Page 48 of On Fire

“Did he do okay?”

I stand in the driveway, the cool tendril of morning dew evaporating as the sun strikes the side of the mountain. “He was basically outed in interrogation, and I think the asshole got off on it. So, no. It wasn’t pleasant. But he handled it like no one else could.”

Luke doesn’t know what to say for a moment. Then he does what he always has done. He surprises me. “I love you. I’m sorry.”

“I love you too,” I say. We hug one more time before we put on our personas for the station.

΅

The next few days fly by and Nic and I don’t get to see much of each other. He pilots the helicopter down to Boston on Thursday and spends most of the day there, speaking with the Boston PD. Since his talk with Craig and Sessions, no one seems to have much to say to his face. Frankly that’s what has me worried.

It's the not-in-your-face talk that can be dangerous. It’s the quiet, political, stab-you-in-the-back talk that can be lethal.

Thursday night he’s back in Portland with Bryce and Mateus and then drives up with the two of them. There’s a big meal at The Inn. I bow out. I can’t do big family stuff. I just feel more alone the more people are around me. By the time Nic makes it to my place, I’m half asleep and he slides in next to me, spooning from behind. There’s a kiss on the back of my neck and I shift to face him.

We snuggle. We talk. He traces the shape of my jaw with one hand. “I can’t believe I’m lying next to you,” he says and kisses my cheek. He takes a hand and runs it twice lightly through my hair.

Something’s changed since his interrogation—there’s a new recklessness about him. Or maybe it was on the boat. I tell him about Devon, my guilt about being squeezed to take her off the team.

“I think they call that blackmail,” he says.

“It wasn’t about money though.”

“It’s still extortion. They held your reputation ransom, your livelihood.”

I crook an arm under my head. “I swore I’d never allow myself to be in that position again. I’d never put anyone through what I did to her. It was wrong, and I knew it.”

Nic sighs and though he leaves a hand stroking my chest, his eyes go to middle distance. “When I was eighteen, I saw a kid beaten outside on a sidewalk in my hometown. He was this skinny little gay kid I knew from school. I did nothing. Didn’t try to help. I went home that afternoon, packed a backpack, and landed on campus three months early. I never went back.” He pauses. “I don’t think there’s a week that goes by that I don’t think about that kid—what I could have done.”

“You were young too.”

He shakes his head. “Not an excuse. I think, honestly, he’s one of the reasons I joined the military and then intelligence.”

I stare into those blue eyes and touch his lower lip. Then I lean over and kiss him.

“I didn’t want to have the shit kicked out of me either. I was scared.” He closes his eyes and rolls to his back. “Part of that fear is still there.”

“Someone would have to think twice to take you on,” I say. I rub a bicep. “Look at you.”

“I didn’t always look like this. And I don’t mean that. It’s social, political, local.”

“I get it,” I say, sitting up and running both hands over my scalp. “We both need to get over this. It’s irrational.”

“Is it?”

I know he’s talking about the bombings and Henry’s murder.

΅

On Friday there are two house fires. One starts at four in the morning and I launch myself out of bed, dress in a minute and am out the door, slapping the magnetized light to the hood of my car. It takes four hours before I can leave the site and then I just pull into the station and there’s a second, this time in Rockport, a three-story mansion.

This is tricky. Devon’s on-site working shoulder to shoulder with the guys even though she’s a paramedic. Her smoke jumper training has left her resilient and cautious—kissing cousins to her fearlessness. Tom McKinley and Damien Winters are already here, both units hauling hoses. I catch Devon with a hose over her shoulder running straight toward a front door pouring black smoke. It’s a stately mansion with two turrets on either side, and a tinder of gingerbread running along the eaves. The wooden clapboards are probably a hundred years old and there’s going to be lead fumes everywhere.

Shit.

I radio “respirators” and pull mine from the car.

Everyone is hustling, pulling on respirators as they work. Curran flies by with a shout to me about McKinley, who went inside because he heard screams from the second floor. I direct the men: three on back, two at each side, and four in front, where most of the flames shoot from windows.