She glares up at me. “I still had a crush on you and she asked you to prom and I wanted to kill her. I knew you’d end up dating, which you did.”
“I would never have said yes if I knew that,” I confess. If I ever believed Terra still had an inkling of interest in me, I wouldn’t have dated Aspen.
“Really?” She whispers in disbelief.
“You seemed to hate me so much, I figured I lost my one and only chance and that you wouldn’t care if I dated Aspen or anyone for that matter,” I tell her and I can’t believe I’m admitting any of this.
“I have a chronic illness. I’m really good at pretending,” she replies and the wind rustles the trees around us. A family of four wanders by, too busy looking at the all lit up homes to pay attention to us.
“Aspen and I have been broken up for years,” I reply. “And you never—”
“Set myself up to be rejected again?” she interjects, her brown eyes hard. “I know you think it’s no big deal, that stupid game from Abbott’s sixteenth birthday party, but it was everything to me at the time. I had just found out I had lupus. I felt like damaged goods on top of the regular awkward teenage girl insecurities, and it took every ounce of courage I had to say your name that night. I wanted that perfect, normal kid moment with the hottest guy in school.”
She suddenly looks so… young. Almost exactly like I remember her back then. Vulnerable and delicate, inside and out and for the millionth time in my life I wish I could go back and do that whole moment over. I reach out and take her left hand in mine and without even realizing why, I start to pull her down the trail into the wooded park. I only take her a few feet, until the hundred foot pines towering over head make it dark enough that prying eyes from passersby on the street won’t be able to see us clearly.
Then I dip my head. My nose bumps her cheek. I can feel a strand of her hair graze my cheek bone. I inhale, long and slow. She smells like lilacs and ocean breezes. My dick stirs but I ignore it. I slowly turn my head toward her mouth and run my tongue slowly along my lips in anticipation.
“What are you doing?” she whispers.
“Unless you tell me to stop I am going for a do-over,” I whisper roughly. “In three… two… one.”
I find her lips through the darkness and press mine against them. Her whole body tenses and her hand falls flat against my chest, just next to my left shoulder, but she doesn’t push me away. So I press harder, moving my lips, opening them a little. And she fists my work shirt, just above the Ocean Pines Fire Department logo and pulls me closer. My hand on her arm drops and circles her waist, my palm spreads over the small of her back, fingers pressing into the top of her ass. I open my mouth further and she either gasps or sighs, I can’t tell, and I slip my tongue into her mouth and I swear to God , this is better than anything that might have happened ten years ago.
An owl hoots loudly in the branches above us and we break apart, both breathing hard and then my radio crackles. “Maverick! You need to get back here ASAP.”
“Is that Logan?” Terra says, her voice unsteady.
“Yeah. Shit,” I grab her hand and lead her back to the road.
I hit the radio. “On my way. Be there in five.”
“Go! Run!” Terra encourages me waving her hands.
I impulsively kiss her again, quick and hard on the lips and then turn and start running. I’m out of breath, but it’s not from the exertion. It’s from Terra. I don’t know what the hell we’re doing, but I know it’s been a long time coming.
11
Jake
Turnsout it’s the most chaotic, crazy night we’ve had in a while. On the way to our third consecutive call, Murphy points out something we hadn’t noticed before—it’s a full moon. Now it makes sense. We seriously get way more calls on full moons. It’s illogical but true. By midnight I’m exhausted and starving because I never got to consume my milkshakes and lobster rolls, and on my way to a fourth freaking call. This time it’s a backyard fire that is licking its way up a couple of trees. The address is on Free street, where Terra and I were earlier tonight. The last house on the street, the one directly next to Gold Park where Terra and I kissed.
Because it’s Ocean Pines, I know who owns it, so I have a strong suspicion who caused the fire. And my suspicion is proven right when we get there. Mr. and Mrs. Ellis are standing in front of their little stone cottage in their bathrobes. Mr. Ellis looks furious. Mrs. Ellis looks stricken. She runs towards us as we jump off the truck. “Robbie is hurt! My son burned himself. Can you help?”
Mason and Logan jump out of their ambulance and run over to her. “Take us to him,” Logan says calmly.
Forty minutes later, the fire is completely out and we managed to contain it to only two trees and half their lawn. Robbie Ellis isn’t so lucky. He’s got first degree burns on his right forearm, and on his forehead and is missing one eyebrow. He’s sitting on a gurney behind the ambulance, getting treated by Logan and Mason as we pack up the hose.
“Robbie, what have we told you about using your deep fryer drunk?” Logan says in a voice that sounds so much like his dad I can’t help but smile despite the seriousness of the situation.
“I wasn’t drunk. I was tipsy,” Robbie Ellis argues. He went to school with us. Was captain of the varsity soccer team and homecoming king two years in a row. Now he lives in a converted garage on his parents’ property after two failed marriages and works as a part-time caddie at the golf course in Old Orchard. I grew up listening to Springsteen because Mr. Hawkins played his stuff all the time at the Shack, and Robbie Ellis is exactly the type of working class, small town dude who won’t grow up that Bruce Springsteen sings about in “Glory Days.”
Logan hits him with a scowl as he coats Robbie’s forehead in burn gel. “We have to run you to the hospital Robbie. This is pretty serious.”
“The torched trees are gonna have to come down too, Robbie,” I explain “They’re dead as a doorknob and if you leave ‘em up, the first good winter storm will knock them onto the house.”
“Great! Fabulous. Rob you’re gonna cut those bastards yourself. I ain’t gonna be killed by a tree in my sleep because of you, and I sure as hell ain’t paying for someone to clean up your mess,” Mr. Ellis barks from a few feet away, angrily tightening the belt on his faded purple bathrobe. Next to him, Mrs. Ellis, her hair in curlers, puts a palm over her heart.
“Maurice, it was an accident,” she insists. Ah, the enabler. I’ve seen this before in a lot of relationships when I respond to emergencies. “I’ll get it removed, Robbie honey. You just heal up and promise Mommy you won’t do it again.”
