“Get up!” he yelled. “Get dressed and get out.”
“It’s just a false alarm again, I’m sure,” she said.
She tossed the covers back and they were both grabbing clothes and throwing them on, finding shoes, snagging their phones, Jocelyn her purse with it, and out the door.
People were slow to move and it was driving him insane not everyone was taking this seriously. As they sprinted toward the stairs he was pounding on doors for people to move.
“Chance,” she said. “People are going to be pissed.”
“I’d rather they be pissed than dead,” he said firmly. “Jocelyn, this is my job. Get everyone down those stairs now.”
He turned after he had pushed her toward the stairs. “Where are you going? I’m not leaving your side. There isn’t any smoke. Not that I can smell, can you?”
He couldn’t, but that meant nothing. “Move.”
He went back to the other side of the hall and pounded on more doors, saw people coming out and not happy over the middle of the night alarms.
When he turned to go back toward the stairs, assured everyone was leaving with him, even slowly, the doors opened on the floor they’d just passed, someone wet and cursing.
“Damn sprinklers are on on my floor.”
He went to turn and go back to that floor to check it out, but Jocelyn grabbed his arm. “Don’t you dare. You’re not in gear and the sirens are getting louder. The trucks are almost here. Let them do their job.”
He’d had no one other than his grandmother care about him before. He wanted to argue with her but let her pull him down the stairs knowing she’d stay if he did.
“It’s hard for me to walk out.”
“Too bad,” she said, yanking his arm to follow her. “I’ll stick to your side if you go back in unprepared. I already get skittish over it now and that will make it worse. Is that what you want?”
It was the first she’d made a comment that his job bothered her. He wasn’t sure how to carry that weight.
“I still don’t smell smoke, but there has to be some if the sprinklers went off.”
When they got outside, him yelling at people to move faster a few times, Jocelyn grabbed his arm and pulled him toward her garage. He knew she’d go stand in there out of the elements since it was chilly out and the middle of the night.
The firetrucks came barreling in, the manager waiting for them and not in a hurry, which said again, it wasn’t anything major.
Chance stood back some but not in the garage where Jocelyn wanted to go. He wanted to hear what was going on.
But by standing there, the firemen on duty noticed him right away, and Jocelyn standing by him.
“Guess you did kind of announce it in your way, didn’t you, by not following me to the garage?”
Which told him exactly what she thought of what they had.
She really didn’t want anyone else to know and he wondered if he could be with someone long term who was embarrassed by him.
22
WAS PROMISING
“You’re in a mood,” Jocelyn’s brother said to her the next morning. She got here early, Chance leaving after the firetrucks left.
She didn’t go back to sleep, just lay there staring at the ceiling wondering what was going to happen next.
They’d hit a pivotal point last night without even trying and now she was trying to figure out how to balance while she teetered side to side.
“Didn’t sleep much last night.”
