Chapter Eight Gordon and Andrea
This is the greatest and most beautiful disaster. Andrea kissed me. And she liked it. She ended one embrace long enough to smile up at me, and then pulled me back for more.
I’ve never kissed anyone before, let alone someone I’m rapidly losing my heart to.
It’s wonderful.
And terrible. Frightening. I feel like I can’t stop now that I’ve started.
Raw desire that makes me wary of old troll ways is surging in me, and I want to grab Andrea and devour her.
Not with teeth, but with mouth and tongue, kissing every inch, stripping her to behold every beautiful inch, caressing her to find every soft spot—especially one soft, warm, yielding spot that wouldn’t fit me at all.
I don’t care. I just want to hold her and feel that warmth against me.
She is mine.
And that’s wrong.
“My Andrea,” the words escape between desperate kisses. I wish she’d give me her hands back. Letting my hands roam is dangerous. I’m trying to behave, which is hard when you can’t think straight.
“Oh, Gordon. See? You’re wonderful. And I want this. I want to be with you. We don’t have to do more, but you see? You are beautiful to me. I wouldn’t care about old scars, inside or out. I like the man you are now.”
“You do?”
She nods, swallows, and clings to me. I stroke her hair back and sneak another kiss, a string of them, passing from eyelids to cheek to the hollow of her throat, even though I have to bend in half to reach her.
“Gordon?”
“My Andrea?”
She beams when I call her that.
Strange. Maybe she... Maybe she could like belonging to me?
“Would you like to go back to my place after the fireworks? I know it’ll be late. We can just listen to one of my playlists and drink tea. I just... I don’t want tonight to end.”
I don’t want tonight to end, either. I want to ask if she can sit in my lap while we listen to Liszt and Debussy. If it will be off-putting if I kiss her hair, or run my hands along her hips, to feel where her little waist gets all soft on the sides.
If maybe someday she’ll camp with me, and she can fall asleep in the sleeping bag next to mine, and I can kiss her awake, and the monster will get the princess, not some prince who has everything he could ever want anyway.
“I would love to.” I swallow, and remember that she thinks I’m brave, and that the real bravery isn’t the ability to rush into fire that I know won’t hurt me, but rather the risk of getting my heart burned to a cinder. “We could make plans over the tea. Hiking. Fishing. Even camping.”
“I don’t want to camp in a tent. I want to camp in a cabin. I-is that okay?” Andrea asks.
“I happen to live in a cabin.”
“You do not.” There’s a laugh with the denial, a ripple of amusement and accusation that’s absolutely... I’m not even sure of the word. Charming? Enchanting?
It makes me smile.
“I do indeed. Way out past the cemetery and other little houses on Haven Way,” I explain.
“It was falling apart when I got here. A lot of houses out that way aren’t in the best shape, and Silverman at the bank let me have it for practically nothing down.
It looks better now.” I swallow, and it’s time to be brave again. “I could show it to you soon?”
“I would love that.” Andrea sighs and kisses me again before curling up against my chest so we can watch the finale.
“I need to take the truck back to the station and do a final check for any burning embers. There shouldn’t be any. We hosed the place down before and after.” And the Pine Ridge coven and the Wymark Warlocks are always out in force with protective charms and spells. I don’t tell her that part.
“I’ll come with you.”
“No, you should get into your car,” I say sternly. It’s nearly eleven, and hers is the last car to leave. I don’t like to see it sitting there, alone. I don’t like to think of Andrea out here, alone, unguarded.
I’m here. I’ll protect her. Even from myself.
Even though I believe it, my skin prickles. I tell myself it’s just residue from all the spells. Or perhaps the concentration of beings with powers and supernatural origins collected in one place.
But it could always be one of the few dark beings who still doesn’t understand that Pine Ridge is protected by monsters who will use their strength to protect this little haven—at any cost.
I walk Andrea to her car and sigh once she’s inside. “I’ll follow you to the station,” she calls as she rolls the window down. “Then we can ride in my car back to my place. Oh, wait. Did you leave your car at the station?”
“It’s an old truck, but yes. Still. Follow me?
” I bend to kiss her hand as she holds it out of the half-open window.
This is terrible. I feel like I can’t stand to be away from her for a second.
That I must protect her, and I can’t protect her unless I’m touching her or looking at her—and that is probably not the right sort of behavior.
“Yes, I’ll follow you,” Andrea says, her eyes dreamy when I release her hand.
Note to self. Andrea likes when I kiss her.
Which is good, because I absolutely love it.
“Hey, is that a red reflector, or some leftover red embers on the roof... Or something else?” Andrea suddenly asks, pointing and squinting at something way down at the end of the athletic complex.
“That’s the caretaker’s shed. Shoot, that’s where the extra gasoline would be for the lawnmowers. I should check, just to be extra sure,” I groan, and turn back towards the truck.
When I drive down there, my nostrils twitch.
There’s a burning smell. Not the smell of simple fireworks, but of something else. Gas. Sulfur. Charred wood. The exterior of the shed is metallic. Aluminum siding, I think.
This isn’t a normal smell.
I rush from the truck and open the door just in time to see the scorches on the floor of the shed, the smoldering black lines—and hear the whoosh-pop of the shed turning into an inferno.
At first, I think there’s one more firework that hasn’t been set off. Gordon must have found it. Thrown it free.
And then I see the ball of yellow, orange, red, and black explode in an irregular sphere into the night.
“Gordon!” I scream, and I drive like a madwoman down the field. I call 911 and don’t let them speak as I careen towards the ball of death and flames, looking for signs that Gordon hadn’t yet made it inside.
“9-1-1, what is your—”
“Fire! Huge fire at the Pine Ridge High athletic field. Caretaker’s shed. Blew up!” I scream, barely remembering to turn off my car before rushing out of it.
There’s a huge, fucking firetruck right next to me. Right here. And I don’t know how to use it. I don’t know how to use any of the equipment on it. I don’t know if I’m going to get blown up, too, if I get close, and everything inside of me is breaking, because... Gordon.
My sweet, shy, beautiful, brave Gordon is in there. He has to be, because I don’t see him anywhere else. And if he is...
I feel everything in my stomach, hot dogs, hamburgers, lemonade—all of it comes up in a sob that tears my chest apart. “No! No, fuck, no, Gordon!” I pace, helpless, over to the truck, wiping my eyes and mouth, trying to figure out if there is anything I can do.
I sent him in there. I saw the red flash. I saw it. If I hadn’t said anything, the shed would still be on fire, but Gordon wouldn’t be in it! “Oh, God, I killed him,” I whisper.
Sirens are already filling the air. The two volunteer firefighters who drove the other two trucks tonight must have still been on the road, or at least still at the station. I lost track of everyone and everything but Gordon.
The nicest, sweetest man. The man who was going to be the perfect boyfriend. Maybe The One.
If I hadn’t just sent him to die.
Maybe... There’s a miracle... I stop standing helplessly by the truck and try to go towards the blaze.
What if he’s knocked unconscious, still alive?
Even burned? I could rescue him. I can haul him out, I know I can.
I sob again, thinking about his size, and then remembering stories of mothers lifting cars off their babies.
Out of love. Or crisis. Or both.
To my utter shock, the shed’s oily black flames are rolling off and up.
The area around the shed was wet on the outside from earlier, from the pre- and post-fireworks spray down.
It’s a metal shed, although I don't know if it’s wooden inside.
I cover my face with my arm and try to get a look through the smoke and flames, coughing and gagging, eyes and throat already raw.
There’s a form on the ground.
A statue, tipped over like it was standing, arm up to cover his eyes. Flat on the ground, surrounded by rolling smoke and flames. I can’t see it clearly, but I can make out enough.
Gordon. “Gordon,” I choke out.
This can’t be. Is he covered in ash?
Or is he ash? Petrified? Like one of those Pompeii artifacts?
Water suddenly mists over me, and I scramble back towards my car to avoid being hit by Mean Janine and Screaming Steve. Trucks are here. Bodies are swarming in.
Flying down.
I’m dreaming. Or passing out. Lack of oxygen.
“Duncan, grab that hose off of Big Red.”
“Alban, water right here!”
“My boyfriend is in there!” I gag out.
“Lady, move this car back. We’ll get him out!”
“Did he turn in time?” the one called Alban yells—making jets of water fire all over the blaze—just by holding his hands in the air?
I sit in my car, sobbing. Staring. Trying to breathe.
“Move the car!”
I screech softly and throw the car into reverse, following the directions—from the man... with wings. The man with wings and a tail, hovering above my car. The flying figure hauling a hose. There are two of them now.
I guess the gasoline fumes are doing things to my head. My eyes might be scared from the heat.
It doesn’t matter if I’m hallucinating. Gordon is an ashen statue. Or a body covered with ash.
When the car is backed away past the firetrucks, I throw open the door and topple out. I feel so useless. I want to scream that they need to get Gordon out, that an ambulance should be here, that I want to help.