Chapter 4
Rachel
“Mama, my socks don’t match.”
I glance down at Tommy’s feet while shoving his lunch into his backpack. One sock has dinosaurs, the other has trucks. Both green, both clean, both going on his feet, whether they coordinate or not.
“They’re both green. Close enough.”
“But Mrs. Cott says we should match our socks for school.”
“Mrs. Cott doesn’t live here and doesn’t see our laundry situation.” I zip up his backpack and hand it over. “You’re five. Nobody’s judging your sock choices except you.”
He thinks about this with the gravity only a kindergartener can muster, then shrugs and pulls on his sneakers.
The resilience of children continues to amaze me.
Last night he was trapped in a burning building, and this morning his biggest concern is mismatched socks.
Meanwhile, I’ve been awake since four a.m. replaying every moment of those flames, every second where we could’ve not made it out.
I should’ve called Sophie yesterday and asked her to come over and stay with Tommy while I worked. She’s fifteen, responsible, and actually reads to him instead of parking him in front of cartoons. Tommy adores her.
She’s been coming twice a week since we moved back, and yesterday could’ve been just another Tuesday of homework help and chicken nuggets at the kitchen table.
But I didn’t call her. I brought Tommy to the café because it seemed easier at the time, more convenient to have him upstairs with his coloring books while I handled inventory.
Now I can’t stop thinking about how we almost didn’t walk out of there.
“Ready?” I grab my keys off the counter.
“Can we visit the fire station after school?”
“Absolutely not.”
“But Cole said I could see the trucks—”
“I don’t care what Cole said. No fire station visits. Not today, not tomorrow, maybe not ever.” I open the front door and guide him toward the car. “When you’re thirty, we’ll revisit the conversation.”
Tommy’s still making his case for fire trucks when we pull out of the driveway.
The morning is that perfect summer temperature before the heat becomes unbearable, the kind of weather that makes Millbrook Falls look like a postcard.
The lake gleams between buildings as we drive, surface smooth as glass, and the streets are quiet except for the early risers heading to work.
Except today, those early risers are staring.
Mrs. Patterson waves from outside her bakery, white apron covered in flour. She’s never waved at me before. Never even acknowledged my existence, even though I’ve been buying bread from her shop for three months straight.
Two teenage girls outside the coffee shop spot my car and immediately whip out their phones, pointing and whispering with that teenage energy that turns everything into drama.
Some guy I’ve never seen gives me an enthusiastic thumbs-up from the sidewalk.
“Mama, why is everyone staring at us?” Tommy presses his nose against the window.
“Because people in this town need better entertainment.” I keep my eyes forward, refusing to make eye contact with anyone else. “They probably heard about the fire.”
“Are we famous?”
“No.”
“But that man did the thumbs-up thing.”
“That man should mind his business.”
I pull into the drop-off line at Millbrook Elementary. Tommy unbuckles and leans over to plant a kiss on my cheek, his small hand patting my shoulder in that way that makes my chest ache.
“Love you, Mama.”
“Love you more, baby. Be good for Mrs. Cott today.”
“I’m always good.”
He’s out the door and sprinting toward the building before I can point out that ‘always good’ is a generous assessment of reality. I watch until he disappears through the front entrance, then sit in the idling car for an extra minute because facing what comes next feels impossible.
The drive home takes twice as long because I get stuck behind a tractor hauling hay bales down Main Street at roughly five miles per hour. This is Millbrook Falls, where farm equipment has priority and everyone accepts it as part of living in a place with working farms.
Jake’s awake when I walk through the door.
It’s strange enough that I actually pause to make sure I’m not hallucinating.
My brother works in marine biology research, so his mornings typically don’t start until closer to noon.
But here he is at eight a.m., planted at the kitchen table with his laptop open and a mug of coffee that’s gone cold by now.
“You’re conscious,” I say, making a beeline for the coffee pot. “Did someone die?”
“Nope, but you went viral.” He swivels his laptop toward me with a grin that says he finds this hilarious.
The screen shows a video paused mid-frame. My video. The rescue footage from last night.
But it’s not the raw shaky-cam footage someone’s phone captured.
This version has been edited, polished, and transformed into something that belongs in a movie trailer rather than a news report.
And there’s music coming from the laptop speakers, soft instrumental strings that build with way too much emotion for what should be straightforward disaster documentation.
Jake hits play.
The music swells as Cole emerges from the smoke, carrying me.
The footage has been slowed to an almost dreamlike pace, every movement drawn out and emphasized.
The camera caught us at the exact moment I looked up at his face, and whoever edited this zoomed in on that instant, stretching it out so you can see every detail.
His jaw is set with concentration, eyes locked straight ahead with that intensity that means he’s working, he’s focused, nothing else exists except the task.
My arms are wrapped around his neck, and my face shows naked terror mixed with something else I refuse to name.
The camera follows us down the café steps in slow motion.
I can see the flex of Cole’s muscles under his turnout gear with each deliberate step, and I can see my own fingers gripping his shoulder, like he’s the only stable thing in a world that’s literally burning.
Smoke billows behind us with cinematic drama, and the music crescendos right as Cole sets me down on the sidewalk, his hands staying on my waist for just a heartbeat longer than necessary before he turns back toward the building.
The video freezes on that final frame—him looking back at the café, me staring at him—and text slides across the screen: “Every woman’s dream rescue. #FirefighterHero #MillbrookRescue”
I shove the laptop away. “These people need professional help.”
“You’re trending.” Jake’s still grinning like this is prime entertainment. “Seven hundred thousand views since last night. The comments are absolutely unhinged.”
“I don’t want to know.”
“Too late, I’m telling you anyway.” He angles the screen so I can see the comments scrolling past. Too many heart emojis, too many fire emojis, comments like ‘where do I find a man like this’ and ‘the way he looks at her I can’t’ and ‘I need to be rescued immediately.’
“My job literally burned down yesterday,” I say flatly. “How are they turning this into a romance movie?”
“Because the internet is a beautiful disaster where tragedy meets fantasy and nobody knows how to behave like a normal person.” Jake closes the laptop, still looking way too amused. “Cole’s going to absolutely lose it when he sees this.”
“Cole is never seeing this.” I pour myself coffee and add too much sugar because after the night I’ve had, I’ve earned it. “I’m already dealing with enough without him thinking I’m part of some viral love story.”
Jake laughs and goes back to whatever research he’s doing, and I’m left standing there with my coffee, trying not to think about the video.
Trying not to remember how Cole’s arms felt around me last night—the solid strength of them, the way he carried me like I weighed nothing, like saving me was the only thing that mattered in that moment.
I remember looking up at his face through the smoke and ash.
Remember thinking that if I were going to die, at least I’d die feeling safe.
His chest was steady against my side, his heartbeat calm even though flames surrounded us, and for those few seconds, being carried down those stairs, I let myself imagine what it would be like to melt into that feeling.
To let someone else be strong while I fell apart.
To stay in those arms and not think about anything except how protected I felt.
Which is completely insane and exactly the thinking that got me into the mess with Derek—looking for someone to rescue me instead of standing on my own two feet.
I mentally slap myself. Cole is Jake’s best friend.
Cole has known me since I was fourteen with braces and bad eyeliner choices.
Cole is completely off-limits because I just escaped one bad relationship, and the absolute last thing I need is to complicate my life with feelings for someone who was doing his job and being a decent human being.
“You okay?” Jake’s watching me with that older brother radar that picks up on everything.
“Fine. Just tired.” I drain half the coffee in one long swallow. “I should head over to the café. See what’s salvageable. Talk to the staff.”
“You sure?”
“No, but sitting here overthinking isn’t helping anyone.”
The café looks worse in daylight. Last night, it was chaos, emergency vehicles, and people shouting commands.
This morning, it’s just quiet devastation.
The building sits on Lakeshore Drive exactly where it’s always been, except now the white exterior is blackened with soot, the roof is partially caved in, and the windows are blown out from the heat.
Yellow caution tape surrounds everything like crime scene barriers.
A few staff members are clustered on the sidewalk when I pull up. Emma, Marcus, and Jennifer. They spot my car and rush over immediately.