FOURTEEN
ARCHER
A couple of days after my conversation with Darcy, I was back at the firehouse for my shift, once again standing outside Chief Abrams’s door. If I was going to comply with Darcy’s demands—and of course I was because what choice did I really have—I was going to need time off. As a rule, that was something I never did. If anything, I always worked overtime. Asking for Thanksgiving off felt dirty. Not only was it last minute, with Thanksgiving being next week, but it was a holiday. The whole situation rubbed me the wrong way, but it didn’t matter. I wanted the lieutenant position more than anything, and to get that, I needed Darcy’s help. If this was the cost of her help, I’d pay it tenfold.
When she left me sitting at breakfast for twenty minutes before she’d decided to show up, I’d almost gotten up and left. Making things up to her wasn’t worth the hassle, and I didn’tjump through hoops for anybody. But then she walked in, a gleam in her hazel eyes, a slight pep to her step, and I knew she was late on purpose. If she wanted to play games, I could too, which is how I ended up suggesting Harrison’s crazy joke as an actual proposal. It was hands down the craziest thing I’d ever considered, and I ran into fires for a living. But maybe that was why I’d suggested it. Without a doubt, this was a plan that had every possibility of burning me, but the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to do it. Besides, it was worth the expression on Darcy’s face alone.
“Mack? I don’t remember hiring a sentry to stand guard outside of my office.” Chief Abrams shot me a wink and elbowed me in the side as he opened his door and walked into his office.
“I was hoping to talk to you for a second. If that’s okay?” I asked, still standing in the doorway like an idiot.
He waved me in and I closed the door behind me, taking the seat I’d used the last time I’d been in here.
“What can I do for you?”
He was in a good mood, which was the best-case scenario considering the request I was about to ask for.
Deciding to get to the point, I spit my words out quickly. “I need to ask for some time off.”
Abrams face fell, his dark eyes filling with concern. “Is everything okay?”
Crap. I clearly didn’t phrase that well, and now I was worried that asking for time off without it being an emergency was going to be a mistake. Offering him a small smile I corrected myself. “Yeah, everything is fine. It’s just . . .” Here goes nothing. “My girlfriend was hoping I could go home with her for Thanksgiving, but she didn’t tell me until a couple of days ago. I wanted to ask you in person because I know it’s last minute and it’s a holiday so—”
He held up his hand, effectively stopping my uncharacteristic instance of word vomiting. “I didn’t know you had a girlfriend.”
I shrugged. The best lies were woven with threads of truth, so that’s what I did. “Well, it’s relatively new, and I’m a private person.”
The chief’s laughter boomed through the small office space, which was made louder by the closed door. He pointed a finger my way. “That you are! But that’s great news, Mack. You taking Thanksgiving off is no problem—I actually think it’ll be good for you. Especially considering what we talked about.” He shot me a knowing look.
“Are you sure? It’s one of our busier days,” I asked, hesitantly. This had gone far easier than I expected, and part of me was waiting for the other shoe to drop. Is this what happened when you didn’t take days off?
“I’m sure. We’ve got plenty of hands on deck, and I wouldn’t mind getting out there if need be—it’s been a while.” A sternness crept into his voice when he said his next words. “I want you to take the time, Archer. Go visit with your girlfriend’s family. It’ll be good for you, I promise.”
A moment later, I left his office and headed toward what functioned as our living room, the chief’s parting words, and what they insinuated, bouncing around my head.
***
Orange and yellow flames licked along the curves of the metal, the blue paint of the sedan blackening and giving way to bare steel. Black smoke billowed out of the exploded windows, and the tires had popped, the car sitting on its rims, as the rubber started melding to the asphalt. The air was a cacophony of smells—fuel, rubber, smoke, leather—all burning together. Not that Icould smell it as clearly through my mask, but I knew what it smelled like as surely as I knew my own name.
The second Ralph brought the engine to a stop, the other guys and I jumped out, and began rushing around, everyone doing their assigned jobs to get us ready to extinguish the fire that was steadily burning not twenty feet away from us. I rushed to the hose, Ryan hot on my heels, as we began pulling it toward the burning car, the front end of which was smashed in a “U” shape around a tree. The heat rolling off the car as we neared was intense. It was like that first gust of air from opening an oven that had been at four hundred and fifty degrees for thirty minutes, except hotter still and it never cooled off.
When I felt Ryan brace himself firmly behind me, and shout a solid “ready,” I gave a final glance around, making sure everyone was in position, then pulled the lever. Water blasted out of the nozzle, and the kickback sent my shoulder jerking back into Ryan briefly before I was able to right myself. Steam danced with smoke, swirling and twisting around each other in a violent dance. It was beautiful. The flames fought wildly against the steady onslaught of water, but it was a losing battle. Slowly, the fire began to burn less bright, less intense, until it was snuffed out completely, and only a white-grey smoke remained.
We stayed on it for a few more minutes, making sure no embers were still burning, then I cut the water supply, and it was done. Well, the fun part was done. We’d be on scene for a while longer, making sure the fire stayed out, and bystanders steered clear of the car that was still far too hot to approach.
Ryan clapped me on the back as we walked back towards the engine. “Nice work, Archer.”
“Thanks. You too.” I returned his smile, though mine was a few notches less aggressively happy.
For a while, the guys and I hung around, mingling with the cops on scene while we all waited to clear out. The police hadalready gotten the statements of the couple in the car, who were promptly transported to the local hospital afterwards to be more thoroughly checked out. Their initial assessment was that they were fine, unlike their car whose sole hope for life would come in the form of getting melted down and repurposed, but they’d opted to go to the hospital to be safe.
Eventually, the tow truck showed up to haul away the decimated remains of the vehicle, and we clambered back into the truck to head to the station. At this point, the adrenaline and thrill of it all had subsided from my body, leaving me quiet and on the wrong side of hangry. As the engine took a turn, my body leaning to the right with the momentum, I formulated my plans for the last six hours of my shift. Debrief, eat, shower, and then try to get a couple hours of sleep.
When I got off, I’d go home, shower again to try to get the lingering burnt rubber smell off me, and go back to sleep. Then it would be time to pack, because in four days, I was going to be stuck in Darcy’s car, on the way to her parents’ house.
She’d described her travel plans in earnest to me once I’d told her that my time off had been approved. We’d leave Wednesday and drive the six hours back to Massachusetts, getting in a little before dinner time. She promised the only requirements for us that night would be to say hello and eat dinner. We’d spend the next day helping prepare food for Thanksgiving dinner that evening, and doing “other Adler family things”—whatever that meant—and then Friday we’d help decorate for Christmas, because of course they were those kinds of people. Saturday morning we’d wake up, eat, and head home.
It was only four days. I could do four days surrounded by people I didn’t know, playing pretend with a woman who got dangerously under my skin every chance she got, with a mouth that was absolutely going to get her in trouble.
