Chapter 13 Garrett
Garrett
The kiss changed somewhere between the couch and the hallway.
What started as relief shifted into something hungrier. Her hands in my hair. My mouth on her throat. The small sound she made when I pressed her against the wall.
I'd imagined this. More times than I'd ever admit. Late nights staring at the ceiling, remembering the weight of her body against mine. The taste of her skin. The sounds she used to make in the dark.
I'd replayed those memories until they wore thin. Until I wasn't sure what was real and what I'd invented to survive the missing.
This was real.
Her hips were pinned beneath my hands. Her pulse was hammering against my lips. The heat of her burning through that old shirt.
"Garrett." My name came out breathless. "We should—"
"We should?" I pulled back just enough to see her face. Flushed. Eyes dark. Lips swollen from kissing. "Tell me what you want."
"You." No hesitation. "I want you."
I'd waited eight years to hear those words.
The bedroom was dark. Curtains still drawn from days of her hiding.
I didn't reach for the light. Didn't need to. I knew her by touch, by memory, by the way her breath caught when my fingers found the hem of her shirt.
I pulled it over her head. Slowly. Let myself look.
She stood in front of me in a thin bra and gray sweatpants slung low on her hips.
The lean lines of her waist. The swell of her breasts rising with each breath. The freckles scattered across her collarbones like a constellation I'd once known by heart.
She was more beautiful than I remembered. And I remembered everything.
She reached for me. Tugged my shirt over my head. Her hands settled on my chest, fingers splaying across my skin.
I felt the touch in my spine.
"You're bigger than you were." Her palms traced down over my ribs, the ridges of my stomach. Slow. Exploratory. Like she was relearning the shape of me.
"Eight years of hauling hose."
She smiled against my mouth when she kissed me again.
We took our time. And we didn't.
Her bra unclasped under my fingers, muscle memory, my hands remembering what my mind had tried to forget. She inhaled sharply when the air hit bare skin, and I dipped my head. Kissed what she'd bared for me.
Her fingers tightened in my hair.
"I missed you," I murmured against her skin. "Every day. Every night."
The sweatpants came off easily. One tug and they pooled at her feet. She stepped out of them and pulled me closer.
Nothing between us now except the last thin layer of fabric and eight years of wanting.
I lifted her. She wrapped her legs around me, instinct, the way she always used to, and I carried her to the bed.
Laid her down. Looked at her.
Dark hair fanned across the pillow. Green eyes watching me. The rise and fall of her chest.
"Come here."
I lowered myself over her. Foreheads touching. Breathing the same air. Her body warm and solid beneath mine.
My hand traced the dip of her waist. The flare of her hip. The soft skin of her inner thigh.
She shivered.
"Garrett—" Her back arched. "Please—"
Slowly. Deliberately. Watching her face, the flutter of her lashes, the flush spreading down her neck, the way her lips parted when I found the places that still undid her.
She gasped. Pulled me closer. Said my name like it was the only word she had left.
I wanted to memorize every sound. Every shudder. The way her nails dragged down my back. The way her thighs tightened around me. The way she whispered don't stop against my jaw.
I couldn't have even if I'd wanted to.
When she came apart, I felt it everywhere. Her body trembling beneath mine. Her fingers digging into my shoulders. My name torn from her throat.
I followed her over. Lost myself in the only woman I'd ever wanted to get lost in. And when the wave crested and broke, I buried my face in her neck and held on.
She held on, too.
We lay tangled together afterward. Her head on my chest. My hand tracing lazy patterns on her spine.
Sirens in the distance. The ordinary sounds of a world that had kept turning while we were lost in each other.
"I forgot." Her voice was soft. Wonder and sadness mixed together. "I forgot what it was like. With you."
"Good forgotten or bad forgotten?"
She propped herself up on one elbow. Hair a mess, tangled from my hands. Lips swollen.
She'd never been more beautiful.
"Good forgotten. The kind that makes you realize everything else was just... filling time." She touched my face. "No one else ever felt like this."
"No." I kissed her palm. "They didn't."
"We should talk about this." Quieter now. "About what it means."
"It means I love you." I kissed her fingers. "It means you love me. It means we're not running anymore."
"It can't be that simple."
"Why not?"
A long silence. When she spoke, her voice was smaller.
"Because I left. Because I broke us."
I pulled her closer. Tighter.
Her heartbeat against my chest.
"You were sick, Sloane. Dealing with something neither of us had the language for." I rested my chin on her head. "That's not abandonment. That's survival."
"But—"
"Did you want to leave?"
Silence.
"No." Barely a whisper. "I wanted to stay. I just... couldn't."
"Then it wasn't a choice." I turned her in my arms until we were face to face. "You did what you had to do to survive. I wish I'd understood that then."
Her eyes searched mine. Looking for the catch. The condition. The fine print.
There wasn't any.
"I choose you. I've always chosen you. Every failed relationship, every date that went nowhere, every woman who walked away because she could tell my heart wasn't in it, I'd already chosen. Years ago."
"Garrett..."
"I'm just glad you're finally letting me."
She laughed. Wet and raw and real—the kind of laugh that lives next door to crying.
"Okay," she said. "Let's try again."
"Let's try again."
I kissed her forehead. Her nose. The corner of her mouth.
"But this time, we do it right. No more running. No more silence. If something's wrong, we talk about it."
"Even if I'm scared?"
"Especially if you're scared." I pulled her close. "I can handle scared. I can't handle gone."
She nestled against my chest. The tension draining out of her body.
"I can do that," she murmured. "I can try."
"That's all I'm asking."
We fell asleep tangled together. The first real sleep either of us had gotten in a week.
When I woke up with her still in my arms, I knew something had changed.
We weren't circling each other anymore.
We were us.
Engine 295 the next shift.
Same locker. Same gear. Same smell of diesel and old coffee soaked into the walls over decades.
Everything looked different.
Shane was in the common room. Feet up, crossword puzzle, the picture of a man not waiting for me to walk in.
He glanced up. Did a double take. Grinned.
"Well, well."
"Shut up."
"You look like a man who finally pulled his head out of his ass."
"I said shut up."
But I was smiling. Couldn't help it.
The expression felt foreign on my face—had it really been that long since I'd smiled like this? Like I meant it?
"She's good for you." Shane set down the crossword. "I've been telling you that for weeks."
Brian appeared in the doorway. Travel mug. He looked at Shane. Looked at me.
"What's—" His eyes narrowed. "Oh." A slow grin. "Finally."
"Does everyone have an opinion about my love life?"
"Yes." In unison.
Rodriguez emerged from his office. Studied me for a moment, the captain's assessment, missing nothing.
I straightened.
"Stone."
"Sir."
"The journalist."
Heat crept up my neck. "Sir, I can explain—"
"About damn time." The corner of his mouth twitched. "Now get to work. Rig needs checking."
He disappeared back into his office.
Shane burst out laughing.
"Did Rodriguez just give you his blessing?"
"I think he told me to get to work."
"Same thing." Shane stood, clapped me on the shoulder. "Welcome back to the land of the living, brother. We missed you."
I didn't have words for that. So I just nodded and headed for the bay.
Something warm had settled in my chest. The crew. The station. The quiet certainty of belonging.
Now I had Sloane too.
The thought still felt fragile. New. Like something I needed to protect.
The tones dropped at two in the afternoon.
Structure fire. Residential. Family trapped on the second floor.
We rolled out in under a minute, muscle memory, the familiar choreography of boots and gear and engine roaring to life.
I was in the cab before my conscious mind caught up.
Fully involved when we arrived. Flames pouring from the second-floor windows, smoke billowing black against gray sky. A woman on the sidewalk screaming that her kids were still inside.
"Stone, leading interior." Rodriguez through the radio. "Martinez, O'Brien, with him. Search and rescue, second floor."
Mask on. Gear checked. The fear was there, always there, but it lived alongside the training. Fuel instead of obstacle.
We went in.
Stairs intact but weakening. Heat from all sides, that suffocating pressure that made you feel small against the fire's appetite.
"FDNY! Call out if you can hear me!"
Crying. Faint but unmistakable. Back bedroom.
"This way."
The hallway was a tunnel of smoke. Low and fast, feeling the floor for soft spots. Bedroom door hot to the touch, not good, but not impossible.
I forced it open.
Two kids huddled in the corner. A boy, maybe eight, shielding a younger girl. Maybe six. Tears cutting tracks through the soot on their faces.
For a split second, just a flash, I saw Emma.
Same terror. Same desperate hope.
Then the moment passed. And I was moving.
"I've got you." Scooped up the girl, handed her to Martinez. "O'Brien, take the boy. Window."
Ladder truck already in position. Kids down, one at a time, into waiting arms. My boots hit the ground just as something crashed inside the house.
The mother grabbed both kids. Sobbing. The father shaking, trying to thank us, words jumbled and desperate.
And the girl, maybe eight, same age Emma would have been, looked at me with huge wet eyes.
"Thank you," she whispered.
I nodded. Couldn't speak.
For the first time in seven years, I didn't see Emma's face over hers.
I just saw a child. Alive. Safe. With her family.
Something shifted in my chest. A weight I'd carried so long I'd forgotten it was there, still present, but lighter. Looser.
Like a fist slowly unclenching.
The guilt wasn't gone. Probably never would be completely. But it wasn't crushing me anymore.
She's helping me heal.
Not by fixing anything. Just by being there. By letting me talk about Emma without trying to make the grief smaller.
That had made room for something else to grow.
I wanted to do this right.
Not work sessions that turned into more. Not falling into bed because the tension became unbearable.
A proper date. Dinner. Romance. The whole thing.
I made a reservation at a restaurant she'd mentioned years ago. Back when we were engaged and thought we had forever.
I remembered the name. Had never forgotten.
Flowers. Not roses, she always said roses were cliché. Sunflowers. She loved them for the way they turned toward light. The unapologetic brightness of them.
I found a florist who could deliver tomorrow. Placed the order.
Then I pulled out my phone.
Tomorrow night. 7pm. Wear something nice.
Should I be worried?
No. Just prepared to be impressed.
Is this a date? Like a real date?
The realest.
I set the phone down. The case files still spread across the coffee table. The empty coffee mug she'd used last time. The jacket on my couch that I hadn't been able to move.
Tomorrow night, we'd start fresh. Build something on purpose instead of stumbling into it.
This time, I wasn't letting go.