Denny
Denny’s heart beat way too fast as he drove to the twins’ place. He was trying to fix the situation in his head already, without all the facts, and he realized he should probably talk about it with Dr. Jarvis. Denny was a fixer. He didn’t often throw his money around, but this might be a situation that called for it. Except, he’d need to tiptoe a bit, because the twins were proud and with the issues they had, they couldn’t go just anywhere. It must’ve also been traumatic to come home to whatever it was—“Okay, okay, I really need to calm down now.”
Luckily, he managed to beat the traffic and go around the neighborhood to get to the duplex. He had to park a few houses over, because there were still emergency vehicles in the front and he didn’t want to box them in.
He walked to the ambulance on the curb, and saw Drea sitting at the end with an oxygen thingy under her nose.
“Oh kiddo,” he breathed out, and as soon as she locked eyes with him, she burst into tears.
He opened his arms questioningly, and she nodded. He took the couple of steps separating them and eased her into a hug. “It’s going to be okay, kiddo. The cavalry's here, okay?”
He heard a car door slam somewhere nearby, and then Josiah was there, kissing Drea’s temple. He gestured at Denny who nodded. He could handle one twin, Josiah was going to check on Yolanda.
The EMT smiled at them and handed over some tissues that Denny took and gave to Drea. “Come on, blow your nose. Take the thing—yeah, like that. Uh-huh, now put it back.”
His instructions were making her smile, which was what he was going for anyway.
“Thanks, Denny.”
“Anytime, kiddo.”
Running steps approached, and then Nelson was there, obviously worried to death as he hovered behind Denny’s shoulder.
“Drea,” he said, sounding choked-up as he took stock of her appearance.
“You okay here, kiddo?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Nelson’s here so….” She flushed even under the soot stains on her cheeks, and Denny stepped back to give them space.
He glanced around and saw Josiah and Yolanda by an SUV, talking to who must’ve been the fire chief. Yolanda had a blanket over her shoulders and Josiah’s arm around her.
Denny sidled up to Josiah. “Hey, what’s the situation?”
“It looks like Old Guy—I mean Mr. Gill fell asleep with something on the stove,” Yolanda murmured, clearly heartbroken.
“Yes, and based on my experience, the gasses would’ve led to a quick loss of consciousness in someone with his age and health condition,” the man—Fire Chief West, based on his name tag—said.
“What’s the condition inside their side?” Denny asked, looking at the charred remains of half the building. It was a miracle it was even standing.
“I would caution them not to go close to the north wall, the one adjacent to Mr. Gill’s side, but the rest should be fine if you want to try and salvage things. There’s bound to be water damage, we had to put the roof out.”
One of the firefighters walked up to them. “I’ll grab a couple of the guys and we’ll come inside with you to get whatever you need, okay? Most of your stuff needs to be cleaned. We can recommend a dry cleaner and there’s a place that does ozone cleaning too, if you want that.”
“Okay, okay, that’s….” Yolanda seemed a bit overwhelmed and Denny couldn’t blame her.
In the next hour or so, they gathered things and the firefighter who had offered them help—his tag said Bailey—had clearly taken a liking to Yolanda. He was attentive to her in a way that everyone but Yolanda herself seemed to catch. Even Drea, shaken as she was, smiled a little when he hovered nearby just in case as they loaded the remainders of the twins’ possessions into the available cars.
Once everything was done, the emergency vehicles had left and the neighbors who had come and gone throughout had given the twins their condolences and offers of help that didn’t quite seem genuine, they all stopped by Denny’s car.
“So, what do you want to do?” Josiah asked the twins.
“I don’t know,” Drea murmured. She seemed much better now, but they were all bone-tired and shaken.
“If money wasn’t an issue, what would you do right now to make you feel safe?” Denny asked the only thing that mattered from his perspective.
It seemed to occur to both Yolanda and Drea at the same time that they needed to find a safe place to stay. They looked at each other and did their silent communication thing they so rarely resorted to in this company.
“Anything at all?” Yolanda asked quietly.
