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Halloween had always been our favorite holiday, and Flora would have loved a Disney-themed costume party more than anything. So that's how we're going to honor her and her memory.
That's how we put the pain away and start fresh.
I smile down at the costume as I walk to my closet to hang it up.
I know exactly what Flora would say if she could see me right now.
'To be an insomniac named after a princess who slumbers for one-hundred years. The Irony!'
Chapter 2
PHILLIP
Acid is churning in my stomach.
Why the hell did they have to go and make it a stupid costume party on top of everything else?
I'm cranky as fuck and I can practically feel my blood pressure as it skyrockets higher and higher minute after minute.
I stand up from my too-small bed and the thin mattress groans a little under my bulk. I leave the bunk room and rush out of the dorm area toward our breakroom, my eyes scanning everything as I go. Not that there's any need for me to be checking over anything today —or any day.
As battalion chief, I'm the highest-ranking officer on duty, but there's still a bit of an LT in me. After all, I held that position for a very long time before I moved back here. So, after making sure that everything is scheduled within an inch of its life, normally I go around and double-check that the drillings are going okay, that the boys have everything they need and that the equipment is in perfect conditions. The actual two LTs that work under me are good sports about my micromanaging, but the Chief is not too keen on me working outside my scope.
He says I stress too much and overwork myself and that I would always be here if it weren't for Kelly Days, so now he's forcing me to take a couple of days off because he says I've been going too long without proper rest, whatever the fuck it means.
We use the California Swing system for our shifts, so we're twenty-four hours on and twenty-four hours off for four days in a row and then we're supposed to take the next ninety-six hours off before our next shift, but I can never bring myself to be gone for so long.
Right now, I'm not on stand-by or even in shift, though, but I’m still here.
Briarsville is not that big of a town. So, aside from me, there's only one more BC working on rotation in the firehouse and considering I'm here night and day and in my spare time to boot, and that Alan is just as much of a control-freak workaholic as I am, we are covered 24/7.
Alan's here right now working out in our training facilities.
I shouldn't even be here at the firehouse, but I feel pretty much out of place in my own house most of the time since I spend so very little time there to begin with.
I don't even know why I bought such a nice, big house in the first place, to be honest.
It's not like I'm planning on getting married or having kids. That's not in the cards for me.
I don't have much of a personal life to speak of and I love my job, so here is where I feel more at home.
I've been back in Briarsville for about three years now, and fifteen months ago I was promoted battalion chief. Before then, I worked for the New Haven Fire Department as a lieutenant.
I look down at the screen of my phone and huff out a breath when I see the time.
Nine-fucking-p.m. already.
I pull up my brother's latest text and double-check the address he gave me.
Fucking perfect.
Not counting the two years and a half I lived and worked in New Haven back when I still was a lieutenant firefighter, I've spent most of my thirty-seven years of life here in Briarsville and I know our four-thousand-souls town like the back of my hand. So, even if I've never set foot in the building where this supposedly unmissable Halloween party will be held, I do know it's at least a twenty-five minutes drive away from the firehouse.
A fact that, as it is, makes me already late.
I sigh, scowling.
I can't believe I got roped into this.
