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Axel
LIKE A STACK OF CARDS
“Engine Three, Ambulance Three,”a body-less voice bleats over the firehouse speaker system, bringing my attention snapping into focus.“Structure fire at two-three-two-nine Palm Road.”
“Let’s go!” Lieutenant Nixon Rosa is my boss. He’s our engine leader and, apart from our aging chief, the highest-ranking firefighter in this house.
He shoves up from his chair at the common room table before our dispatcher finishes speaking, the legs scraping along the tile floor, then he dashes just a half a beat before I’m up and moving too.
“Two-story residential home,”the announcer continues.“Fully involved fire. Potential victim inside.”
“Shit.”
I sprint across the bay as the doors automatically lift, and stopping by my turnout gear, I first step into my pants and flip the suspenders over my shoulders, then shove my feet into boots and snatch my jacket from the rack. Gloves next. Helmet. I dress while I run, and arrive at the truck’s door under twenty seconds from the first alarm.
“Sloane!” Nixon swings into the front passenger side of the truck while Sloane moves to the other side. “Get us moving.” Then he twists as Cootes, Rizzo, and I pile into the backseat. “I want a three-sixty the second we’re in sight of the house,” he barks at us. “Axe, I want you on top. We need vents. Cootes, get the pumps going. I’m gonna order a tanker.”
Turning back and slapping his helmet onto his head, he grabs his radio and talks with dispatch as Sloane rolls us out of the station and onto the street of our small town in the middle of forest and mountains.
Sirens wail, telegraphing our presence from here to the outskirts of town. While Nix converses, and the truck races along Main Street, I settle in and stare out the side window as we speed through almost non-existent traffic.
When you live in a place where the population is as small as ours, only one set of traffic lights is necessary.
Only two schools, total, to service every family within a fifty-mile radius. One firehouse. One hospital. Two stores, and one place that sells sweet treats.
As we pass Juniper’s Bakery—which just so happens to be owned by my sister and named for my niece—I drag my bottom lip between my teeth when Hannah Sullivan steps onto the sidewalk with worry in her eyes and a frown marring her brow.
She’s the love of my fucking life, I’m certain of it. Tall, slender, tan, and brunette. She works for my sister and gorges on butter frosting daily, and still, hasn’t a curve to boast on her body.
Long, honey-brown hair, and deep, chocolate eyes that see through all the crap I feed her about how she’s too young for me. How we’re not meant to be. How the fact that she works for my sister means we can’t do anything more than say hey as we pass in the street.
She calls bullshit on it all.
Has since the day I walked into Juniper’s and nearly swallowed my fucking tongue.
She’s nineteen… barely.
Which isn’t so bad, considering I’m only twenty-one. But I’ve got a world of life experience she doesn’t.
I’ve been at the firehouse since before I graduated high school; she’s been baking cakes.
I’ve searched the ruins of a home burned to the ground in a raging inferno to locate the bodies of those who perished.
She’s iced cupcakes.
I’ve held families who’ve lost loved ones; she’s flirted with customers and smiled her way through the day.
I’ve helped my sister out of an abusive marriage and stepped into the fatherly role to raise June.
And Hannah… sneaks my six-year-old niece sugary treats even after her mother says no.
We’re not the same, and though I wish I could take Hannah to bed and finally, furiously, work through the tension between us that she purposely, cruelly inflames, there isn’t a scenario where it would be okay for me to place my world in her hands and expect her to carry the load.
Hannah Sullivan is for sugar and smiles and rainbows. And I… am the ash and smoke after a fire, I guess.
“Twenty seconds out,” Sloane announces from the driver’s seat as we race past the bakery.
Hannah turns to watch our truck speed away, worry etched in her features. We’re not even together. We’ve never touched. Tasted. We haven’t met between the sheets, nor lived out those carnal fantasies we both share. And already, she worries.
