It isn’t fair.
“I just don’t want them to ruin this for me,” I say. “I worked my ass off for this. I deserve to be here.”
Charlotte pulls back and looks me dead in the eye. “You’re going to be magnificent. They can’t ruin something meant for you. So get out there and skate this summer like nothing else matters. And don’t give them a single inch. Got it?”
I nod, hiccupping a little. “Got it.”
She grins. “Now, let’s go grab our stuff and then get ice cream.”
I wipe my face, laugh, and follow her back inside. The music is louder now, the lights dimmer. The alphas are nowhere to be seen. Maybe they left. I’m forcing myself to not care. They don’t matter. Not tonight.
Charlotte and I grab our jackets, tell everyone we’re going on an emergency ice cream run, and make our escape.
CHAPTER 6
FOWLER
There’s a real specific smell to the firehouse first thing in the morning: burnt bacon left out to cool on a steel countertop. I’m sitting on the battered sectional in the rec room, mug in my hands, reading the label of the creamer as if it might offer up something more meaningful than the back of a hockey card ever did.
“Hey, Murphy!” That’s Jones, our ex-Marine slash local fire-fighting legend. His voice has a low timbre and the subtlety of a minor gas explosion. “Do you mind not looking so fucking tragic this early? You’re making the eggs wilt.”
I glance up. “It’s just the existential despair. It’s chronic.”
Jones is in his usual getup: standard-issue bottoms with suspenders and a firehouse T-shirt. His right arm bears a dense tattoo sleeve of vines and thorns. “Take a vitamin.” He slaps my back as he breezes by.
I have to hand it to Jones, and the other guys at this station. They’ve taken my presence as the resident reclamation project—the busted-up once-pro desperate for a second shot at relevance—with a kind of bemused patience. They needle me about the games they never watched (“Is it true you puked on Gretzky’s shoes?”), about the modeling contracts I never had (“You’retelling me nobody paid you to pose in underpants?”), and about the way I move, which they say is “like a cartoon wolf on a treadmill.” At first I bristled and wanted to assert dominance, but there’s no pack order here—just a bunch of guys who run into burning buildings because they’re either braver or dumber than the average bear.
I’m still figuring out where I land on that scale.
The TV in the rec room blares out the local morning news. It’s muted, but the weather guy’s lips move with the choreography of a professional liar. Someone’s left the closed captions on. “UNSEASONABLE HEAT EXPECTED TO PERSIST.” The TV doesn’t say, but everybody in Boston knows what that means: busy season for the firehouse, with the added bonus of power-grid brownouts and cranky retirees lighting candles at the first sign of a flicker. I rub at my forearm.
The news cuts to a commercial: a car dealership offering “End-of-Summer Blowout!” deals, the words floating across the bottom of the screen like a threat. I stare at the TV, thinking about the last time I had to car-shop—how I spent the whole hour on my phone, reading trade rumors about myself, then let the salesman upsell me on a luxury truck I never learned to parallel park.
The firehouse door opens and Captain Vega steps in, radiating authority like a radioactive isotope. He was in the military too once upon a time and maintains the proper posture of a man who’s never lost a fight and never intends to. His uniform is crisp beneath salt-and-pepper hair, and he carries a mug with the department seal like it’s a medal of honor.
“Briefing in five.” Captain Vega surveys the room and the guys within it. Jones is now catching up with Sanchez, and the others nurse strong coffee. His eyes land on me, narrow for a second, and move on.
We shuffle into the briefing room, a windowless cube with a dry-erase board and even more coffee. Vega waits until everyone’s seated, then launches into the day’s agenda: routine checks, engine maintenance, a warning about the heat, and—most important of all—reminders about proper hydration.
Standard stuff, except for the way he peppers in the possibility of disaster with every sentence.
“Murphy,” he says, not looking at me, “I want you on inspection with Wallace. Get the gear cages organized. Last thing we need is a rookie tripping over his own boots when the shit hits the fan.”
There’s a laugh, but I can’t tell if it’s with me or at me. Doesn’t matter. I nod, “Yes, sir,” and jot it down in my mental notepad.
“And when you’re done,” Vega adds, “see me in my office.”
My insides twist. Either I’m in trouble, or there’s an unfilled quota for awkward father-son moments this week. I finish my coffee, dump the mug, and follow Wallace down the hall to the gear cages.
Wallace is older than God and has the skin of a man who’s never met sunscreen. He doesn’t say much, just grunts and points. We do the rounds, checking for frayed straps and expired filters. I fall into a rhythm, hands busy while my mind wanders. I think about Zev, about what he’d say if he saw me internally freaking out like this. Probably something snarky, but he’d mean it as encouragement. I think about Connor, too—still skating, probably, still dazzling the world despite having to skate opposite our pack’s worst fucking mistake.
It’s only natural, then, that my thoughts spiral out to Grace. We could have had the perfect scent-matched omega. Instead, we didn’t just let her get away, weshunnedher.
The memory hits like a slap: her roses scent cutting through the sweat and stale air of a rented locker room. I remember theway Zev and I both fought it and pretended it was nothing even as the pack attraction snapped taut between us. We were so fucking stupid. And terrified.
Now I can’t go a day without wanting to howl at the fucking moon.
I finish with the cages and report to Vega’s office. He’s at his desk, reading something on a battered laptop. He gestures for me to sit. I do, and try not to fidget.
