She doesn’t move.
My eyes snap open, breath sharp. My sheets are damp, twisted around me like I fought them in my sleep.
I blink once. Twice. The room swims into focus.
My phone is buzzing against the nightstand. I check the time—5:03 p.m.
Not morning. Not even close. Just my body messing with me after a week that dragged me through more calls, more stress,more near-misses than I care to count. I stare at the name glowing on my screen: Beau.
I pick up. “Yeah?”
“You alive?” he asks, already half-laughing. “Or did a ten-hour nap finally finish you off?”
“Barely,” I croak, pushing upright. “What’s up?”
“Smokehouse tonight. Me, you, Simon. Mick’s behind the bar, so you know the beer’s cold and the gossip’s hot.”
I grin. “Yeah, alright. Let me shower.”
He hangs up with a grunt that passes for approval, and I toss the covers aside. Stretching, I roll my shoulders and run a hand down my face.
The dream lingers like smoke in my lungs. It always does. I haven’t had it in a while, but when it hits, it floors me.
Jesus. I’d only just passed out. I’d pulled a forty-eight-hour shift, crawled into bed, and now I feel like a semi has trampled me.
It’s technically my day off. I’d planned to sleep, maybe cook something that doesn’t involve a takeout container.
I groan. But something about the idea of the three of us back at our booth feels like exactly what I need.
Beau and Simon. My brothers in all the ways that count.
We met in the chaos—cross-training, trauma rotations, live burn modules. I was still trying to carve out a valuable role for myself back then.
Some paramedics chase adrenaline. I chased purpose.
Beau with his sun-and-smoke charm. Simon with his gruff brilliance and zero filter. We shouldn’t have clicked. But we did.
Some of the guys in town jokingly call us theRescue Pack—like we’re some emergency-themed boy band. I’d be annoyed if it weren’t a little funny.
I open my contact list and tap Tessa’s name.
“Are you dying?” she answers immediately.
“I could ask you the same,” I say, smirking.
She’s out of state now, in her second year of graduate school. Environmental science. She wants to save the planet, and I believe she will.
Still, part of me wants her back here, where I can make sure no lake or idiot ever hurts her again.
“Why do you sound like you’re calling from a bunker?”
“Nightmare.”
“Oh,” she says softly. “That one again?”
“Yeah.”
A pause. Then: “You know I’m alive, right? Breathing. No lake monster pulled me under.”
