“Nobody but you wants to ingest that shit,” Noah remarks, then offers me a sheepish smile when he realizes he’s pushing his luck as far as allowable levels of snark are permitted. “Uh, with all due respect, of course.”
I ignore him and slam the fridge shut, turning to address Evan. “He’s already got half the city convinced that we’re nothing but a bunch of taxpayer-funded calendar models. Now he’s earned even more legitimacy.”
“On the bright side, though,” Noah chimes in, “Lila told me we hit a new donation milestone this weekend. So, not everyone hates us.”
I can hear her voice circling through my mind.
“It’s simple, Hale. Attention equals sympathy equals donations equals positive press equals public pressure equals the councilman backing off. That’s how PR math works.”
I’ll believe it when I see it.
But I’m not in the mood to run it through with my fellow Save A Hero stars, so I change the subject.
“Reyes, you transported a patient to Mount Sinai last night. Do we have an update on that?”
Evan cringes. For the most part, when the EMTs hand their patients off to emergency rooms, there’s no point in following up. Not unless it was serious injuries and they need a more thorough report from us.
Last night, around one in the morning, I was responding to a kitchen fire—because there’s always a fucking kitchen firesomewhere in Manhattan—when Evan rushed off with some of the crew to respond to a space heater that had exploded in a woman’s studio apartment.
“Second degree burns all over her face and neck,” he explains. “Nearly got her eyes, too, but thank God the lady covered them with her hands in time.”
Noah grimaces. “Burns on her hands then, too?”
Evan nods. “She’ll be fine, though. She was pretty lucid when the ambulance arrived. She even cracked a joke about getting to ride in ‘the most efficient taxi in the city.’”
I may be a tad antisocial, but humans will always fascinate me. They’ll go through terrifying things and still manage to laugh. Often, it has a lot to do with adrenaline, but the ease with which so many people manage to look on the bright side of things is the most astounding aspect about this career.
“Most expensive taxi in the city is more like it,” Noah jokes.
We all hum in agreement.
Noah lopes off a moment later to help change the oil in one of the engines. Evan gives up on his burrito and excuses himself, murmuring something about a medical supply restock.
I’m left standing there in the silence, almost wishing we would get a call so that I could be distracted from the thoughts crowding my head.
I know this PR campaign is necessary, and I trust that Lila wants to do a good job, but I don’t know how much longer I can stomach being in the limelight as the captain of the most scandalous fire station in New York.
I also don’t know how much longer I can endure being in such close proximity to Lila Hart without making another foolish mistake. Like the one I made the night of the gala.
The one that I keep dreaming of making over and over again.
***
By the time I get home, it’s late afternoon. My shift ended hours ago, but I lingered at Station 47, burying myself in paperwork like it could drown out the restlessness gnawing at me.
Eventually, I dragged myself out before the Hawk could swoop in and question why I was still there, off the clock, like some damn rookie avoiding his empty life.
My apartment greets me the way it always does: spotless, silent, and utterly fucking lifeless. I toss my keys onto the entry table with a clatter that echoes too loud in the void, then pause, ears straining against the low hum of the fridge and the distant growl of city traffic seeping through the windows.
At the station, it's constant chaos—guys shouting over each other, lockers slamming, alarms blaring like a punch to the gut. Here? Nothing.
Most days, I tell myself I crave the quiet. Today, it just amplifies the hollow ache in my chest, like a fire smoldering under ash, waiting for a spark.
I stalk down the hall to the bathroom, stripping off my uniform as I go—shirt, pants, briefs hitting the floor in a careless heap.
The antsy feeling coils tighter in my gut, a tension I can't shake, don't want to name. But I know what it is. Who it is. Lila.
That smart-mouthed blonde with her green eyes and freckles, the one who's turned my world into a goddamn pressure cooker without even trying.
