Chapter 15
Ollie
Fix You Too by Megan Moroney and Kameron Marlowe
Ipeel off my gear when we get back to the station, heat and sweat clinging to my body.
My body is running on muscle memory after that call.
Just another shift, another fire, another reminder that I know how to step into chaos and come out steadily with everything in my life, except Poppy.
It’s been a few days since I tasted her and now, I can’t stop replaying it in my head.
She’s the only fire I’ve never been able to extinguish.
Because she’s the fire of my heart. The one person I think about at any given point of my day.
She’s everywhere. In my heart, a photo on my dashboard, a photo in my locker.
I even have a picture of her in my helmet.
Poppy means the world to me. I want everything with her.
I stow my gear and open my locker, hands moving automatically, when the memory hits me when I see it.
A photo of us at the lake, our senior year. A bonfire burns low in the background behind us, our cheeks pressed together while music thumps out of someone’s truck. If I close my eyes, I can practically still hear it. Laughter drifting over the water. And Poppy by my side.
Her hair’s pulled up messy on the top of her head, cheeks flushed from the night and the noise and the way I’m looking at her like I don’t know how not to.
I can still smell that night, like smoke and summer.
The way she laughs when I said something stupid to hear her laugh.
I did that a lot back then, trying to get her to laugh.
I craved her laughter. I think we all did everything we could to save Poppy back then.
She had it rough raising Owen practically on her own, so making her happy was important.
She deserved that after all the hurt she had been through losing her mom.
I remember sneaking away from the crowd with her, our toes in the sand, moonlight cutting a silver line across the lake. I leaned in before I could talk myself out of it and kissed her. She let me, just for a second. Her mouth was soft and warm and perfect against mine.
Then she pulled back.
“Ollie,” she says, breathless and scared all at once. “We can’t.”
I remember the way my chest tightens, and the hurt I felt. “Why not?”
She looks at me like she’s holding something fragile. “Because I can’t lose you. I can’t ruin our friendship. You’re my best friend.”
And that’s it. That’s where it ended. Her best friend. Period. That’s all I was. Friend zoned and that’s all I allowed myself to be.
I didn’t push her or beg her to see me. I had just nodded, swallowed it down, and told myself that loving her quietly was better than losing her completely. I said to myself that night on the beach that friendship with Poppy would be enough.
For ten years, I’ve tried so hard to believe that lie, but being her friend will never be enough.
I shut my locker harder than I mean to, the clang echoing through the bay. One of the guys glances up but doesn’t say anything. They’re used to me being in my head.
Years of birthdays and holidays and late-night phone calls. Years of watching her shoulder more responsibility than anyone should. Watching her become the strongest person I know. Watching her love fiercely and protectively, and never once asking for help.
If I’d had her back then, I probably would’ve lost her.
We were kids. Messy and impulsive, and still figuring out who we were.
I would’ve loved her wrong and probably messed it all up.
She would’ve burned herself out trying to hold us both together with everything else she had on her plate. Friendship saved us.
But now?
Now she’s admitting the fears and feelings both of us have wrapped up in layers for years. And those layers are stripping off one by one, and our hearts are laid bare now.
I drag a hand down my face and blow out a breath.
I meant what I said. I can’t fuck her unless she’s really mine.
Not because I don’t want her. God, I want her so bad it hurts.
But because I know myself. I know once I cross that line, there’s no going back.
I give everything. I don’t know how not to.
But that’s the one piece of me I can’t give unless it means something with her.
And I can’t risk it if she’s still halfway out the door.
I don’t want to be the guy she’s with when she’s lonely. I don’t want to be the mistake she regrets, the one that changed things. I don’t want her to wake up one day and realize she needed comfort, not me.
I want her to choose me the way I’ve been silently choosing her for years as a best friend, secretly always wanting more.
Only I don’t want to be silent anymore. I want us to be loud and proud.
And if it took Maggie making up some bullshit lie to get us there, then fine.
I’ll do whatever it takes to get the woman I love to love me back and finally see me as more than her best friend.
I want to be everything with her. Fuck her stupid picket fences.
I’m not even a picket fence kind of guy.
I’m a guy who is hopelessly in love with Poppy Grace Murphy—head over goddamn heels.
I want her. Not just the way she fits against me like she was always meant to. I want her mornings, her bad days, and her responsibilities. I want Owen’s basketball practices and games, late dinners, and fixing things that break together. I want the life she already has. I want to be in it.
The station quiets as the shift settles back into routine.
Someone starts a pot of coffee. Someone else flips on the TV in the common room.
Normal life resumes with ordinary day-to-day noise.
Meanwhile, my heart’s still a mess from last night in the shower when I ate her until I felt like I would come just hearing her moan my name.
I think about the way she looked at me when I said I couldn’t do this unless it were real. The fear in her eyes. The want. The way she didn’t break things off then and there. She’s getting closer.
That’s what’s different now.
The gym smells like smelly middle school boy sweat and the sharp bite of disinfectant they never quite get rid of. I clap my hands a few times, and the boys hustle back into line, sneakers squeaking, faces flushed and happy.
“Free throws,” I call. “Same rules. Miss it, and you cheer louder for the next guy.”
Groans and playful laughing. Owen grins at me like this is the best part of his day.
Because here no one is going to mess with him.
He can just be happy, have fun, and play a sport.
The way it should be. That alone makes it worth it.
Principal Masters has checked in and thanked me profusely for stepping in to coach at the last minute.
I haven’t even seen Toddy around and wonder if he left town.
Good riddance. Because he’s still facing legal trouble for hitting Owen and I’m seeing that through, making sure he gets what’s coming to him.
I’m watching Owen square his shoulders to make a free throw when Walker steps in through the side door. He leans against the wall for a second, taking it all in, then makes his way towards me, his black cowboy hat pulled low.
He walks over and claps me on the back. “Hey.”
“Hey,” I say quietly.
“Just checking in. Poppy said I could find you here. I’m waiting on Mack to finish up band practice next door at the high school and figured I’d come say hi.”
“Good to see you. Just coaching these boys and working. What’s new with you?”
Before Walker can respond, Owen sinks his shot and pumps his fist. I point at him. “That’s how it’s done.”
Walker smiles. “You’re a natural at this. I remember when that was you out there.”
“Those were the days,” I say. “I played every sport that would keep me out of the house.”
One of the boys trips over his own feet and pops back up laughing.
Another kid makes his shot, and everyone cheers like he won a championship.
The energy in the gym is good and fun. This was how it was for me as a kid.
This gym and this school were a safe haven for me when home wasn’t a good place anymore.
I want this to be a fun escape for these kids if they need it.
A place to have fun and blow off steam. A bully-free environment.
So far, we haven’t had any issues, and we’re going to keep it that way.
Walker watches me for a minute. “You look happy, man.”
I nod. “I am.”
The boys start a dribbling drill, balls pounding the floor in uneven rhythm. Owen glances over at me between reps, checking in like he always does. I give him a thumbs up.
Walker lowers his voice. “So how are all the wedding plans coming along?”
“I heard you and Violet have been doing a lot for us, and I wanted to thank you. Really, I think you’re doing so much, and I really appreciate you guys.”
He shrugs. “It’s what family does, Ollie.”
What family does. That means more to me than he’ll know. Walker is a stand-up guy. He’s always been there for me. Front row seat with Mack at my graduation from the fire academy. At my high school graduation. He’s always been there.
I exhale. “I want to convince her to make it real by the reception.”
His eyebrows lift, but he doesn’t look surprised.
“I want that night to be special for her,” I say. “I want it to be incredible. I want her to feel like it’s real. Like it’s all for her. Because it is, I love her so much.”
Walker’s gaze softens as he watches Owen laugh when another kid loses control of the ball. “You gotta get to work, Ollie. It’s time to unravel all those years of friendship and finally make her your wife.”
I swallow. “I’m up for the challenge.”
And I am. I have been for years now.
He nods. “It’s gonna be the most important thing you ever do.”
The boys rotate stations. Free throws again. Owen wipes his forehead with his sleeve and sinks another one. He gives a high five to another teammate. Pride hits me hard and fast in the chest. I’m not just fighting for her, I’m fighting for him, too, because life without them isn’t a life.
Walker’s quiet for a beat. Then he says, “I remember when Grace Murphy died. It left a crater-sized hole in this town. Mack was three. And we all went to her funeral, the whole town.”
My chest tightens at the memory. Grace Murphy was a woman Sully never deserved.
She fought cancer alone with a baby and a teenage daughter.
She was the mother any kid would have been lucky to have.
I loved Grace Murphy, too. My mother was friends with her because Grace was friends with everyone.
She baked you banana bread and brought you a meal if you had a baby.
She cheered for me at my middle school and high school games.
She was the heartbeat of this town. I know when she died, I was thinking what a lot of other people were probably thinking as well.
Why couldn’t it have been Sully, instead?
Sully did nothing for anyone, and he was a real jerk.
Everyone knew it then and knows it now. Why do good people have to die? It’s not fair.
“You know who didn’t go?” he asks, igniting anger that lives deep down.
I close my eyes for half a second. “Sully.”
I see it like it’s happening again. The front row of the church.
Poppy was holding Owen, sobbing so hard her shoulders shook.
Owen was only a baby and slept through the whole thing.
She refused to put him down. Maggie on one side.
Walker and me right there on the other side of her.
The pews were packed. People standing in the back and around the front entrance to the church.
The gravesite burial was the saddest thing I’ve ever seen.
I remember there was a double rainbow when we left the cemetery.
Poppy said it was a sign that everything would be okay.
The town showed up, and from that day forward, we all sat with her. No matter where she went, what she did. Her and Owen became our family. We absorbed them into ours because that’s what you do when you love people. You take care of them.
Walker exhales. “She didn’t just lose her mom. She lost her safety net. And you’ve been part of what caught her. You’ve always been there, Ollie. They need you, and I think you need them.”
My breath catches, and I nod, eyes on Owen as he laughs at something and makes another free throw, high-fiving another player. I do need them—more than they know.
Walker claps my shoulder. “You’ve got this.”
The whistle blows. Practice wraps up in a mess of high fives and noise. Owen runs over and gives me a high five.
“Did you see that shot?” he asks.
“I saw all of them,” I say. “You all crushed it. We have a great team this year.”
“Hi, Walker,” Owen says as he grabs his water bottle.
“Looking good out there,” Walker calls as he watches us, grinning.
I look down at Owen, then back at the court, the town, the life we’ve built piece by piece.
This isn’t pretend. It has never been.
And before that reception night is over, she’s gonna know it too.