“Jesus, Mav, do you need to go home?” Logan asks as I walk out of the stall. He’s standing there in a towel, soaking wet. I knew someone was in the shower when I rushed in here to heave up that lobster roll I ate before my shift started, but I didn’t have an option to do this anywhere else.
“Nah. I’m good. Just… nerves,” I say with a shrug and walk over to the bank of sinks and turn the cold water on full blast. First I splash it on my face and then I drink from the faucet to wash out my mouth.
“Nerves? You still do that? Like, a lot?” Logan’s stern expression says he’s unconvinced I’m okay.
When I was a kid I had what the doctors called a nervous stomach. Growing up, my life was more than a little unpredictable and I used to puke if I was really stressed or scared. Logan and Finn knew about it because I’d upchucked in front of them before. A lot. “Nah. But, you know, I just changed my whole life, so I guess it was bound to happen.”
Oh and this morning I almost kissed your sister on the beach but then spent the last several hours spiraling over the fact that I might have impregnated her sworn enemy and my ex-girlfriend, so there’s that.
“You look pale,” Logan says as he studies my face. “You sure it’s not more than nerves? Flu maybe? You’re never pale.”
I glance at myself in the mirror again. He’s right. I’m olive skinned so for something to make me pale, it’s serious. Potentially knocking up an ex is pretty damn serious. Logan of all people would be the one I should tell about this since River was an unplanned pregnancy. But Aspen told me to keep my mouth shut.
I catch his eye in the long mirror above the sinks. I’ve always been jealous of how the Hawkins kids look like their parents. You can visibly link traits to both Lucy and Charlie in each kid. I don’t look a lick like my mom. She’s fair skinned with medium brown hair and pale hazel eyes, narrow lips and an upturned nose. The only thing darker than my skin is my eyes, and the only thing darker than my eyes is my hair, which is jet black. My nose is straight and narrow, my lips full. I must look like the accidental, unknown sperm donor. But if you took a quick glimpse at Lucy and Charlie Hawkins you could pick out their four kids in a group of hundreds. Logan and Finn have their dad’s chestnut hair that turns golden with enough sun and their dad’s light blue eyes, strong jaw, and rugged build. Declan has a Charlie face but with Lucy’s lighter hair and dark eyes. Terra got Lucy’s dark eyes and her fair hair, and height, but there’s Charlie in her wide set eyes, dimpled chin and freckles, which he had when he was younger too.
Terra.
I physically shudder at the idea that I may have to tell her I got Aspen pregnant. It’s crazy that I feel worse about that than telling anyone else. It felt like something was finally happening with her this morning, but that’s impossible… right? She just broke up with someone. I just got back to town. That alone would be enough to say the chemistry, the pull between us at the beach, couldn’t be real. But itfeltreal. And right. But if she knew Aspen might be carrying my kid, she’d be even colder and more emotionally blocked off than she was before I left three years ago. And she would likely stay that way forever if the kid is mine. Suddenly the idea that I may have to go all my life without ever telling her how I feel seems ludicrous. Why the hell did I leave it so long?
“Dude… let me get my kit and check you out,” Logan says.
I shake my head, making sure to hold his eye when I do it but not daring to speak. I don’t want to tell him about this until I talk to Aspen again. I didn’t have her phone number, because she’s changed it in the last three years, and I’m not even sure if she’s at the same apartment she was when I left and I didn’t have time to drive by and find out. So since I can’t see her or text her, I’ve sent her emails. Fourteen of them since last night, all begging for more information. She hasn’t answered one of them.
“You’ve been a firefighter since you were twenty-one. You’ve worked this exact station and you were a lieutenant back in King’s Rock for a year so that role’s not new either. This shouldn’t make you stressed, buddy,” Logan claps my shoulder. “And you know this town like the back of your hand.”
It’s sweet he’s trying to give me a pep talk. I wish this was my real issue because it would make me feel better. To be fair, it is something I worry about, just not my biggest worry anymore. “Yeah, I know. I’m good. I swear.”
He doesn’t look like he’s convinced but he nods and makes his way over to the lockers and changing room. I head for the door to leave but pause. “Hey, how’s it been being a dad to River? I mean now that you’re…”
“Not so drunk I don’t remember I have a kid?’ Logan finishes that sentence way more bluntly than I would have. He grins to let me know he’s okay with his own bluntness. “It’s great. He is the best thing I ever did. Even though it means I have to deal with the wrath of Bethany for the rest of my life, I wouldn’t give him up for anything.”
I smile. Logan looks so proud right now. So fulfilled just talking about River. I want to cling to that, make it a reason to hope that would be me if Aspen’s baby is mine, but then I remember Logan had good roots. Charlie and Lucy are solid parents. He knows how to be a good parent because he was raised by them. I’m the kid who was essentially raised by no one and everyone and has no foundation for this. That’s a big part of the reason I have never wanted kids.
“Jake? You’re pale again.” Logan pulls on his underwear and a T-shirt.
Logan will be able to talk me off this mental ledge I’m teetering on. I know Aspen doesn’t want anyone to know but I need to tell someone. I need support. Logan is also not a gossip. He’s in Alcoholics Anonymous so he understands and values privacy. If I told him, he wouldn’t tell a soul.
“Something… might have happened and I just…” The alarm starts echoing through the entire building. Logan rushes to throw the rest of his clothes on as I sprint to the door and make my way down the hall to where the firetrucks and my gear are.
The dispatcher’s voice booms through the intercom. “Structure fire. Apartment complex. 19 Union Avenue. One Truck and ambulance required.”
Shit. I know that address.
I charge down the hall to the engine bay and scramble into my gear like everyone else. Logan and his partner are jumping into their rig as I climb up into the firetruck. Our firehouse serves two towns. Ocean Pines is the smallest. The town next door, Old Orchard Beach, is the biggest and it’s where the fire is.
We get there quickly and see fire spitting out the broken windows of one apartment unit. The one above my ex-girlfriend Aspen Barlowe’s apartment. At least it was her apartment three years ago before I left town. Does she still live here? I fucking hope not.
We all jump off the rig and Captain yells orders. He has me on lead to go into the building with Ronan and Murphy. Dan and the others are working the truck and hose. I flip the switch in my brain that I have to, that I’m trained to, the one that has me walking into a burning building following all the rules, procedures, practices that I’ve been taught and not worry about personal problems. It locks up the part of my brain that wants to be freaking out that my ex, who may or may not be pregnant with my kid, might be burning to a crisp.
There’s a crowd of tenants already on the grass but no Aspen. Maybe she moved? Three years is a long time. We start a floor by floor sweep of the building. Because the fire seems fairly contained to one unit and the main sprinkler system is raining down on us, we split up to cover more ground. I go up to the second floor, Ronan the third, and Murphy covers the first. As I’m helping out an elderly lady cradling her cat in her arms out of her apartment and down the stairs to the first floor, I hear screaming. Not screaming in agony or screaming in fear but screaming in frustration. I know that scream. And then, as I enter the lobby of the building with this gray-haired lady and her hissing orange cat, I hear Murphy. “Ma’am. Please! Calm down!”
Across the tiled lobby soaked with sprinkler water, she’s got Aspen over her shoulder. Aspen’s got her head reared up as she yells. Her blond hair is hanging in long wet curls around her face which is red with anger. In her hands she’s got two bags, the reusable grocery store kind. I follow Murphy and my tantruming ex out the front doors, my arm wrapped around this little old lady who I guide straight over to Logan and Lester for a health assessment.
Murphy has plopped Aspen onto her feet and now she’s standing on the grass in front of her building digging through her bags. “Ma’am you should probably go see the paramedics and make sure you don’t have any—”
“I’m fine but you won’t be if you call me Ma’am again,” Aspen warns. “Got it, lady?”
“Sorry but I don’t do cat fights,” Murphy quips, unphased by Aspen’s tantrum.
