Page 1 of Never Forget
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 afan 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'mso 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.
