“Night, Fireboy.”
I don’t hang up right away. I wait until I hear his quiet chuckle, the soft rustle of his pants, the faintest sound of his breathing still steady on the line.
Then I hit end call and stare at the ceiling for a while, wondering why this anonymous, disembodied voice makes me feel more seen than most people I’ve actually met.
The glow from the streetlamps outside is enough to spill across the hardwood floor, catching on the mug I abandoned on my windowsill earlier. I pull my hoodie over my head—oneof those worn, oversized ones with a stain on the cuff—and pad barefoot toward the window, still feeling a little lightheaded.
It’s snowing again.
Big, fat flakes drift through the glow of traffic like they’re not in any hurry to hit the ground. It’s the kind of snowfall that makes the city feel quieter than it is. Like everything’s holding its breath.
I curl into the corner of the windowsill, cradling the mug in both hands, and let the last of its warmth bleed into my fingers. The tea’s lukewarm now, but I sip it anyway.
Something about the quiet and the hum still thrumming beneath my skin makes everything feel suspended. A self-aware moment in time that needs to be enjoyed. I get these sometimes, these moments when it feels like the world stops spinning and I can look at myself in the exact moment I stand. They’ve happened sporadically ever since my parents died four years ago.
Sometimes I wonder if it’s a weird little glitch in the space-time continuum—like my mom’s actually here, ghosting a kiss onto my shoulder. Just like she used to when I was younger.
Other times I wonder if I’m just fucking miserable and it’s my brain alerting me to the need for serotonin.
But this time, I wonder if it’s my brain taking stock of all these interactions with Fireboy, and trying to tell me something else. Maybe to stop, maybe to keep going, I haven’t decided yet.
We met on one of those apps.
A match-making thing. Not one of those big dating ones—a newer app calledBanter, where you use text and audio first instead of judging someone off a photo. 'Where banter comes before bullshit', that's their tagline.
I’d set up a profile on a dare and used the handleRedRiot, because apparently sarcasm and ginger hair are my two coretraits. I wasn’t expecting much beyond a few cringe intros and maybe an ego hit.
Then he messaged.
Fireboy, with a string of perfectly timed one-liners and a wicked sense of humor. We flirted in texts for days, an endless circle of joking and teasing, until one night, he sent a voice message. Just ten seconds, but something in me lit up.
His voice was husky mixed with mischief. Warmth crackling through winter.
We’ve kept it light and anonymous—just voices, late-night messages, nothing that asked for anything real. He’s careful not to tell me where he works, just somewhere in emergency services, somewhere in the sprawl of the GTA.
I don’t push, but I’m not stupid. Between the talk of shift rotations, the mention of smoke smell in his hair, and how he once accidentally divulged the exact weight of a damn axe, I know he’s a firefighter.
And okay, it’s not like I don’t have some context. My sister Tamara married pro hockey player, Elijah Parnell. Hometown hero, general overachiever, and alternate captain for the Colorado Storm, where he and my sister are now based. They were high school sweethearts, back when we all still lived in Maplewood—a small town on the Oak Ridges Moraine, about thirty minutes north of Toronto.
His dad used to be the fire chief there, and the whole station is basically stitched into their family tree. I’ve spent enough years in that town, and enough dinners around the Parnell’s table, half-listening to dispatch stories and gear jokes, to know when someone’s speaking fluent firefighter.
And some of what Fireboy says lines up a little too well, not to mention he’s not exactly been subtle with his username.
But I’ve never asked him outright. Didn’t want to know too much, didn’t want to scare him off.
Didn’t want to scaremyselfoff.
I scroll through our text thread, smiling at the mess of it. Half filth, half unfiltered thoughts. Every message is teasing and cocky, but a little soft around the edges if you know where to look.
I tap on one of his older voice notes, the one where he called me Red for the first time.
It wasn’t even sexual, just a reply to something ridiculous I’d said about hating oatmeal raisin cookies.
“Careful, Red,” he’d said through a laugh. “That’s the kinda talk that’ll get you blocked.”
I must’ve replayed that one a hundred times, and I let it echo through me again as I press the mug back to my lips, and stare out at the snow-dusted street below.
My phone buzzes loudly in my lap.
