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“That’s why you came back to Clearwater, right?” he asked. “For your mom’s funeral, and to settle her estate?”
“You’re half right,” I said, cringing. “I skipped the funeral.”
That surprised Liam. “Seriously?”
“Brandi and I didn’t have a good relationship with our mother,” I explained.
“Clearly.”
“She got pregnant in high school. She didn’t want us.”
“Aw, come on,” Liam said. “You don’t know that.”
“She told us. Often.”
“Oh.”
“She decided to keep the baby, but then we turned out to be twins. Twice as many diapers to change. Twice as many mouths to feed. Twice as many clothes to buy. She blamed us for all the problems in her life. We were the reason she couldn’t get a good job for a long time. We were the reason she couldn’t find a husband. We were the reason she…” I trailed off. He didn’t need to know everything, and I didn’t want to bring the mood down by explaining how she had died.
Liam was looking at me with concern in his eyes. “That must’ve been hard for you. Both of you.”
I shrugged. “It was. But at least we had each other to lean on. I don’t know what I would’ve done without Brandi. She always had my back.” I pointed at the TV to change the subject. “Did you know Brie Larson is actually singing in this? It’s not a different voice actress.”
“Because she got her career started as a pop star before switching to acting,” he said. “You aren’t going to beat me on movie trivia tonight, Aly.”
I turned toward him. “Aly?”
“Took a chance. Didn’t sound right to me, either.”
“Yeah, let’s stick with Alyssa. I don’t like nicknames.”
Suddenly, he sounded like a politician giving a press conference about a scandal, although his New Zealand accent gave it a humorous contrast. “I apologize to everyone involved. This does not reflect my values. I’m a family man. I promise to do better.”
I giggled and sipped my drink. “Speaking of values. What made you choose firefighting?”
“I dunno.” He put his feet up on the coffee table. “Always liked helping people. Makes me feel… useful. Valuable as a person. Even when I was a little kid, I felt happiest when I was helping someone.”
“How often did you help people as a kid?”
He shrugged awkwardly. “Don’t really like bragging.”
“It’s not bragging if someone asks you.”
“Well, if you insist.” He took a sip of his drink and spoke while watching the movie. “I was eleven or twelve. Had just had a growth spurt, so I was as tall as my dad. Me and my pals liked swimming in a river on the way home from school. Doing flips and jumping in to impress the girls. I can tell you’re impressed just imagining it.”
“Oh yes, I’m very impressed.”
“One day, I see this boy over by a deep part of the river with a nasty undercurrent. Suddenly, he goes under without a peep. Naturally, I jumped in and pulled the boy to safety. Big hero, right? Wrong. When we get to the riverbank, he’s cursing at me. Says he was fine, not struggling at all. Turns out he was on the school swim team. Strongest swimmer around for miles. He dove under to see if he could touch the bottom.
“My pals had a good time making fun of me about it. Didn’t let me forget it for months. I laughed it off, but it annoyed me. I was just trying to help. But they didn’t care about that, because I looked the fool. I told them I would let them all drown next time. And I thought I meant it, too. But the next spring, we’re swimming in the river again. Similar spot. Same thing happens. A boy I barely know went under without a sound. I don’t know how I knew, but I did. Jumped in again, pulled him to the riverbank. My pals are laughing and taking the piss out of me. Until we realized the boy was pale as snow, and wasn’t breathing. I started pumping his chest with my palms like I’d seen in the movies. I had no idea what I was doing. Gave him chest compressions for thirty seconds—thirty long seconds—before he suddenly coughed up all the water and started breathing again. By then, everyone was crying. We were just kids. We didn’t know what death was like, but we knew we’d come close to it.”
“Oh my God,” I whispered.
Liam glanced at me and nodded. “They never made fun of me again. That boy thanked me later, and so did his mum and dad. I’ll never forget the way I felt afterwards. Like death was right there, just a few feet away, and I pushed it back. The sting of getting made fun of lasted a few months, but that feeling? Knowing someone was alive because of me? That feeling never goes away.”
“So you decided to become a fireman,” I said.
He grinned. “So I decided to become a fireman. And I decided to do it here, because I love the States so much.”
