind our words, consciously or subconsciously, and we act like tough guys to hide it.

  Some of us joke about the dead and make small talk of the mentally unstable ways we deal with it to disguise our hurt with bravado. The rest of us just cope and get through each day the best we can.

  Firefighting is more than a way to make a living. It’s a way of life. I know better than anyone nothing in life comes without consequence.

  “I no longer think about tomorrow. It doesn’t feel right. I think about right now and this moment because tomorrow I might be gone. I hate even planning for tomorrow because I’ve been let down so many times.” Jacey looks down at her newborn son, Easton, in her arms. Bringing his tiny hand to her mouth, she kisses his baby-soft skin. “But with him, I look forward to tomorrow.”

  I don’t think I ever thought about it until now—until seeing Jacey become a mother—but we’re all here for relationships and what they give you. We never really know why that is either. I don’t think we’re supposed to. Regardless, we’re born, we experience, and then we die.

  In that time, when we’re here for the relationships, attempting to make them work, every part of our being longs for love, we wish we had more time and ultimately, we fear death. It’s only natural.

  Jacey, and even me, two people who have experienced death so often, we don’t fear it anymore and time, it means nothing; it’s just a passing of experiences. We fear not making relationships work. But you know, I’ve come to realize no one person has it all figured out.

  Nothing’s elaborate about Easton Jacob Ryan coming into the world. He comes with a sense of peace, blissfully, tenderly, delicately played in his mother’s arms like the precious gift he is to her. It’s as if he’s placed directly in her life from heaven.

  A gift from Evan. A piece of himself he could never give her when he was present her life but holds significance now that he’s gone from it.

  Jacey wipes away her tears and then glances up at me, her eyes distant, and it’s like she’s falling through the sky with happiness but swimming in the ocean of guilt. She’s reliving a memory, silently, but mourning the loss of missing a future with
my brother. She’s healing and breaking all at the same time.

  Wrapping my arms around her, I hold her close to my side as she cries, mostly from the hormones surging through her, but mostly because he can’t hold her right now, and it’s the right thing to do. It’s what he would have wanted.

  When Evan died, I was angry that he left Jacey. He obviously had no control over it, but I was pissed that her happy ever after was destroyed. So yeah, I was angry.

  Seeing her now, holding her newborn son in her arms, maybe this is her happy ever after. Maybe Evan dying was her only way of getting it because we all know he would have fucked something up along the way.

  My mother had a garden growing up, always had, and she’d spend hours out in that garden tending to her vegetables and flowers. She used to save our leftover food and turn it into compost and I’d get so grossed out by it. “Garbage in a garden? Fuck that. I’m not eating anything from that garden,” I would tell her. Maybe not those exact words, but then again, maybe so. I’ve always had a mouth on me.

  She’d tell me, in her mother-loving way, “Caleb, even compost is beautiful. From this garbage comes growth and new life, a fresh beginning. Even in the worst of circumstances, there’s something beautiful. You just have to look past what you think it is—garbage—and see it for what it really is.”

  I was still grossed out by it, and I doubt I ate much of anything from that garden growing up, but I see her point now.

  Like I told Mila, happiness is accepting the fact that not all tragedies end in devastation. Sometimes new beginnings come from the embrace of forgiveness.

  Some things in our lives test our courage.

  Some test our strength.

  Some define our destiny.

  Mila walks into the room. Her eyes fill with tears as she looks at Easton in Jacey’s arms.

  My chest tightens when I see her It wasn’t long ago I was holding Mila like this, covered in bandages from the fire and the day I finally told her I loved her.

  Sometimes I want to go back to the day before the fire that killed Evan. I’d probably tell him all the things I should have when he was alive. Like that he was my hero. But I can’t. I won’t ever get the chance.

  Death makes you appreciate time, once you get past the initial I hate life and everything happy stage. That stage sucks and I was in it for years ever before Evan died. Only I wasn’t grieving death. I was grieving experiences. Relationships I couldn’t make work. Now, and I don’t know when or how it happened, I appreciate what’s in front of me. I think it all relates back to rescuing Mila. She showed me an unforgettable experience and made me believe in love again.

  For that reason, I’ll never let her go and I’m going to marry her.

  Most would think, dude, you’re nowhere near proposal. It took you three months just to give the girl your phone number. But honestly, when have you ever known a guy like me to play by the rules?

  My intention for taking Mila out on the water when we were in Alderbrook was to propose to her. But I didn’t. I don’t even know why. Maybe because I was scared I was rushing into it. For so long we had no definition because with definition came expectations I wasn’t sure I could fulfill. Now I don’t fucking care about expectations. I want to give her the definition she deserves. I want her to be my wife more than anything in the world. Looking at her now, holding Easton, I don’t know what I’m waiting for. We’re born, we experience, and then we die. I need to make the experience matter.

  I DON’T HAVE a plan to propose. Hell, look how long it took me to tell her I loved her, but I make it a point to get her alone in our apartment that night. Like how I threw our apartment in there?

  We moved in together last month and let Owen and Jacey keep the apartment. They weren’t together by any means but with the baby, Jacey needed extra room so I kindly moved across the hall with Mila. We’re neighbors with that little guy Logan now. You remember, the one who showed up at my apartment crying and I fed him? He comes over for Chinese food every once in a while and then his mom finds him and takes him back. I think he comes over because of me, but it might also be because he’s convinced Mila’s his girlfriend. Again, over my dead body.

  When we’re back from the hospital, I decide it’s time. No more fucking around. I sneak out while she’s taking a bath, head down to her favorite cupcake store and pick up a red velvet cupcake and then stick the ring I bought before Alderbrook in the frosting.

  She’s sitting on the edge of our bed, staring curiously at me holding a cupcake. “I got you something.”

  Her eyes find mine. “When did you get that?”

  “When you were in the bath.”

  She takes it, her eyes lighting up. “Oh, well thank you.” Peeling the edges of the wrapper away carefully, she takes a bite and I think to myself, shit, she just ate the ring. Maybe putting it in the frosting wasn’t a good idea.

  Mila notices something isn’t right the moment the ring is in her mouth, wide-eyes darting to mine.

  I put my hands on her shoulders. “This is the only time you’ll ever hear these words leave my mouth, but don’t swallow.”

  With a snort, she opens her mouth, digs out the ring and then licks the white cream cheese frosting off it. Sadly, with the way she licks the ring, my thoughts drift to the ring being my dick, momentarily.

  Holding the ring between her thumb and forefinger, she stares at it but doesn’t saying.

  I wait but she doesn’t say anything, her eyes flickering from the ring, to me, then back to the diamond. “Well?”

  “You’re not going to ask?”

  I shrug, my hands in the pockets of my jeans. “I don’t know. Seems cliché to stick with traditions.”

  She hands me the ring back and frowns. “Well I won’t say yes until you ask properly.”

  “Christ . . .” Shaking my head, I chuckle under my breath and slide down to one knee before the most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes on. “You’re demanding . . . but in the sense that I know you need to hear it, will you marry me, Milena Presley Wellington?” Emotion I didn’t expect wells up in her eyes and my throat, my voice breaking around her name.

  At first, she doesn’t say anything, but then she nods and holds a finger to my lips. “Under one condition.”

  I laugh. “And that is?”

  “You let me have your babies.”

  Hooking my hands around the backs of her knees, I bring her down on my lap. “Let’s start now.” With a smile, one that curves my lips against hers, I draw back after placing the ring on her finger and then lift her hand to my mouth, brushing my lips over her finger. Specifically, and tenderly, her ring finger now wearing my promise, a promise I’ve never given anyone else.

  Mila and I were married on Christmas Eve, one year after we met. There’s a purpose to tragedy, loss, devastation . . . it emanates from the broken. With it comes beauty. Why?

  It’s not even because in the face of it I learned how to put myself back together again.

  It’s because I found my soul in the process.

  Her.

  If you take away the source of fuel, eventually the fire will go out.

  My fire for her will forever burn.

  Shoulder Load

  The amount of hose a single firefighter can pull off a hose wagon or pumper truck and carry toward the fire.

  17 months later

  When I met Caleb, I remember thinking, don’t fall for a guy like him.

  Well, he made me fall for him. Even though he didn’t want me to, his personality, the firefighter who just kept coming back, determined to have me one more time trapped me in the flames until there was no means of escape.

  And then he gave me a ring and a baby girl not long after that. She’s the cutest baby in the whole world, Caleb and I voted, and she likes us, believe it or not. Even lets us sleep a few hours a night for our sanity.

  In many ways, Caleb still carries a burden on his heavy shoulders when he doesn’t need to. With eyes that hold emotion, he gives
me glimpses, and for the most part, I ignore those glimpses because he doesn’t want me asking about what eats at him.

  Fire can destroy everything. Love can destroy everything.

  There are times when you can’t give in. You can’t give up. Because if you do, what was the fight worth in the beginning?

  These things in your life, they happen to you and they change you. They do. Over time, they change you in subtle ways. Maybe it’s a different route to work because of a close call at an intersection. Maybe it’s never eating at your favorite restaurant again because of that rancid meat you had one time.

  My point?

  All that shit takes a toll on you. Your decisions, your beliefs, all different in some way. You may not see them, but others do. They see it when you tense up at that intersection, gripping the steering wheel a little tighter, slowing down. They show in the way you avoid the meat and order a salad.

  If Judah hadn’t cheated on me, I wouldn’t have sat on Caleb’s lap on Christmas. But he did, and I found Caleb.

  Because of the way I felt knowing Judah had cheated on me, I would never do that to Caleb. Ever. It changed me and the way I regarded relationships.

  Here’s what I learned from that. You can take any situation out there, and find a reason worth saving it. Maybe it’s independence, communication, trust, love . . . all worth giving everything you had to keep it.

  In a way, a very sad way, Evan’s death brought us together again and made us appreciate what we had. It made us question a few things. Having doubts didn’t make us feel better or even keep us safe. But it did teach us one thing: cherish what we have while we have it.

  Caleb once told me falling in love with me was dirty. It was. We were. But what the fuck is wrong with being dirty?

  Nothing is. Nothing at all.

  Maybe my reasoning isn’t what most would consider appropriate, but guess what, it’s all fucking mine, so piss off.