Chapter 9
nine
RYLEE
Rylee climbed the stairs, headed to her bedroom, eyes down on her phone. She was scrolling through her stocks app, checking market data like stock quotes, charts, and other financial metrics.
Though parenthood had become a priority for Rylee—a stark contrast to the stockbroker she once was, stalking the floors of the New York Stock Exchange—she was still ambitious. Only now, she ran her own firm from her basement, with fewer clients and a more balanced schedule.
After putting her children to bed an hour prior, Rylee spent some time in her basement office, analyzing numbers, reading articles, as she dried her family’s clothes in the dryer.
Now that the laundry was done and tucked into the basket, she carried up the stairs with one arm, Rylee used her free hand to check the stock numbers on her phone one last time before bed.
She’d stopped by the children’s rooms on the way to hers. They were sound asleep and soon she would be too.
But first, she needed to fold laundry.
In her room, with the clothes piled high on her king mattress, Rylee stood over them, folding the garments neatly, her eyes bouncing from the TV—that was on a 24-hour news channel—to a pair of tiny jeans in her hands that belonged to Nova.
She’d only turned the TV on to see the weather for tomorrow so she could plan the kids’ outfits accordingly for school.
It was Monday night, quiet on this side of Brooklyn, just after 10 p.m. All was well until…
“We have some breaking news out in Brooklyn tonight that is developing,” the news anchor said from Rylee’s TV screen. “Our reporter Candace Anthony is on the scene. Candace, can you tell us and the viewers what’s happening?”
Rylee looked up from Nova’s jeans to the mounted flatscreen.
“Yes, James,” the reporter Candace replied. “We’re coming to you live from Park Slope, Brooklyn, where an evening blaze has devastated a full commercial strip on 7th Avenue between 10th and 11th Streets.”
Rylee’s eyes were locked on screen.
“The three-alarm fire broke out just after six this evening, engulfing over six small businesses, including a beloved bakery, a barbershop, and a family-owned bookstore.”
The scene on screen looked catastrophic. Flames still blazed behind the reporter along with plumes of black smoke rising toward the dark sky. It looked bad.
“Tragically, officials have confirmed that three firefighters have lost their lives in the line of duty.”
Rylee gasped and held onto her breath.
Her mind began racing.
Park Slope. Dead firefighters.
And suddenly she remembered…
Xander’s fire company is in Park Slope.
She walked away from the bed and approached her night table, snatching up her phone.
“Their identities have not yet been released, pending family notification.”
Rylee swallowed hard as she tried to key in her phone’s code fast enough to unlock it but kept getting it wrong.
It was then she realized her hands were shaking.
“Several other firefighters from Ladder Company 212 were injured, including two civilians who were treated on the scene for smoke inhalation.”
“Come on,” Rylee whispered when she tried again, but this time her phone remained locked, displaying the notification informing she had to wait one minute before trying again.
She sighed, then swallowed back the lump forming in her throat.
“The cause of the fire is currently under investigation, though officials suspect it may have originated from faulty electrical wiring in one of the restaurant kitchens.”
Rylee’s bottom lip started trembling without her control. Her mind raced with everything it shouldn’t.
What if that was Xander’s fire company who was called to the scene of that fire?
What if Xander had been hurt?
“Tonight, the city mourns its fallen heroes, and this Brooklyn neighborhood grapples with the sudden loss of both lives and livelihoods,” Candace added, the mic to her mouth, her news station’s logo emblazoned beneath the microphone’s head.
“I’m Candace Anthony reporting live here in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Back to you in the studio, James.”
The minute felt more like an hour to Rylee, not aiding in her panic. She could hear her heart in her ears when she finally was able to try again to unlock her phone.
This time she got it open, and didn’t hesitate to make her way to the phone app. She clicked in, then clicked Xander’s name that appeared as one of her recent calls in her call log.
The moment she pressed the phone to her ear, she realized his phone had gone straight to voicemail.
Her heart immediately dropped.
“Oh, my God,” she whispered to herself.
Her throat went dry. Legs so weak she needed to take a seat on her bed.
She tried again. Still voicemail. And again… no answer.
Rylee tried to take a moment to collect herself, tossing her phone onto the bed.
In that moment, in her panic, she tried to rack her brain to remember Xander’s ladder company. He had it tatted on his arm but in that moment her brain couldn’t process anything or remember that simple detail.
Her phone was in her hand again when she tried calling once more.
But again his phone went to voicemail.
She clicked out, moved to her text app. Clicked on his name and immediately went to typing.
Rylee: Please tell me you’re okay.
Rylee: Xander??
Rylee: Where are you???
With each moment that passed where she had no confirmation, she felt every ounce of her weight on her bones.
Her leg was bouncing in her seat on the bed, body strumming from the rush of blood that was moving throughout her too fast.
She was now shaking all over. Pressing his name over and over again in her call log only for voicemail to pick up.
“Oh, God,” she cried, touching her face and realizing it was wet with tears.
This can’t be happening, she thought to herself. Not again. Not like this.
She had thought she’d moved past the sharp edges of that night…
the night she lost her best friend, the father of her children.
But now, with no word from Xander, the grief ripped itself from the corner she’d tucked it into, reminding her it had always been there, quietly waiting to reemerge at the least opportune time.
Like now.
And just like that, she was back in Brooklyn Bay Medical Center… the night Lennox never woke up.
But the night she recalled, that was sitting as heavy on her chest as that moment with her sitting on her bed, was when her best friend Lennox was taken there.
She recalled feeling a little optimistic, because Lennox was in her father’s hospital. And Lennox had passed out before but he turned out to be okay, able to walk out of the hospital once, so of course he would have to do it again.
But that night was not like the other. And Lennox never woke up.
Rylee watched her best friend take his last breath against her, watched the life leave him in front of her.
She played that moment over and over in her head so much she could remember everything about it. From the sound of his last exhale to the warmth that seemed to leave his skin as she held his hand for too long after.
Rylee squeezed her eyes closed, feeling herself sinking.
She felt powerless, untethered, and unable to breathe.
So she did the only thing she could think to do, the only thing she ever felt brought her relief in her moments of despair whenever thoughts of Lennox grabbed a hold of her and refused to let go.
She prayed.
Loudly.
“God please don’t do this,” she pleaded, pressing her palms tightly together and pressing her fingertips to her lips. “I know I don’t talk to you often and I know I only talk to you to ask you for things but please. I am begging you to please don’t take someone else I love. Please.”
As soon as the words left her lips a cry soon followed. She got down on her bedroom’s floor of her room and sobbed, doing her best to keep the sound down but finding it so hard to.
A second later, her phone rang.
She gasped, popping her head up, raising her hand to her mattress and feeling for her phone before she could balance herself on her shaky knees to look.
Xander’s name appeared on the screen.
“Xander?” she exhaled into the phone. Her voice was a mix of panic and sadness, too many emotions all at once.
“Rylee?” Xander answered. “Baby, why you sound like that? What’s the matter?”
Another cry left her as she asked, “Where the hell have you been?”
“Hey, hey,” Xander said, his voice so calm and soothing at the same time. “What’s the matter, baby?”
“I thought…” she started, finding it hard to find the words though. “There was a fire… your phone kept going straight to voicemail—”
“Aye, yo, Paulie,” she heard Xander say in the background. “I’mma be right back. Handle the front for me.”
There was some shuffling on Xander’s end before he revealed, “My battery died. Just got it back because it was charging while I was at the front desk. I’m on my shift at the station.”
“There was a fire in Park Slope,” she stated, her voice shaking. “I thought—”
“Yeah, that was another fire company, baby,” he cut in. “They got there before we even got the call. I’m okay. We’re okay.”
“I thought you were one of them,” she whispered, pressing her back to her bed on the floor. Rylee sniffed back her tears, her eyes burning now.
“One of who?”
“The firefighters they said died,” she answered, tears streaming down her face, her voice hoarse now, strained. “And I just… I couldn’t live through that again. And I thought I’d have to.”
There was silence on his end for a couple of beats.
“You don’t,” he said after the pause. “I’m right here, aight? And I’m on my way to you. I’ll see you within the hour. Okay?”
Before Rylee could say anything else, Xander ended the call.
She cleaned her face with her hands. Her body still trembling uncontrollably as she sniffed back tears that kept falling.
Rylee stayed on her bedroom floor until she heard her doorbell downstairs. And when she took the stairs down to answer it, Xander stood on the other side.
She searched his face for burns, bandages… anything. But all she saw was him. Whole.
He had on no coat, just his station’s uniform. A blue tee tucked into pressed slacks, and black boots on his feet.
She was so distraught she couldn’t enjoy the view of her man in his uniform, fulfilling fantasies she didn’t even know she had.
He didn’t have to say a thing. Rylee closed the space between them and threw her arms around him, pressing her face into his chest and crying against him.
In that moment, she hated herself for all those times she made a fuss over him popping up without calling. Surprising her kids with gifts or promises of homemade breakfast with pancakes shaped in whatever shape they wanted.
She cried against Xander and he let her. He walked her back inside and away from the doorway, allowing her to cry into him as he closed the door, not once letting her go.
In the middle of hating herself over his pop-ups, she hated herself for doing what she did with Lennox… taking Xander for granted. Just like Lennox died suddenly, Xander could have been in that fire tonight and died too, without warning.
She vowed she would never take time for granted after Lennox, but was kind of doing it with Xander. And that made her hug him even tighter.
“Don’t ever do that to me again,” she uttered against him.
He chuckled softly, tightening his arms around her. “Do what, Snoop?”
“Not answer your phone.” She sniffed back her tears and stepped back. “Because I swear—”
“My phone lost charge, baby—”
“Then keep a charger strapped to your back, Xander!”
“Shh,” he shushed, taking her hand, his eyes moving up the stairs. “Don’t wake the kids now.”
“I thought…” she said, her shoulders slouching a little. “I thought I’d lost you tonight.”
Xander closed the space between them again, wrapping his arms around her when he was close. He tilted her head back so she’d look up at him, then brushed his thumb under her eyes.
“You really thought I was in that fire, huh?”
“Yes,” she exhaled, closing her eyes and nodding her head, feeling the tears pool again. “And I swear the thought of losing you had me damn near dying on my bedroom floor.”
He kissed his teeth as he stepped even closer to her, bending his legs at the knees to press his forehead to hers.
“You’re not gonna lose me, aight? I’m here, baby, okay? Aight?”
Rylee sniffled as she nodded against him, her hands pressing to either side of his face. To have him here, in her space, promising her something that sounded good but that she knew could change at any time, still was reassuring.
“Your job is dangerous,” she whispered. “And though I knew that already, I didn’t really know what it felt like to actually live it until tonight.”
“It’s not dangerous like that,” he explained to her. “Rarely. Most days it’s ‘help me with my cat’,” he said in a high-pitched voice that brought a smile to Rylee’s lips. “Or ‘my kid locked himself in the basement’ kind of calls.”
“Hmph,” Rylee huffed, moving in closer to wrap her arms around him. She wanted to hold him and not let him go, not even for a second.
“I don’t want you worrying too much about that though.”
“I don’t think that’s gonna stop,” she said against him, burying her face in his shirt and inhaling his natural scent. In that moment, she felt so lucky to be able to do that. She knew there was a wife or girlfriend in Brooklyn tonight who wouldn’t be so privileged.
He kissed the top of her head. “Maybe not, but you know… since I’m here now, what you wanna do with me?”
She pinched him and stepped back, and that made him laugh softly.
“Do you see my face right now? Do I look like someone who’s in the mood for any of that tonight?”
Xander grinned down at her. “If you give me five minutes… I can fix that.”
She scoffed a laugh while shaking her head, smiling now. Relieved again.
Xander pulled her to him and kissed her forehead, leaving his lips there.
“It’s me and you. I’m not going anywhere. Promise.”
Rylee sighed against him, resting her weight on his chest, finally letting herself believe what he was saying. Because it sounded good and she needed to hear good things after experiencing a rush of old memories and the fear of new ones.
“I gotta head back,” he told her. “I’m on call and gotta be at the station tonight. But tomorrow, when I leave, I’ll come straight here, if that’s okay?”
She nodded against him. “It’s more than okay.”
“I love you,” he told her, pressing another kiss to the top of her head.
Rylee smiled and hugged him tight, pressing a kiss to his chest before leaning her head back so he could kiss her lips. And on them she replied, “I love you too.”
Oh, God, she thought to herself as she hugged him just a little tighter than before.
This time, she wasn’t begging God. She was giving thanks.
For the first time, she was so grateful to say that.
And honestly, this moment, this night, was right on time… because it marked the calm before the storm.