Never Forget (Never Letting Go #1)

Chapter 1

Sam

The boys were giving Cole hell again.

"Play it back," Martinez said. "I want to see the exact moment he forgets how to use his arms."

I leaned against the doorframe of my office, coffee going cold in my hand, watching my crew crowd around Cole's phone like teenagers passing around a dirty magazine. Someone had pulled up the video again. Twelve million views and counting.

"I didn't forget how to use my arms."

"Brother, your hands are just hanging there. Like you've never held a woman in your life."

Laughter ricocheted off the bay walls. Cole's ears went red, but he didn't walk away. That wasn't his style. He stood there and took it, jaw tight, waiting for the storm to pass.

The video was already a few days old now. At a house fire in Westbrook, Cole had carried a woman and her son out of a second-story window, and when their feet hit the grass, she'd grabbed his face and kissed him. Full on the mouth while a news camera recorded the whole thing.

The internet called it the most romantic moment of the year. Cole called it the worst day of his life.

"Cole's got a fan club." Martinez singsonged, spinning a basketball on his finger.

"She was scared." Cole's ears were red. He was trying to disappear into the engine he was supposedly inspecting. "People do weird things when they're scared."

"Yeah, I get real romantic when I'm terrified." Davis clutched his chest. "Hold me, Martinez. I'm so scared."

"Get off me—"

The three of them dissolved into shoving and laughter, and I shook my head, letting myself smile. The brotherhood was the same as it had always been. The teasing. The way grown men turned into twelve-year-olds the second someone showed a hint of vulnerability. Some things never changed.

Everything else had.

The equipment was different now. The protocols.

The communication systems that actually worked when you needed them.

The way the younger guys talked to each other—checking in after bad calls, admitting when something got to them.

No one called it weakness anymore. No one told them to man up and move on.

These kids had it good.

My eyes drifted to the plaque on the wall. Nine names etched in brass. Eighteen years had passed, yet I could still hear the PASS alarms if I let myself listen. I could still smell the smoke that clung to everything for weeks afterward.

It took nine men dying to get here.

I pushed off the doorframe and headed back to my office, leaving the laughter behind. The coffee was definitely cold now, but I drank it anyway. Through the window, I could see Cole finally escaping his tormentors, heading for the bay with his shoulders hunched.

Good kid.

The memory came the way it always did. Not all at once, but in pieces. A bar in Havensworth. A laugh I'd never hear again. The way the world looked before I understood what it could take from you.

Before the fire. Before Havensworth learned the hard way what needed to change.

Havensworth, 2007

I knew exactly what kind of man I didn't want to be. I hadn't yet learned what being a good one meant.

The bar was loud and dark and smelled like spilled beer and hot wings, which meant it was perfect.

Half the stools were taken by guys I recognized from stations across the city—Engine 7 by the pool table, a crew from Station 12 running a card game in the back corner, a couple of off-duty lieutenants arguing about baseball near the jukebox.

The TV above the bar played a game nobody was watching.

Someone had chalked "E-11 OWES US A ROUND" on the chalkboard by the dartboard, and from the laughter over there, it looked like they were about to owe another.

This was our place. Not officially, but everyone knew. You wanted to find a Havensworth firefighter after hours, you came here.

Jack and I had claimed a booth near the back, two beers between us and the noise of the room washing over us like water. He had his arm slung over the back of the seat, relaxed in that way he always was—like he'd figured out something the rest of us were still working on.

"Rosie asked about you today," he said.

"Yeah?"

"Wanted to know when Uncle Sam was coming over. I told her you've been busy being a hero." He grinned.

"Heroic. Last shift I burned the station chili so bad we almost had to evacuate."

Jack grinned and took a swig of his beer. "That sounds about right. You're a menace in the kitchen."

I shook my head, still smiling. "I'll stop by to see her this week."

Jack nodded, satisfied. "Jamie called yesterday.”

The name landed in my chest the way it always did.

"Yeah? How's she doing?"

"Good. Busy." Jack picked at the label on his beer bottle. "She's working on some big project covering workplace safety legislation." He shook his head, but there was pride underneath it. "That's my sister. Always finding the story nobody else wants to tell."

"Sounds like her."

Jamie. Jack's younger sister. We'd been in each other's lives since before I could remember. We'd grown up together—same streets, same schools, same summers. She was always tagging along after Jack when we were kids, rolling her eyes at us when we were teenagers.

She'd always meant more to me than I knew how to say.

Not that I'd ever told anyone or dared to do anything about it. She was Jack's sister, and Jack was my best friend. Some lines you don't cross. So I'd kept my distance, watched her from the edges of rooms, and looked forward to her visits home more than I'd ever admit out loud.

After we graduated high school, she left Havensworth as fast as she could and built a life in New York.

I always thought she was too smart and too sharp for this town.

The last time I'd seen her was a year ago.

The city had changed her in small ways. The way she carried herself, the confidence in her voice.

But she was still Jamie. Still just as beautiful as she'd always been.

"She's planning to visit after it wraps up to make up for missing Christmas."

"That's great." I tried not to sound too eager. Probably failed. Jack looked at me with that look he gave me sometimes when he saw more than I wanted him to see.

Before either of us could say anything, my phone vibrated in my pocket.

I couldn't help a scowl when I saw who the text was from.

Amber.

Amber

Don't forget tomorrow. 7:00 p.m. Wear the navy suit. Mom wants pictures.

I stared at her text for a long moment. The navy suit. Pictures. Her mother's annual charity gala. The one that raised money for causes I couldn't name and attracted people whose net worth had more zeros than my yearly salary.

"Amber giving you hell again?"

I sighed. "Yeah."

"I thought you were going to break up with her?"

Amber Henderson.

We met at a bar one night when her friends dared her to get my number. I'd humored her. She was beautiful, fun, and easy to be around.

But easy was all it ever was.

Amber was twenty-three and had never known a hard day in her life. She'd grown up with money and comfort. Her parents smoothed every road before she had to walk it. It wasn't her fault. But I'd figured out early that we had nothing to talk about that mattered.

I tried once. I told her about a call that had gotten to me. Halfway through, I looked at her and realized she hadn't heard a word I'd said. She was looking at me, but she wasn't there.

"That's nice," she said when I stopped talking.

I never tried again.

I'd been dating her for eight months. I'd been trying to break up with her for three.

Every time I got close, something happened.

A birthday. A family dinner. Her father's business trip that meant she "really needed me right now.

" The opportunities kept slipping away, and the deeper I got, the harder it became to imagine climbing out.

Another text came through.

Amber

This is important to me.

I clicked my tongue and sighed again. I'd tried saying no before. She'd shown up at my apartment with a suit and her car running. I'd learned it was easier to just go along.

"You gonna fill me in, or just keep making faces at your phone?"

"Amber wants me to go to her mom's annual charity gala."

"Sounds fancy." Jack raised an eyebrow. "You don't sound too eager."

"I'm not."

I was supposed to be on shift tomorrow night.

I could call Captain Sutton and tell him I couldn't come in, but that would leave Station 33 running a three-man crew.

Most stations across Havensworth ran three, sometimes two when budget cuts hit hard.

Station 33 was different. Captain Sutton had pull, and he'd used it to get his son Tyler assigned to our shift.

The brass looked the other way because legacy mattered in Havensworth.

Fathers and sons, uncles and nephews, names that went back generations on the department roster.

So we ran four; Captain Sutton, Engineer Sean, Tyler, and me.

Technically, Station 33 was overstaffed. But I'd seen what happened when crews went in short-handed. Four was the real number. The right number. I wasn't going to leave my guys without enough backup.

"Hey, Jack. I hate to ask, but can you cover my shift tomorrow?"

Jack didn't hesitate. "Done."

"You sure? I know Rosie—"

"Loretta can babysit." He waved a hand. "It's handled. Go do your thing."

That was Jack. He never made you feel like you owed him something. Never kept score. He just showed up.

I wished I knew how to be more like him.

"Best friend" never felt like the right word for what Jack was to me.

He was more like a big brother. My father drank too much.

My mother worked double shifts to keep us afloat.

My sister picked up extra jobs to help out until she was old enough to leave.

When things got hard at home, I knew I could always walk over to Jack's house and his family would treat me like one of their own.

Every good thing I had, Jack had pointed me toward.