20. Quinn
20
QUINN
M y phone still shows the camera feed from the rear of the store.
It’s impossible to tell, except for the drenched floor, what just happened.
But I watched every painful minute of it.
I saw one of the men light the rag of a bottle obviously filled with some kind of accelerant, and I began to cry when I saw him raise his arm and launch it through the window by the kitchen sink.
They all jumped and looked in the direction of the alleyway, as if they knew someone was coming.
They split like mice, scurrying to the left and right.
And then, Smoke appeared.
There wasn’t a moment’s hesitation.
He jumped the wall, ignoring his own injuries, and didn’t even wince.
I could see the way he scanned to area behind the bakery to see what was going on.
I gasped at the explosion, at the lick of fire that passed through the broken window.
But as soon as he saw the fire, glorious muscle memory kicked in.
I don’t know how he remembered the hose I use to rinse things in the yard, including Bones when he’s gotten muddy on our morning walks.
Watching Smoke put the fire out was intense, but watching him crumple against the wall afterward, broke me.
The way he dragged his hand over his face and how he sucked in air.
And the way he took a deep breath and straightened, then tried to shake off what he was feeling when the other firefighter arrived on the scene.
The man is still suffering so much.
And it’s becoming clear that this might not be something he can fix on his own.
My own relationship with therapy is complex.
It helped me; it didn’t save my mom.
I’m not the arbiter of how long it takes someone to get over something, because, if I’m honest with myself, I know you never do.
But you somehow find a way to normalcy.
Where you can function every day.
There’s also a significant amount of hypocrisy in my observation.
After all, people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
Here I am, living in Smoke’s house because I’m too scared to go home.
And jumping every time I hear tires outside the house.
As if the universe hears my thoughts, a roaring bike pulls up in front of the house.
I consider reaching for the gun.
But my phone pings.
A message from Smoke.
Smoke: It’s me about to come through the door.
If you’re awake, for the love of God, don’t shoot.
I type quickly.
Me: Thanks for the heads up.
I hit send, then immediately hate my word choices.
It sounds so…corporate.
But before I can think of something better to say, the key turns in the lock.
Bones, the most useless guard dog in the history of the world, stays fast asleep in my room.
Yet, something propels me forward, like I’m being pulled toward Smoke by an invisible tide.
Immense gratitude.
Longing.
A wash of relief that he’s okay and the bakery is still standing.
I jump from my seat and run to him, throwing my arms around him.
“Thank you.”
Smoke makes an umpf sound as he catches me and puts his arms around me, his palm rubbing my back.
“Hey, it’s okay. The back windows have been boarded up, and there’ll be an investigation. It’s all locked up for tonight, though.”
I step back and look up at him.
“Thank you. Truly. For what you did.”
“You saw?” he asks.
“Did you think I wouldn’t watch?”
His eyes go wide.
“Jesus. You watched all of it on the video cams?”
I nod.
“Fuck. You shouldn’t have been watching. Some things you can’t get out of your head.”
I put my hand on his bicep.
“But I did. I saw the men when they realized you were close by. How they split and ran. And I saw the moment when you decided to put the fire out instead of following them. You saved my bakery, Smoke. I heard the other firefighter tell you that you’d done nice work.”
He takes my hand and leads me down the corridor to my bedroom.
For a second, I wonder if he’s going to join me, but he pushes the door open and nudges me inside.
“What else did you hear?”
“I heard him say that the fire you fought was the hardest. I had to search up what a conflagration fire was. It must have been horrific. I mean, I intellectually knew because people were lost and you were hurt, but seeing pictures… It must have been terrifying.”
Smoke’s face tightens.
“I’m a professional firefighter, Quinn. I know what I’m doing.”
“I didn’t say you didn’t. I’m saying it’s heroic. Like your friend did. And it makes you even braver for jumping the wall to put the fire out.”
Smoke huffs.
“Wasn’t remotely the same thing. The fire is big to you because the damage is personal. It’s your property and your business. But as fires go, it was a small thing. Barely took a minute to put out because we caught it early.”
“The other fireman, he also said he had to call it in and that you do a better job of straddling the law than he does. What would you have done if he’d walked away?”
Smoke puts his hands on his hips.
“Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to, Quinn.”
I don’t know what makes me push, but I do.
“Butcher said they would be fair game if they escaped.”
“For fuck’s sake,” Smoke says.
“You’re a smart woman, Quinn. Do you really need me to spell it out for you? Who I am? What I do? Do you really not understand what that means?”
“Of course I do. You would have killed them.” Butcher and the rest of the Outlaws would have rounded the men up, taken them somewhere, likely tortured them for information, then buried their bodies.
I’ve read enough motorcycle club romances and watched biker shows on TV to know that if even fifty percent of that content is true, there would have been no excuses allowed.
A silence falls between us, and I’m overcome with shame that I’m behaving this way when he is looking at me with streaks of dirt and sweat on his face.
His shirt is wet, as is the hem of his jeans.
I’m making him stand here and explain himself, when less than an hour ago, I saw him collapse against the wall with a look of abject fear on his face as he sucked in air after he saved my bakery from the same fate as Ember’s bar.
I know exactly what it all means.
“I’m not even sure why I was asking, beyond the hope that you’ll trust me as your confidant and share things that are happening in your life with me. I feel like I have big enough shoulders to handle the truth. I don’t want to be a naive bystander in your life. I’m worried about you.”
“There are some things you can’t be knowing, Quinn. You shouldn’t have watched. You gotta promise something—you won’t tell anyone what you saw or heard because I don’t want you mixed up in any of this. You weren’t there. You didn’t see.”
I make the sign of a cross over my heart with my index finger.
“Cross my heart, hope to die, stick a needle in my eye.”
Smoke shakes his head, but the corner of his mouth twitches in a smile.
“I feel like a pinkie promise might have been more binding than that.”
“I won’t tell anyone. Although, I’ll likely have to show the video to the insurance company.”
“Fine,” he says.
“I’m worried about you, though. How you coped after and?—”
The openness in his features, that was there only a moment ago, disappears completely.
“Go to bed, Quinn,” he says.
“I need a shower, but I’ll take you over to see the damage in the morning.”
And with that, he heads across the corridor to his room, and it’s hard to decipher the way the door shuts.
Not quite a slam, but louder than a gentle closing.
I stand in the hallway in my nightshirt that reads, I stopped reading to come here and wonder if I should go after him.
But I feel like I’ve already done enough damage for one night.