Eight
ALISON
Cleaning is supposed to be therapeutic—or at least that’s what I’m told. But standing here scrubbing my bathroom floor is doing nothing to ease the knot that’s been growing in my stomach since the moment Daniel left for the station.
I check my phone for the four millionth time and then sit back on my heels and brush aside a loose hair with my hand while I stare at my now clean floor.
It’s been over two hours since he left. I have no idea how long it takes to put out a five-alarm fire, and now I’m wishing I had bothered to ask those questions in the year that we were together, or all the years before that when Mark was a firefighter.
It might help with some of this anxiety if I knew whether or not I should’ve heard from him by now.
I stand up and grab my phone, turning the volume up to its loudest setting so I won’t miss a call or text from him. Then I slide it into my pocket so I can grab my cleaning supplies to return them back underneath the kitchen sink.
When I get to the kitchen, I put everything away, wash my hands, and then pour myself a tall glass of water. The cool liquid slides down my throat only to land in my hollow stomach. Setting the half-empty glass aside, I lean against the counter and put my head in my hands.
He’s alright. He’s alright. He’s alright.
He’s trained and will be safe. He’s fine.
The words repeat in a loop but again do nothing to ease the pit of anxiety in my stomach. All I can think about is how my brother was trained. How he was fine.
Until he wasn’t.
It was only a second. One single second that took his life and completely changed mine. I can’t go through that again, but that’s the risk I’ve taken by getting back together with Daniel.
Is this feeling better or worse than the empty devastation I felt after Mark died?
Am I strong enough to love Daniel despite how much his job scares me?
Yes.
I have to be. Because there’s no one else in the world for me but Daniel. And as scared as I am right now, I’m not the one putting my life on the line to save other people. If he can be strong enough for his job, then I can be strong enough for him.
With resolve that comes from somewhere deep within me, I take a deep breath, releasing some of the ball of nerves in the pit of my stomach. It’s not all of my anxiety, but it’s a start.
He’s alright. He’s alright. He’s alright.
My phone rings loudly in my pocket, and I jump, then pause when I see an unknown number on the screen. My stomach clenches, but I still answer the phone instead of letting it go to voicemail like I usually do for unknown numbers.
“Hello?”
“Alison?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s Captain Hardin,” he says, even though I recognized his voice. My brother worked with him, and Pop often invited him to Sunday dinners. He came to several when he was available.
“What happened?” My voice doesn’t sound like my own. It’s scratchy, hoarse, and vacant. “Is Daniel okay?”
I know the answer before he even speaks. Why would he call if Danny was fine?
He lets out a sigh that’s weighted with so many words he’s not saying. “No, he’s not.”
Those three words bring all my greatest fears to life, and my heart sinks to my stomach at the same time that I grip the counter to keep myself standing.
“What happened?”
“They just took him to the hospital.” It’s not an answer to my question, but it’s just as important.
“Which hospital?”
He tells me, and I hang up before he has a chance to tell me anymore.
Nothing he says right now matters anyway.
All that matters is getting to Daniel’s side.
I operate on autopilot, my emotions shutting down as I grab my keys, purse, and slip on my shoes.
I speed to the hospital, not caring that I’m breaking traffic laws as long as it gets me to Danny faster.
I run into the ER and straight to the nurse at the desk. “I’m here for Daniel McKay.”
“Are you family?” she asks.
I stare at her in complete dismay and heartbreak because the answer is so much more complicated than a yes or no. We may not be family by blood or law, but he’s mine in every way that truly counts, and I’m his.
Completely.
“Yes! She’s family,” I hear a frantic female voice say behind me.
I turn to see Sadie, Daniel’s sister, standing with tears in her eyes.
She doesn’t stop in front of me like I expect her to, but instead immediately wraps me up in a tight hug.
After a second’s pause, I reciprocate, holding her tight and fighting back tears as we comfort each other the only way we can.
“I’m still waiting on an update,” she says, pulling me toward the waiting room where a few other firefighters are sitting with equally worried expressions on their faces.
“Do you know what happened?” I ask her.
She shakes her head. “All the captain told me was that there was an explosion, but he didn’t want to say any more over the phone.”
An explosion? Was it just a byproduct of the fire or was it intentional?
I’ve heard snippets in line at the grocery store or in the newspapers about an arsonist, but often tuned out whenever anything fire related was mentioned because it had been too much for me.
Now I’m hating that I haven’t been paying more attention to what was going on.
We sit in the waiting room for hours waiting for answers, as more firefighters that I recognize from Danny’s station trickle in and join us for the wait.
As each one arrives, they fill in a few more of the blanks.
The explosion took out three floors above them, and considering how weak the building was already from the fire in the basement and the fires in the upper levels, it’s a miracle it didn’t all come tumbling down on top of them.
Danny and three other firefighters were rescued.
Tommy Barnes, who was partnered with Daniel, was rushed to the ER with burns and a crushed leg from when a beam fell on it.
The two other firefighters had moderate concussions, some pretty nasty scrapes, and one punctured a lung.
Danny had been thrown back into a cement wall, and there was a concern he had severe internal injuries on top of a likely concussion from hitting his head.
They try to fill in the gaps as best they can, but only the doctors working on him now will be able to tell me if I’m going to walk out of this hospital as a shattered shell or if I’ll still be whole when this awful night is over.
This is my worst nightmare, but instead of fear and anxiety and the need to run, all I can think about is how much I’ll regret all the time I wasted pushing him away if he dies. How much time we’ve already lost because I was stubborn. Too fucking stubborn.
I hope he knows how much I love him. The words don’t feel like enough, and I vow to step up my actions so he feels it with every breath he takes.
He can’t die.
I don’t want to live without him, not when we are finally back to a good place. Tears slide silently down my face until there are none left. And then the doctor walks through the door and a hush falls over the room, now packed full with firefighters, Sadie, and me.
Sadie and I stand up, gripping each other’s hands, both of us squeezing tight while we prepare for the worst and hope with every beat of our heart for the best.
The doctor looks weary, but a small smile graces his face as he says, “It was touch and go, but he’s in stable condition.”
You can hear the sigh of relief that escapes from everyone connected to Danny in the waiting room.
“He’s resting now, but we can let one of you come on back to sit with him until he wakes up.”
My heart sinks that I’m going to have to wait even longer to see him, until I glance over at his sister only to find her already staring at me.
“He’s going to want to see you first,” Sadie says, a kind smile on her face. She may only be twenty-two, but she always seems so much older than that.
“Are you sure?” I ask. I know how much her brother means to her, and if I were in her shoes, I don’t know that I would’ve been able to lose the chance to make sure my brother was alright.
But she gives me a reassuring nod and squeezes my hand again, so without hesitating anymore, I step forward to follow the doctor to Danny’s room.
My palms are sweaty, and my hands have a slight tremble to them as the doctor leads me through the hospital down several halls and then pushes through a closed door across from the nurses’ desk.
It’s a single occupant room, and lying on the bed is my heart in human form. I push past the doctor and rush to Danny’s side, immediately grabbing his hand and holding it delicately in mine. His dark-blond lashes rest against his pale skin.
“His coloring should get better over the next few hours,” the doctor says reassuringly.
I don’t take my eyes off Danny as my free hand brushes his blond hair away from his forehead and then slides down to cup his cheek, my thumb rubbing tender circles.
“Thank you,” I say, emotion choking me and tears slipping silently down my face as it hits me that I almost lost him.
“I’ll give you some time with him,” he says before exiting.
The room is silent except for the sound of my sobs as I cry grateful and relieved tears. I pull the chair closer to his bed and sit down, kissing his knuckles, while my gaze traces every line of his face. My heart leaps every time his lashes flutter, hoping that will be the time he opens his eyes.
I hope he’s not having nightmares. I’m not even sure how much he’ll remember, but no matter what, I’m not leaving his side. The only thing that matters is that he’s okay.
It’s at least another hour before his lashes flutter open and his gorgeous blue eyes lock onto me.
“Ali,” he says, his voice soft, hoarse, but still filled with love and affection.
I stand up and lean over, dropping a soft kiss to his lips and cupping his face in my hands.
“I love you,” I say, my voice thick from all the tears I’ve cried in the last several hours.
“I love you with everything I have. You’re not allowed to leave me, and I promise I won’t leave you ever again. Okay? I love you. I love—”
Sobs rack my body, and he pulls me against him until I’m forced to actually get up on the bed and lie next to him so he can hold me tight.
It takes a few minutes before I can compose myself enough to realize I’m probably hurting him. “I’m so sorry,” I say, pulling away slightly and scanning down his body searching for signs of injury.
“Don’t ever apologize for telling me you love me. I’ve never heard sweeter words than those.”
“I’m not sorry for that. I’m sorry if I’m hurting you. Where are you injured?”
The words that just came out of my mouth register slowly, but when I finally realize exactly what I said, I realize I have so much more to apologize for.
“You’re not hurting me, babe. I’m okay. Just a bit sore, and my head feels like I got hit by a two by four, but as long as I’ve got you in my arms, it’s not that bad.” He says it with a flirty smile, and there’s only a hint of pain in his eyes so I relax against him.
“Maybe I should be apologizing for all the months we spent apart because I know I hurt you then.”
His gaze softens, and he nods before cupping my face and staring into my eyes. “But you were hurting too. I knew where you were coming from. I was willing to wait as long as I had to because you’re it for me, Ali. You’ve always been it for me.”
“You’re it for me too,” I say, resting my head against his chest where I can hear the beating of his heart. “Now tell me where else you’re hurting so I don’t accidentally hurt you again,” I whisper, knowing he wasn’t completely forthcoming when I asked before.
He chuckles but keeps his arms locked tight around my waist. “Just my head, mostly, but I also feel like I tweaked my back.”
Before he can say more, his doctor and a nurse come in the room, and I quickly slide out of the bed and stand next to it, still holding his hand tightly in mine. “Mr. McKay, so happy to see you awake. You have quite the entourage in the waiting room wanting to know how you’re doing.”
“How’s Tommy?”
The doctor glances at the nurse and then says, “I can’t go into specifics due to HIPAA laws, but I can tell you he’s going to be just fine.”
Danny’s head rests against the bed as if it’s too heavy to hold up, relief evident on his face.
“How much do you remember?” the doctor asks.
Daniel shakes his head. “Not much.” He looks down at the cream hospital blanket, his eyes darting back and forth like he’s trying to remember.
“Tommy and I were heading toward the stairwell, but something stopped us—or someone. I think there were other firefighters there.” He looks up to confirm with the doctor who nods.
“They’re okay too.”
“Then there was an explosion and…” He trails off, but his gaze moves up from the blanket and locks on me.
“It’s okay if you can’t remember all the details. You had a deep, three-inch gash to your head that we stapled. You were also hit with some shrapnel from the explosion and needed a significant amount of blood. We need to run some tests to check for concussion, but overall, you got pretty lucky.”
“Yeah, I did,” he says, still watching me.
“Well, I’ll leave you to rest. The nurse will check on your pain in a bit to see if you need more meds.”
“Thanks, doc,” Daniel says as the doctor and nurse walk out.
When they’re gone, he turns to me and grabs my hand, playing with my fingers like he always used to when we’d be lounging in bed together.
“You were all I could think about. The last thing I remember was thinking about your smile. I knew I had to make it out of that building for you because we have our whole future in front of us, and I wasn’t about to let a fucking arsonist steal my future with you. I hate that he almost did.”
So it was the arsonist. I’d wondered.
“All that matters is that you’re safe and okay,” I say, kissing him again because how can I not?
He pulls me back into the bed with him, and instead of worrying about if we’re going to get yelled at, I soak in the feel of his body and rest my head near his heart, soothed once again by the steady beat I can hear just beneath his skin.
When you almost lose the love of your life, you don’t question whether or not it’s frowned upon to snuggle together in a hospital bed when he should probably be resting. You just appreciate the simple gift of being together, being alive, and thinking of all the beautiful things your future holds.