17. Reckless
Reckless
KNOX
Nora moved in that same week.
She hugged Lori at the door and gave her keys back to Barb. Barb hugged her on the porch. "The room's yours if you ever need it."
"Thank you, Barb. For everything."
She didn't have a lot of things. Everything she'd accumulated in the months since the fire fit into two suitcases. I carried both of them out while she walked beside me with the labradorite from Oatman cradled against her chest.
I loaded the suitcases into the truck bed and opened her door. She climbed in with the labradorite still in her lap.
I got in behind the wheel and pulled a key from my pocket before I turned the engine on. She looked at it, then at me.
"I've never had a roommate before." I held it out to her. "Definitely never had one this pretty."
She took the key and laughed. I leaned across the console and kissed her.
I bought her a cabinet for her clothes and made space in the bathroom for her things beside the sink.
She arranged everything neatly on the left side, her bottles and jars lined up smallest to tallest, her toothbrush in the holder next to mine.
My apartment had looked the same for years.
Same towel on the same hook, same razor on the same shelf, everything in its place because nobody else was ever there to move it.
Now her lotion sat next to my aftershave and her hair ties collected on the counter by the mirror, and the whole place looked like someone actually lived in it.
The ordinary things were the ones that surprised me.
Brushing our teeth side by side at the bathroom mirror.
Nora trimming my hair over the kitchen sink with a towel across my shoulders, her fingers tilting my chin to check the line.
Sitting behind me on the edge of the tub while I shaved, wiping the excess foam off my jaw with her thumb.
Falling asleep on the couch with her legs across my lap and the TV still on.
Showering together on mornings when neither of us had anywhere to be.
I didn't know how much better life could be when you shared it with someone who was just as happy to be in it with you.
On days when Nora was off and I was on shift, she'd be waiting at the door when I got home.
I'd hear her footsteps the second my key hit the lock, and then the door would open and her arms would be around my neck before I got my boots off.
She kissed me like she'd been counting the hours, and some shifts I'd been counting them too.
"I have something for you."
She pulled back and held out a small box. Inside it was a necklace. A black stone, pointed and polished, set in silver on a thin chain. She held up her wrist. A bracelet with the same dark stone sat against her skin.
"What's this?"
"Black tourmaline." She took it out of the box and held it up between us. The stone caught the overhead light and gave back nothing. It was dark all the way through. "It's a protection stone. It absorbs negative energy and shields whoever's wearing it from harm. I have one and you have one."
I took it from her and turned it over in my hand. The stone was smooth and heavier than it looked.
"I went to pick up new towels yesterday and there was a crystal shop two doors down.
I saw these in the window and couldn't leave without them.
" She watched me hold it. "I read that firefighters keep something on them for protection when they go on calls.
I thought we should have something like that too. "
She was smiling at me with her whole face, the same expression she got when she talked about natal charts, mercury in retrograde, whatever the moon was doing that week. I didn't believe in any of it. But Nora believed enough for both of us, and I wasn't going to be the person who dimmed that.
"I love it."
I unclasped the chain, put it around my neck, and let the stone settle against my chest. It sat just below my collarbone, cool against my skin.
Nora reached up and touched it with her fingertips. She looked at the stone against my chest, then up at me.
I pulled her in and kissed her.
Travis was on his knees scrubbing the base of the toilet when I leaned against the bathroom doorframe.
"Need a hand?"
"Absolutely not." He didn't look up. "A bet's a bet, Sullivan. I lost fair and square."
Wyatt was beside him wiping down the sink. He'd volunteered to help, which was the most Wyatt thing he could have done. Travis had been on my bathroom duty for two weeks now and hadn't complained once. He just showed up with the cleaning supplies and got to work like it was part of the job.
"So." Wyatt wrung out the rag. "How's everything been? With Nora moved in?"
"Good." I crossed my arms. "Really good."
I skipped the part about how having someone to come home to changed how I moved on calls. I was more careful now. Not because Thompson told me to. Because there was a woman at home who would hear my key in the lock at the end of every shift, and I wanted to be the one turning it.
"That's great, man." Travis sat back on his heels. "I'm happy for you. Seriously." He tossed the sponge into the bucket. "I haven't had much luck in that department myself."
Wyatt looked at me. I looked at Wyatt.
"Travis," Wyatt said. "You don't notice when a girl likes you. You're friendly with everyone. You can't tell the difference."
Travis stopped. "What do you mean?"
"He means there have been girls interested in you that you didn't pick up on," I said.
Travis looked between us. "How many?"
"A lot," Wyatt and I said at the same time.
Travis stared at us. "Who? When? Give me names."
Wyatt and I laughed. Travis opened his mouth to argue.
The tones dropped.
Travis threw the sponge in the bucket. We were in the bay in seconds, stepping into boots, pulling up pants, grabbing coats off the rack. The engine was rolling before the bay doors finished opening.
Apartment fire. Three-story building off Eastern Avenue. Multiple engines were already on scene when we pulled up. Smoke pushed out of the second and third floor windows, thick and dark, and the crews from Station 107 had a line running through the front entrance.
Thompson was on the radio before we stopped. "Engine 110 on scene. Assuming second-floor search and rescue, east side."
We masked up and went in. The stairwell was banked with smoke from the second floor up.
Visibility dropped to nothing past the landing.
We worked the east side of the second floor room by room, clearing apartments, moving people toward the stairwell.
Wyatt and Travis took one end of the hall. Greene and I took the other.
The last apartment on our end had an elderly woman sitting in a chair by the window. She couldn't walk. She'd been waiting there since the alarm started, her hands folded in her lap, calm in a way that told me she'd already decided she wasn't getting out.
I lifted her out of the chair. Greene cleared the path ahead of me. We moved down the hallway toward the stairwell. Wyatt and Travis fell in behind us from the other end of the hall. The smoke was thicker now, banking lower, and I could feel the heat building above us through the ceiling.
We came out the front entrance into daylight. The medics met us on the sidewalk and I set her down on the gurney. She grabbed my forearm before I could step back.
"Thank you, young man."
"Yes, ma'am."
I pulled my mask off and took a breath. The building was still burning. Crews were working the third floor now, and the second line was pushing into the west side. Thompson was at the command post tracking positions on the board.
Then I heard shouting.
A boy broke from the perimeter tape. Eight or nine years old, face red, voice cracking. He ran toward a man the medics were walking out of the front entrance.
"Dad! Dad! Did you get Buster out?"
The father dropped to one knee, coughing, and the boy grabbed his arm.
"He's not with you?"
"No! I thought he was with you!"
The boy turned toward the building. "Buster's still up there! Somebody has to get him! Please!"
"What floor?" I said.
The father looked at me. "Third floor. 3B."
I should have called it in. I should have waited for Thompson to make the call. The building was still active, third floor was still burning, and no captain in the state was going to authorize a re-entry for a dog.
I went back through the front entrance.
Thompson's voice hit the radio before I reached the stairwell. "Sullivan. Sullivan, report your position. Do not re-enter the structure."
I didn't answer. I was already on the stairs.
"Sullivan, respond."
I kept climbing. Second floor was cleared and mostly burned out. The stairwell to three was hotter, the smoke darker, pushing down from above. I stayed low and moved fast.
Third floor hallway. Fire had the west end. The east end was hazy but passable. 3B was the second door on the right. I pushed through it. The apartment was filling with smoke, rolling across the ceiling. I got low and swept the bedroom.
The dog was under the bed. Pressed flat against the wall, shaking. A mutt, medium-sized, brown and white. I reached under, grabbed its collar, and dragged it out. It went limp against my chest when I picked it up.
I turned for the door.
Travis was in the hallway, masked up, moving toward me through the smoke.
"Let's go," Travis said. "Move."
We went down together. Third floor to second, second to ground. Travis stayed behind me the whole way, calling the route, keeping us moving. The dog pressed against my chest, claws digging through my coat.
I came through the front entrance into daylight. The dog squirmed free and hit the ground running, straight for the boy at the perimeter tape.
The boy fell to his knees as the dog jumped into his arms. His father knelt beside him with one hand on the boy's back.
I turned around. Travis was three steps behind me, coming through the entrance when the front of the building came down.