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Jesus.
I grabbed his arms but regretted it when he cried out.
“Are you hurt?” I asked, even as I curled my fingers around his upper arm and pulled him from the house. It wasn’t until we were on the porch that I could finally get a good look at him.
“No, I’m okay,” he said. “Just burned myself,” he muttered. He sounded angry. “I’m such an idiot.”
He was holding his arm out wrist up, and that was when I noticed the reddened flesh.
“What happened?” I asked as I carefully led him down the stairs to the front yard, mindful of the ice.
“Nothing, it’s stupid,” Oz said, refusing to look at me. “We’re okay now. I’m sorry to have bothered you.”
He actually made a move to turn away from me. I grabbed him again, this time by his uninjured arm. “Let me take a look,” I said. I put my hand under his to support his wrist as I studied it. “What happened?” I asked again.
Oz sucked in a deep breath. “I couldn’t get the damn thing to work,” he finally said.
“What?”
“The heat,” he bit out as he waved at the house. “Or the fireplace.” He huffed and said, “I kept turning the temperature higher and higher but all it did was get colder.”
“Did you—”
“Make sure it was on?” Oz cut in. “Yes. I know you think I’m an idiot, but I’m pretty sure thermostats in Colorado work the same as in New York.”
“I was going to ask if you checked to see if the breaker might have gotten tripped.”
“The what?” he asked, his face falling.
“Never mind. I can check it,” I said. “What happened with the fireplace?”
Oz remained silent and I knew why. He’d said as much with his crack about the thermostat. He was waiting for me to pounce on whatever mistake he’d clearly made with the fireplace. I already had a pretty good idea, though. “What happened, Oz?” I asked, keeping my voice soft.
Oz let out a harsh laugh. “I thought it was so rustic,” he muttered. “This place in Aspen that I once stayed at had a wood-burning fireplace instead of a gas one. So I thought this one would be just as easy–just light it and done. I managed to get it going and then took Boo for a quick walk because she was doing her thing, you know?”
“Her thing?” I asked, almost afraid to hear his answer.
“Her dance… her piddle dance. When she has to piddle, she—”
“She does a dance,” I said with a smile. “Got it.”
Oz seemed to relax a bit. “Anyway, I took her outside, and it always takes her a while to find the perfect spot so by the time we got back, the cabin was filled with smoke. I tried calling Xander, but he didn’t answer, and my friend Zoey didn’t know but she googled it and asked me if I’d opened the flue. I didn’t know what that was and she told me how to find it, so I reached up to feel for it and when I got it open, the fire just kind of jumped up and… bit me.”
He tried to tug his hand free. “It’s okay, I’ll be okay now. I appreciate you coming to check on me.”
I could tell he was embarrassed, and I didn’t blame him. I’d already jumped down his throat twice for similar mistakes. “I once put oil in my father’s gas tank,” I blurted when he once again tried to escape me.
“What?” Oz asked in surprise.
I nodded. “I don’t know shit about cars, so when my dad asked me to add oil to his car while I was at the gas station getting it filled before we hit the road for our annual trip to Chicago to go to ZooLights–that’s where they have Lincoln Park Zoo all lit up for the holidays–I did it. About thirty minutes into the journey, the car started spewing black smoke and sounding weird. Then it just died. When my dad asked if I’d added oil, I told him I had. You can imagine my surprise when he went to look under the hood instead of the gas tank and started talking about the oil I’d added being all gone.”
Oz’s frown turned into a smile. “Really?” he asked.
I nodded and dropped my eyes to his wrist because there was something about looking at him that was fucking with my head. I liked when he smiled like that–all soft and warm and sweet.
“Was he mad?” Oz asked. “I mean, kids make mistakes, right?”
“I was twenty-two,” I interjected.
Silence for a beat, then the hum of soft laughter. I risked a look at Oz and saw that his cheeks were flush with color. My body responded accordingly.
And it was a brutal reminder that I couldn’t have this.
“Let’s go back to my place so I can get a better look at your burn,” I said. “We’ll let some of the smoke clear, and I’ll come back and get the furnace going.”
