Chapter Two Noelle
“Wes, my guy!” bellows Mateo on our way across the bay toward the spiral staircase leading up to the mezzanine.
I can’t tell who he’s yelling at until a pair of strong legs protruding from underneath one of the trucks bend at the knees, the heels of steel-toed boots braced against the concrete floor to wheel himself out from under the fire engine.
A man with unruly chestnut hair, the kind of tint that might turn auburn in the sunlight, straightens up. There’s a streak of black engine grease across his left cheekbone, and much more of that grease staining the thin fabric of his white tee.
I halt in my tracks, embarrassingly affected by this man’s rugged good looks. He’s bulkier than Mateo, his veiny forearms and large hands covered in tattoos.
He’s kind of a mess, and unfortunately it’s the one thing to send my heart skittering into a reckless rhythm for the first time since I set foot in here.
“Investigator Meadows, this is Wes Kane,” Mateo says, gesturing between me and the man on the ground, who rests his elbows on his knees and stares up at me with a stoic but non-threatening expression.
“Noelle,” I tell them. “You can call me Noelle.”
Wes nods at me. “Welcome.”
“Wes is a genius,” Mateo informs me. “If you have any questions that require someone with more than half a brain to answer, he’s your guy.”
I lift a brow. “Not your captain?”
Mateo snorts. “Cap’s a busy man.”
I turn my attention to Wes. “And you’re not?”
Wes merely shrugs, but I don’t miss the way his measured gaze sweeps down the length of my body.
For some reason, Mateo laughs. I feel a gentle nudge between my shoulder blades and take that as my cue to keep going. Wes rolls himself back under the engine without another word.
“Man of few words, that one,” Mateo says, leaning in conspiratorially as we approach the stairs. “Studied engineering at MIT or something, then worked for the military for a little while.”
“Oh. Interesting.”
“More interesting than me, I’m afraid.” He punctuates this with a mischievous grin tossed over his shoulder as he leads his way up the steps to the mezzanine.
Thankfully, I don’t have to endure much more chatting from Mateo, though I have to admit that his effortlessly friendly demeanor is kind of endearing.
He leads me to a dorm room at the far end of the hall, explaining that I’ll have the space all to myself and that, despite his captain’s commentary, it should be clean and equipped with the basics.
I’m the recipient of one last sparkly-eyed wink before he departs to rejoin his crew downstairs, and I’m left alone in my new temporary home.
I stand in the center of the room and slowly turn in a circle. My stomach has plummeted with dread, and it’s not necessarily because this place looks like a prison cell.
There’s a dresser, a desk, a bookshelf that contains a stack of old magazines, and a single window overlooking the alley behind the station. A small lamp occupies one corner and a folded blanket rests at the foot of the bed.
None of those things are the problem. The problem is the strand of blinking Christmas lights someone has decided to tape up over the headboard.
I stare at them, and the lights blink cheerfully back.
They transform the otherwise ordinary room into something that looks vaguely festive yet deeply unsettling.
I set my duffel bag on the bed and immediately reach up to begin removing the lights.
Thirty seconds into the process, however, Mateo returns.
“Sorry to interrupt, but I forgot to tell you—oh, you don’t like how I decorated the place?”
I turn toward him, one end of the string lights gripped in my fist, and try not to look guilty.
“They’re a little distracting.”
“Distracting?” Mateo scoffs playfully. “’Tis the season, Noelle!”
“Well—”
“Wait, your name is Noelle and you hate Christmas?”
“I don’t—”
“Are you one of those people who was born too close to the holiday, so you’re doomed to spend the rest of your life being spiteful of the merriest season ever?”
Mateo leans against the doorframe.
“No,” I sigh, dropping the lights and letting one end hang there limply. “I was born in May.”
“No way. Gemini?”
“What?”
“Nah, you’re definitely a Taurus.”
I close my eyes briefly and take a deep breath. “What did you need? You said you forgot to tell me something?”
“Oh! Right. Just that you’re welcome to come join us downstairs for dinner.”
“No, thank you,” I reply instantly, not even needing to think about it.
“But you haven’t heard what we’re serving.”
“I don’t need to.”
“That’s remarkably judgmental.”
“Yes, well, I’m a professional investigator. Judgment is literally part of my job.”
His laugh echoes throughout the small room. “Alright. Suit yourself.”
I wait until his footsteps disappear before returning my attention to the room.
After waging an internal battle, the lights remain exactly where they are. Not because I’ve had a miraculous change of heart, but because the tape holding them in place appears capable of surviving a major nuclear event.
After ten minutes of fighting with it, I decide surrender is the more dignified option.
I close the door, unpack my laptop, and settle at the desk.
It’s past the normal hour when I would stop working, but I’d rather get this whole thing done and over with.
Mateo might be the human equivalent of a puppy, but his captain has already made it clear that I overstayed my welcome before I even showed up.
Unfortunately, as time trickles by, I quickly learn that Firehouse 23 is louder than any place I’ve lived in my entire life.
By seven o’clock, I’ve heard at least four different types of heavy machinery rumbling and growling.
At seven-thirty, a laughter-filled argument breaks out down in the main bay. Another playful debate about sports, from what I can gather.
Then, a few minutes past eight o’clock, the alarm sounds to signal a required emergency response and half the building empties in under sixty seconds.
By nine-thirty, they’re back, and I can’t even say that the hour or so in between was much more peaceful.
Though it did give me a chance to sneak down the hall to the women’s restroom to do my skincare and change into semi-professional sleepwear.
If that’s what you can call leggings and a Columbia University sweatshirt.
Around ten o’clock, someone starts blasting holiday music.
Approximately twenty minutes later, someone else turns it off.
The resulting argument lasts another twenty minutes.
At last, as the clock ticks closer to midnight, it quiets enough that I dare to emerge from the room once more and peer out over the railing of the mezzanine.
The apparatus bay is significantly emptier of crew members.
Whatever routine Captain Hale has them on must put them elsewhere in the building at this hour.
Everyone except for Wes.
He’s standing on the far end of the space, alone and silent, watching snow drift down beyond the open doors.
The dimmed fluorescents catch the sharp angles of his profile, visible even from all the way up here.
I don’t know why, but I stare at him for a while, wondering how someone so beautiful could seem so melancholy.
Then, as if he senses the weight of my gaze, he glances over his shoulder and lifts his face up to the mezzanine.
I immediately sink back into the shadows, blushing furiously like a schoolgirl caught giving her crush heart eyes.
That’s not what was happening. I just happened to be looking at him when he just happened to look at me.
I slink back into the room and pretend that I’m going to sleep, but even when I lie down on the twin-size mattress, I know I’m too keyed up by the change in my surroundings to be getting much sleep tonight.
I should be used to it. I was eight years old when impermanence became a permanent feature of my life.
After losing both of my parents, I was tossed between countless family members over the years.
My aunt, then my other aunt, then my grandmother, and then finally my Uncle Zack, who actually had the means and patience to deal with little orphan Noelle long enough for me to get through my last two years of high school without having to transfer.
But then I went away to college, drifting from one dorm to the next and then eventually to a string of increasingly tolerable apartments throughout the city until I finally got my hands on a rent-controlled gem in West Harlem. Still, I’ve only been there for a little over a year.
It just goes to show that, no matter how familiar something becomes, our brain can still be incurably stubborn about accepting the truth of it.
I get out of bed around half past one. My stomach is growling, and I’m sure they have something edible down in the kitchen that I could nibble on.
When I make my way downstairs and through the quiet bay, the common room lights are off and the television is dark. A Christmas tree glows softly in the corner, though, because God forbid I’m allowed to forget what time of year it is.
A pipe rattles somewhere overhead. A door opens and closes somewhere down another hallway. Someone laughs in the distance.
I stare at the shadows, then at the glowing clock on the wall. Then back at the ceiling.
Normally, insomnia isn’t too much of a problem for me.
I know how to manage it. A cup of tea and a case file. Several hours of productive work to get my eyes drifting shut on their own. That magic isn’t working tonight, though, and I know the real issue is that every time I close my eyes, my brain insists on replaying the events of the day.
The remains of Station 4. Morrison’s too-jolly announcement of my unfortunate fate.
Mateo’s warm smile and appreciative gaze.
Grant’s steady, challenging glare.
Wes’s quiet observation.
I drop down onto the sofa and sink into the surprisingly plush cushions. My eyes drift shut in the darkness, nothing but the hum of the refrigerator and the quiet gurgle of the coffee machine to disturb me in this moment.