Chapter Three
He’s Too Young. I’m Too Burned.
Olivia
Hospitals are worse than libraries.
And that’s saying something, because people think libraries are quiet, but they’re not, not really.
They have sounds stacked on sounds if you know how to listen.
Whispered conversations, fingers sliding over paper, printers coughing out essays at the last minute, someone in the romance aisle pretending they’re not in the romance aisle.
Hospitals are like that too—layered noise, but every layer is sharpened by fear.
Machines beep in strange off-rhythms. Carts rattle down halls. Intercom announcements blare like disembodied gods giving orders that no living person can decipher. Someone cries somewhere down the corridor, raw and broken and trying not to be heard.
And beneath it all? That smell. Bleach and plastic and something metallic that sits on the back of your tongue like a threat. I fucking hate it.
I hate the walls, the windows, the ceiling tiles, the scratchy gown that opens in the back like a cruel joke. I hate the IV pole with its little bag like an accusation. See? You couldn’t even breathe properly without help, could you?
Mostly, I hate that I’m alone again.
The nurse was nice. She told me I was “lucky,” which is hilarious in a cosmic, bad-comedy way. Twice in one lifetime, two separate men, two separate fires, and I lived both times.
Such a lucky fucking girl.
I pick at the fraying edge of the thin blanket and try to concentrate on the whiteboard with my name written on it in squeaky green marker. Olivia Reed. Date. Nurse’s name. Doctor’s name. Pain scale smiley faces.
I snort softly. If there were a chart for emotional pain, the little smiley would be screaming.
There is a soft knock on the doorframe and I look up. And, for a single heartbeat, everything else falls away.
He fills the space like he did the doorway to my bedroom.
Broad shoulders, easy confidence, and that quiet, grounded presence like his gravity has its own weather system.
Only now he’s not in turnout gear. No helmet.
No mask. Just faded jeans, and a dark hoodie that clings in interesting ways to muscled arms, and that face that should come with a warning label.
Cole. Darren Cole, as the nurse informed me after he called to check on me.
He knocks lightly, even though he’s already standing there, like he’s asking my room for permission to hold him.
“Told you I’d check on you,” he says, voice low and warm.
My stupid heart does a somersault and lands in the wrong place.
“You did.” It comes out breathier than intended. Fantastic. If my pride weren’t already melted like the rest of my house, this would do it.
He steps inside with a carefulness that doesn’t fit his size, closing the door partway, like he’s shielding me from the hallway and the world beyond. He stops at the end of my bed instead of charging right to me. Thoughtful. Controlled. Aware.
His eyes scan me, the oxygen tube under my nose, the tape on my hand, the faint redness on my neck where the heat kissed too close. It isn’t a pitying look. It’s an inventory. A checking.
“You look better,” he says.
“Than what?” I arch a brow. “Than a smoked ham? Or than a raccoon that lost a fight with her mascara?”
He laughs, and the sound does sinful things to my insides. “Than someone whose bedroom tried to become a portal to hell.”
“Ah.” I shrug one shoulder. “Low bar.”
Silence hums, but it isn’t uncomfortable. It’s ... charged. Like the air before a storm or like the moment right before someone confesses a crush they shouldn’t have.
He shoves his hands into the hoodie pockets, thumbs lingering at the edges like he needs them busy. “How do you feel?”
“Like I licked a chimney,” I admit. “My lungs hate me. My throat feels like I deep throated a cactus.”
His mouth curves slowly. Slowly.
“Graphic,” he says, tone dipped thick with something that makes my toes curl against the cool sheets.
I blink and then groan. “Oh, my God. Ignore that. Delete it. Pretend I didn’t say it.”
“Nope,” he replies instantly, grin widening, eyes heating in that way that says he very much did not delete it. “Keeping it forever.”
I grip the blanket tighter because my body is apparently a traitor. My brain is saying too young while my hormones are rolling around on the floor like, yes, hello, sign me up for whatever he’s selling.
He moves closer, dragging the chair from the corner to my bedside. He sits, knees spreading naturally, forearms resting on his thighs, leaning in like I’m the only thing he plans to do today.
“You scared me,” he admits.
I blink. “I scared you?”
He nods once. “Walking in and not knowing if you were conscious. If you were breathing.” He swallows, jaw working like he doesn’t talk about this part often. “Sometimes we’re too late. I hate being too late.”
There’s weight in his words, history, something raw and personal coiled under the calm.
“I’m ... sorry,” I say softly, because what do you say to the guy who pulled you out of the burning version of your worst nightmare? “For scaring you, I mean. Not for being rescued. I kind of appreciate that part.”
He huffs out a breath that’s almost a laugh. “Good. I’d hate to think I carried you out against your will.”
Heat floods my cheeks at the memory, his arms around me, the world burning, his voice right at my ear telling me to hold on. I shift, uncomfortable with how good it felt to be held when everything was falling apart.
“I remember something you said,” he adds, voice dropping. Oh, dear God, please don’t let it be... “‘I’m heavy.’”
Kill. Me. Now. Set me back in the house and let it finish the job.
I groan into my hands. “Can we ... can we not?”
“No.” His tone is gentle but unarguable. “We will.”
He waits until I drop my hands again. His gaze is steady, not pitying, not mocking. Just ... present.
“You weren’t heavy,” he says quietly. “And if you were, I’d still have carried you.”
My throat tightens, and my eyes sting for reasons that have nothing to do with smoke. “You say that like it’s obvious,” I mutter.
“It is,” he replies.
“It’s not,” I return automatically. “Ask my ex-husband.”
The words slip out before I can stop them, and the room shifts, like I cracked open a door we were both pretending wasn’t there.
His posture changes. He doesn’t step forward. He doesn’t explode. But his attention sharpens, condenses, and becomes a blade I can feel without ever touching. His voice, when it comes, is soft in the way thunderstorms are soft, quiet before they break something.
“He’s the reason you thought that?”
He’s the reason I thought a lot of things. That my body is too much. That my laughter is too loud. That I should be grateful for any scrap of affection thrown my way, even if it comes wrapped in cruelty.
“That,” I say lightly, because if I don’t joke, I might cry, “and the entire diet industry.”
His jaw flexes. “Did he hurt you?” he asks, and it is not a casual question. It is measured. Controlled. A grenade pin between someone’s teeth.
“Yes,” I whisper, “he did.”
The past plays in ugly flashes, shattered plates, slammed doors, insults slung like knives and then followed by apologies wrapped in roses. The kind of slow-burn violence that’s harder to explain because it doesn’t always leave visible marks.
“And last night?” he asks. “The fire?”
My stomach flips. I look away, stare at some meaningless point on the wall.
“I don’t know yet,” I say honestly. “The investigators will figure it out.”
He watches me like he knows there’s more I’m not saying. “And what do you think?” he presses.
I swallow. “I think,” I murmur, “I didn’t leave the stove on.”
Silence stretches thin between us.
He doesn’t push further, not yet, but something like a promise settles in his eyes. Not empty heroics. Not dramatic declarations. Just a simple certainty that if someone is hunting me with matches, he plans to be in their way.
The oxygen tubing tugs slightly when I inhale too fast.
“This is ridiculous,” I blurt suddenly. “You’re, what, twenty-five?”
“Twenty-three,” he says, unbothered.
Even worse. Or better. Or worse-better.
I wince. “Jesus. You’re a fetus.”
He laughs so hard, his shoulders shake. “A very muscular fetus who runs into burning buildings.”
“Congratulations,” I deadpan. “You’re a heroic fetus.”
His grin could melt steel beams.
“And you’re thirty-five,” he says, like it’s a fact he enjoys saying. “Not a crime. Not a sentence. Just a number.”
“It’s twelve years,” I counter.
He shrugs. “It’s also the difference between decaf and espresso. Guess which one I am.”
I choke on my own breathing tube. “Did you just compare yourself to caffeine?”
“Absolutely,” he says shamelessly. “I’m good for you. Addictive. Makes your heart race.”
“You’re ridiculous.”
“You’re smiling.”
I didn’t realize I was until he pointed it out. The muscles in my cheeks ache, unused to the motion after the last twenty-four hours. It feels ... good. Dangerous, but good.
The door opens and a nurse pokes her head in. “Everything okay in here?”
“Yes,” we both say at the same time.
Her gaze flicks between us, her mouth twitching like she wants to smile but is too professional to risk it. “We’ll likely discharge you this afternoon if your oxygen saturation stays up. Do you have someone who can pick you up?”
My heart sinks through the bed and into the abyss. Not only is there no one in my life to pick me up, there is nowhere for anyone to take me.
“No,” I say softly. “It’s just me.”
Darren answers over me. “I’ve got her.”
We both turn to look at him. He doesn’t backpedal. He doesn’t glance at me for permission like he’s waiting to see if I’ll be embarrassed by the offer. He just says it, solid and steady and with that same tone he used when he said, “you’re safe.”
The nurse nods like this is the most natural thing in the world. “All right then.” She leaves without another word.
The room feels different now. Bigger. Smaller. Fuller.
“You don’t have to do that,” I say weakly.
“I know,” he replies. “I want to.”
Want. The word lands in my belly and blooms.
“I’m a mess,” I warn him, because he needs to understand what he’s volunteering for. “My house is gone. I don’t even know where I’m going after here. The library paycheck doesn’t exactly come with an emergency fund for arson.”
“We’ll figure it out,” he says without hesitation.
We. There is that damn word again.
I should argue. I should push him away with polite smiles and self-deprecating jokes and reminders that he deserves someone younger, smoother, less ... burned. But I am so damn tired of doing everything alone.
“Okay,” I whisper.
Something like victory flashes in his eyes. Not cocky, not predatory, just relieved. Like I gave him something he wanted, and what he wanted was the chance to stay.
He shifts in his chair, closer now, forearm brushing the edge of my mattress. “Tell me something,” he says.
“What?”
“Your favorite book.”
I blink, startled. “That’s the question?”
He nods. “Yeah.”
I search his face for mockery. There isn’t any. He just wants to know. It sneaks past my defenses because it’s not about fire or fear or ex-husbands, it’s about me.
“Jane Eyre,” I say after a second. “She’s stubborn. She knows she deserves more than scraps even when the world tells her otherwise.”
He smiles slowly. “Of course it is.”
“And you?” I ask, curious in spite of myself. “What do firefighters read? Manuals? Menus?”
His laugh rumbles low. “Comics, growing up. Then anything about engines. Then ... self-defense books after my sister died.”
The shift is small but seismic.
“I’m sorry,” I say instantly, heart clenching. “I didn’t...”
“It’s okay,” he cuts in gently. “You didn’t know.”
I want to ask more. I want to take that hurt from his eyes and hold it for him for a while. But I also know pain when I see it wrapped around someone’s ribs like barbed wire.
He clears his throat. “Point is, I took some courses. Learned some things. I volunteer sometimes to teach women’s classes at the community center. If you want...”
I know where he’s going before he finishes.
“If I want,” I murmur, “you’ll teach me how to fight back.”
His gaze catches mine and holds. “I’ll teach you how to protect yourself,” he says. “How to make a man like him regret every decision he made the second he touches you. And more importantly, how to believe that you deserve to fight.”
Something inside me, something small and shaking and long beaten down, lifts its head. “You’d do that?” I ask quietly.
He leans in, voice dropping, tone carved in steel. “I’d do anything to make sure you’re never scared like that again.”
The room disappears. The hospital. The IV. The past. It all fades beneath the weight of those words and the way he says them—no bravado, no testosterone-poisoned chest beating. Just truth. Dangerous, irresistible truth.
“Okay,” I breathe.
He smiles then, slow and wicked and relieved all at once. “Good. First lesson—stop apologizing for existing.”
I snort softly. “That’s ... not easy.”
“I know,” he says. “We’ll practice.”
We fall into softer conversation after that—stupid jokes, small town gossip, him telling me about the evil coffee at the firehouse and me telling him about teenagers who try to make out in the nonfiction stacks because apparently Dewey Decimal is an aphrodisiac.
He listens. God, he listens. Not like he’s waiting for his turn to talk. Not like he’s tallying information to use against me later. Just ... listening.
Hours blur until the nurse returns with discharge papers and stern instructions about rest and hydration and follow-ups. Darren rises immediately, taking the offered plastic bag of my smoky, ruined clothes like they weigh nothing, then offering his hand to help me swing my legs off the bed.
I hesitate. Not because I don’t want to touch him. Because I do, too much. Then I slide my hand into his. Warm, calloused, and steady.
He makes it easy to stand, like gravity works differently when he’s the one anchoring me. His gaze flicks down my body once, slow, reverent, and unapologetic, then snaps back up to my face.
“You ready?” he asks.
“No,” I say honestly. “But let’s go anyway.”
He grins.
We walk out together, me in borrowed hospital sweats and a hoodie from the lost-and-found, him carrying the weight of what’s left of my old life in one hand and the promise of something new in the other.
As the automatic doors whoosh open and cool air kisses my skin, I realize something startling. Yesterday, fire tried to take everything from me again. Today, a firefighter showed up and refused to let it.
And for the first time in a long, long time ... I don’t feel alone. I feel scorched and alive.