Chapter 11
SHARON
The office is quiet when I'm closing up.
We are trying desperately to get other clients.
We freed up space for Ben and Penelope's wedding, which clearly isn't happening, so Jessica has been spending time with her family and getting ready for Christmas, whereas I have been trying to chase down the clients that were turned away.
But they've all booked other planners, which I don't blame them for this close to Christmas.
My desk is organized. My scent is its normal strawberry honey mix instead of the panic blend that's become my default.
I've been spending time with the Burnside brothers over the last few days.
Real time. Not just work-related phone calls or brief encounters at The Sway.
Actual time where we sit together and talk and exist in the same space without any particular agenda.
Jett has been teaching me about his stunt work.
Pine has been showing me his art portfolio.
Cassian has been sharing firefighter stories that make me laugh until my sides hurt.
It's been good. Better than good. I've enjoyed it in a way that surprises me. The way they include me feels natural. Easy. Like I've always been part of their orbit and we're just now acknowledging it.
I'm turning off the lights, my purse already slung over my shoulder, when my phone buzzes.
It's Jett.
Just seeing his name on my screen does something to my chest. Something shifted between us somewhere between the chess game at Cassian's place and now.
I answer before the second ring finishes.
"Hey," I say, trying to sound normal and probably failing spectacularly. "What's up?"
"Where are you?" His voice is different. Tight. Strained. Like something's wound so tight inside him that it might snap at any second.
My stomach drops like I've just gone over the edge of a cliff I didn't know was there.
"I'm at the office. Just closing up. Why? What's wrong?" I'm already moving toward the door, my keys in my hand, my heart doing something erratic and wrong inside my chest.
"There's been a call. Kitchen fire, residential property on Maple Street. Cassian's on the truck." Jett's words come out clipped. Controlled. Which is somehow worse than if he'd just yelled. Because Jett doesn't lose control easily, which means something is genuinely wrong.
The world doesn't tilt so much as it stops. Everything stops. My breathing. My heartbeat. The way I'm moving. All of it just halts like someone hit the pause button on my life without warning.
Kitchen fire. Cassian. Danger.
The words connect in my brain, and they don't make sense together.
Cassian is fireproof. Cassian is solid and strong, and he walks into situations that would terrify normal people with the kind of casual confidence that comes from knowing you're the best at what you do.
Cassian doesn't get hurt. Cassian doesn't get in trouble. Cassian is safe.
Except fires aren't safe. Fires kill people. Fires don't care how confident you are or how trained you are or how much you matter to someone.
"Is he okay?" My voice comes out small. Terrified. Completely unbefitting of someone who's supposed to be a professional adult. I sound like a child asking if her parent is coming home. I sound fragile.
"Don't know yet. I'm picking you up. Stay where you are. I'll be there in three minutes."
The line goes dead before I can respond.
I stand in the parking lot, my keys still in my hand, my body vibrating with the need to do something. Anything. But all I can do is wait. Three minutes feels like an eternity compressed into seconds that stretch and stretch until I think I might snap from the tension.
Jett called me. Out of everyone he could have called, he called me. Because somewhere over the last few days of dinners and conversations and shared moments, I became someone he turns to. Someone who matters. Someone who should know when his brother is in danger.
Jett's truck pulls into the lot with the kind of speed that suggests traffic laws are optional. He doesn't even fully stop before I'm pulling the door open and climbing in. The truck is still rolling when I slam the door shut behind me.
"Seatbelt," he says, and his voice is so controlled it's frightening.
I fumble with it. My hands are shaking so badly it takes three tries to get the buckle to click. Three tries. I'm fumbling like I've never used a seatbelt before in my life.
Jett doesn't wait. The truck is moving before I'm fully settled, and he's driving with the kind of focused intensity that makes it clear he's done this before.
Responding to emergencies. Moving fast. His jaw is clenched so tight I can see the muscle working under his skin.
His hands grip the steering wheel like it's the only thing keeping him tethered to reality.
The drive to Maple Street takes about seven minutes. It feels like seven years compressed into a single moment of pure terror.
My mind is doing that spiraling thing where it conjures every possible worst-case scenario and plays them all on repeat like a horror movie stuck on loop.
Kitchen fires are dangerous. Flames that spread faster than logic.
Smoke that fills your lungs and suffocates you.
Structural collapses that happen without warning.
All the things I've seen in movies but never actually thought about in connection with someone I know.
Someone I care about. Someone who has somehow become important enough that the thought of losing him makes my entire body go numb with a cold that no amount of heat can touch.
My throat feels thick. Swollen. Like something is living inside it and trying to claw its way out. My chest is so tight that breathing feels like a conscious decision that requires all my mental energy.
Jett doesn't say anything. He just drives.
But his scent is all over the truck. Cedar and leather and something sharp that smells like fear mixed with determination.
It wraps around me like a blanket. Like protection.
Like he's trying to shield me from what we might find even though we both know he can't.
Maple Street lights up in the distance before I can even see the house.
Red and blue lights painting the quiet street in shades of emergency and danger.
Fire trucks. Ambulances. Police cars. All of it converged on one small residential house with white siding and blue shutters.
A house that looks so normal and so safe and is currently spewing smoke out of one side like it's angry. Like it's breathing out poison.
Jett parks the truck, and he's out before the engine dies. I scramble after him, my legs shaky, my whole body feeling like it might collapse at any second.
The air smells like apocalypse. Like burnt wood and chemicals and something else that makes my throat close up.
There are neighbors standing in their yards, watching with that morbid fascination people get when someone else's disaster becomes their entertainment.
I barely notice them. They don't matter.
Nothing matters except finding Cassian and confirming that he's alive.
Jett's hand finds mine. His fingers wrap around my cold ones and squeeze. The contact is the only thing keeping me from coming completely undone right here in the middle of the street.
"Stay close to me," he says, and there's something in his voice that sounds like a command and a plea at the same time.
I nod because I can't speak. My throat won't work. My voice is gone.
"Where is he?" I finally manage to whisper. "Is he inside? Where's Cassian?"
"He went in with the crew about five minutes ago," Jett says, his voice steady but his hands are gripping my shoulders hard enough to leave marks. "Kitchen fire, relatively contained according to the dispatch call. They're doing a full sweep to make sure there's nobody inside."
Five minutes. He's been in there for five minutes. In a burning building. Five minutes might not sound like much until you're standing outside a house that's on fire and counting every single second like it's your heartbeat.
I watch the house. The smoke is still pouring out the window, thick and dark and wrong.
The flames are visible through one of the side windows, dancing like they're alive.
Like they're hungry. My hands are fisted so tight that my fingernails are drawing blood from my palms. I don't feel it.
The physical pain is nothing compared to the emotional agony of not knowing.
Not being able to see him. Not being able to confirm that he's okay.
"He's going to be fine," Jett says quietly. His hand finds the small of my back and he's using that voice. The one that doesn't have many words but carries weight that could sink ships. "Cassian's been doing this for a decade. He knows what he's doing."
But I've read the statistics. I've seen the news stories. People die in fires all the time. Good people. Trained people. People who knew what they were doing. People who did everything right and still didn't make it out.
"People die in fires," I say, and it's not logical.
It's not helpful. It's just the desperate truth spiraling out of my mouth before I can stop it.
"People die in fires all the time and they think it's not going to be them and then it is.
They think their training is enough. They think they can handle it.
And then they're gone and there's nothing anybody can do about it. "
My voice is getting louder. Panicked. I'm spiraling, and I know I'm spiraling, and I can't stop it. All the things I've been holding in check for the past few weeks are bubbling up. All the feelings I've been denying about how much Cassian matters. How much all three of them matter.
"Sharon." Jett's voice cuts through my spiral like a knife through silk. It's quiet but it carries the kind of authority that makes my brain stop catastrophizing for just a moment. "Look at me."