Chapter 1
Ember
Strange, isn’t it? One day you’re an element of an equation, and the next, you’re on the outside looking in. It’s like that kid walking past a limited edition toy in the store window every day for months, and then, just when his folks agree to buy it for him, the damn thing gets sold, just like that. The boy walks into the store, a big ass grin on his face, only to have the shopkeeper give himthatlook, a mixture of an apology and guilt. There is something fucking devastating about that.
I guess in retrospect, I have myself to blame. A man owns up to his faults, and I have too many to count.
Did I expect a girl like Hannah to stick around an asshole like me? Maybe the point is that I did, and that’s probably why she left in the first place. I’m the selfish dickhead who expects people to tolerate the shit I put them through. Still, as I take another swig of my fourth beer and watch her drape her curvy body on another man across the rowdy bar, I wonder, for the briefest of seconds,what if.
What if I’d treated her like my woman instead of a long-term booty call. What if I introduced her as my girlfriend to my friends, instead ofjustHannah. After one year together, it’s the least I could have done. But biting the bullet and making itofficialwas something I could not do.
I have come to understand that life is a series of what if’s. And there isn’t much I can do about the Hannah scenario. That bridge, as they say, is burned to shit.
I should feel worse about it, right? I mean, any decent man would, but I don’t. I am not wallowing. I am out with the guys kicking back with a few beers because that is all I do when I’m off duty. If I’m frank, I’m relieved. It’s like a weight has lifted off my chest. Hannah was suffocating me. I ripped and clawed as she clogged up my airways until I finally broke that noose and came up for air.
Expectations. A list of impossible to fulfill desires that some women keep, they build them from all those romantic movies and books, then expect us guys to live up to them. Those men on TV don’t have to deal with half the shit we do. They’re three-dimensional characters, imagined and brought to life by those writers, artsy sorts.
“Having second thoughts yet?” Aidan Wild’s voice cuts through my thoughts. I follow his gaze to the wild redhead, with wide hips. Hips I’d gripped onto time and time again.
“Like fuck I am.” I scoff, polishing off my beer, looking away from the spectacle she’s making for my benefit. I keep telling myself that she knew what she was getting into, but there is no such thing as casual hook-ups with women like Hannah. Half her friends are married with kids, and the other half is engaged to partners they have been with for fuck knows how long. In the Latina community, it’s what you do. I half expected her father to knock a few of my teeth out when we split. I suppose he didn’t because he considers me family.
“What the fuck am I supposed to think? You’re staring at her for the last half an hour. You could change your mind, you know, put a ring on it.” He has a cocky grin on his face I want to punch off.
“Why are we friends again?” I ask.
“Because nobody else tolerates your ass.” He looks at his watch. “I gotta get home, or Ocea’s gonna have my balls.”
“She already does, man. No use denying it.” I tip my half-empty beer bottle toward him. Aidan is one of the lucky ones. Sure his life hasn’t been perfect. He lost his folks tragically when he was just a kid. But he found peace, a place to call home, which is basically living the dream compared to my shit fest. Men like Aidan deserve to be happy. They have sexy wives waiting for them at home, babies on the way.
“You gonna be alright tomorrow? You know Preston will understand if you can’t make it.” His words pack a punch. This is the kind of thing you can expect when you’re thewildcard. The guy that fucks up over and over again until the world kind of gives up on you. I hate being that guy, but I suppose when life fucks a man over the way mine did, it’s inevitable.
I shrug. “It ain’t about me. Pres is like my brother, you all are. He needs me, and I’m gonna show up. It’s what we do, right?”
He pats my shoulder. “It sure is. See you tomorrow, bro.”
He swaggers out of the bar. I should go home too, drag myself into bed, and sleep the storm of emotions brewing inside me. Instead, I order a few shots. The barman passes it to me. Looking over at Hannah, her gaze meets mine across the room, pleading for me to call it a night. She should concentrate on the guy whose lap she’s sitting in. He is far more likely to give her what she wants, what she deserves.
Hannah spent too many nights dragging my drunk ass to bed, leaving hangover concoctions on my bedside table with a bottle of water. She’d get barmen to take my keys and call her to pick me up. Hannah is a good one. She was right to walk away.
I give her a smile, and she returns it with one of her own. I call anUber, raise a hand in farewell, and walk out into the chilly night.
* * *
Aidanand I sit with Preston in his backyard. It’s the middle of winter, and we have chairs out on the snow-covered lawn, drinking cheap whiskey out of flasks. Not because we can’t afford the good shit, but because this kind of liquid really kicks, and we need that kind of poison on a night like this when the wind whips around us. We sit in matching black suits that don’t do much to keep us warm.
The light from his kitchen window behind us is the only thing keeping us from being bathed in complete darkness—shadows of the people moving inside pass over us every now and then. Voices drift in and out of my mind. Maybe they’re laughing, talking, crying, who knows. It’s fucking cold, the bitter kind that seeps into your bones and clings there. The whiskey helps, though, as long as you keep sipping. It warms those icy crevices and does something to your state of mind. There is something therapeutic about letting the cold burn your skin. Takes your mind off the real pain that exists inside you, in the places you don’t want to show others.
“You know what the worst part is?” Pres looks between Aidan and me; his eyes narrowed into slits the way a drunk person usually does when they’re trying hard to concentrate. Preston never drinks; he’s the designated driver, the man you call at two a.m when you’re plastered and can’t see straight. So seeing him like this would be amusing if it wasn’t so fucking devastating. “Her death date is before her birth date.” He laughs, and we laugh along with him, but I know none of us actually feels it. We take another sip of the hurt fuel, as we call it. Then we fall silent, each of us retreating to thoughts of our own. Pres sniffs, and I know he’s crying. The kind of cry that makes your heart hurt in places you didn’t quite know existed.
None of us are strangers to loss, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s fucking savage.
“That’s pretty funny, if it wasn’t so sad,” I slur, and we all remain quiet.
“Fires are our lives, yeah?” He turns his head, looking at us both. As firefighters we are used to it right? But it’s different when a piece of your soul is being charred to ash.”
I think about it and feel the tears slip down my cheeks, and I reach out and place a hand on his shoulder, squeezing it so hard he winces.
Aidan reaches out and does the same, then we sit in silence, cold air coming out of our mouths and noses in puffs, disappearing into the night.
