Chapter Eight: When the Sirens Came Back
1333 Words
The charity event continued after the engine disappeared, but it no longer felt the same.
The music started again. Marcus dragged the hose across the parking lot, and children returned to chasing soap bubbles between the cars. Someone offered me another hamburger.
I couldn’t eat it.
Every siren in the distance made me look toward the street.
“You get used to it,” a woman beside the donation table said.
She was probably in her forties, with short red hair and a station volunteer badge clipped to her shirt.
“To them leaving like that?”
“To waiting for them to come back.”
I glanced at her. “Are you married to one of them?”
“Captain Walsh.” She nodded toward the empty bay. “Twenty-two years.”
“How do you not worry?”
“I didn’t say I don’t worry.” She stacked a pile of donation forms. “I said you get used to waiting.”
The distinction stayed with me.
Waiting had never been difficult for me.
I had waited for caseworkers, foster parents, birthdays no one remembered, and phone calls that never came.
But this was different.
This time, someone might actually return.
I helped clean the tables because standing still was worse. We folded chairs, threw away paper plates, and moved unopened drinks into the station kitchen.
An hour passed.
Then another.
Most of the families had left by the time the sound of a siren reached us.
The red-haired woman didn’t look up.
I did.
The engine turned onto the street and slowed as it approached the station. Its lights were still flashing, but the siren had stopped.
Relief hit me so sharply that I had to grip the edge of the table.
The bay doors opened.
The engine rolled inside.
Gavin climbed down first.
His face was streaked with soot, and the front of his shirt was damp with sweat. There was a dark mark along his jaw, but he was walking.
He was alive.
I took one step toward him before remembering where I was.
Who I was supposed to be.
A friend.
Gavin saw me anyway.
For a second, exhaustion disappeared from his expression.
Then he smiled.
It wasn’t the practiced smile he used when he wanted me to forgive him. It was smaller. Realer.
He came toward me while the others began unloading equipment.
“You stayed.”
“You told me to come.”
“I thought the event would be over.”
“It is.”
“Then why are you still here?”
I wanted to tell him the truth.
Because I was afraid.
Because the second the siren started, I understood how easily he could disappear from my life before ever keeping any of his promises.
Instead, I shrugged.
“I helped clean.”
His eyes softened.
“You were worried.”
“No.”
“Terrible liar.”
“You’re one to talk.”
The words escaped before I could stop them.
Gavin’s smile faded slightly, but he didn’t turn it into another argument.
“I’m okay,” he said.
“What happened?”
“Apartment fire. Everyone got out.”
“Was anyone hurt?”
“One firefighter with a burned hand. A resident inhaled some smoke.”
“Was it you?”
“No.”
My eyes moved over him anyway, searching for injuries he might be hiding.
Gavin noticed and lowered his voice.
“I’m fine, Harper.”
Behind him, Cole removed his jacket and dropped it onto a bench. He had soot across his forehead and a tear near the shoulder of his shirt.
A little boy was brought inside by one of the paramedics. He was wrapped in a gray blanket, his face pale and wet with tears.
I watched as Cole immediately moved toward him.
He crouched so they were at the same height.
I couldn’t hear everything he said, but his voice was calm. Nothing like the hard tone he used with me.
The boy held out a red toy truck. One of its wheels had melted.
Cole examined it as though it were the most important object in the room.
“It can’t be fixed,” the boy said.
Cole turned the damaged wheel with his thumb.
“I’ve seen worse.”
“You have?”
“Much worse.”
The child looked doubtful.
Cole took a marker from a nearby table and wrote something on the bottom of the truck before handing it back.
“Bring it here next Saturday. I’ll see what I can do.”
The boy hugged it against his chest.
For the first time, I saw Cole smile.
It changed his entire face.
The hardness disappeared. The scar through his eyebrow made him look less threatening and more human.
Then he looked up and caught me watching him.
The smile vanished.
His gaze moved to Gavin standing close beside me.
The judgment returned so quickly that I wondered whether I had imagined the other version of him.
“What happened to the child?” I asked Gavin.
“His mother left food on the stove. Cole found him hiding in a bedroom.”
“He went inside?”
“We all went inside.”
“But he found him.”
Gavin glanced toward Cole.
“He’s good at his job.”
There was no resentment in his voice.
Whatever existed between them outside an emergency disappeared the moment the alarm sounded.
They were still friends.
Maybe that was why Cole’s disapproval angered Gavin so much. It came from someone whose opinion mattered.
Gavin touched the flowers I had left on the table.
“You kept them.”
“You bought them for me.”
“They’re half-dead.”
“They’ve had a difficult afternoon.”
He laughed quietly.
Captain Walsh’s wife passed us carrying a box.
“Mercer, stop flirting and help your crew.”
Gavin stepped away from me.
“Yes, ma’am.”
She looked at me with a knowing smile before continuing into the kitchen.
My heart stumbled.
“Does she know?” I whispered.
“Know what?”
“About us.”
“No.”
“But she looked at me like—”
“She looks at everyone like that. Don’t worry.”
He squeezed my hand quickly, hidden between our bodies.
“I need twenty minutes to finish here.”
“I can go home.”
“Stay.”
The word was simple.
No explanations. No promises.
Just stay.
So I did.
I sat on the edge of a folding table while Gavin cleaned equipment and joked with the others. Cole worked across the bay without looking at me again.
For those twenty minutes, I saw the version of Gavin everyone else knew.
Dependable.
Brave.
Loved by the people around him.
It was easy to understand why his wife had built a life with him.
It was even easier to understand why I believed he would build another one with me.
When he finally drove me home, he came upstairs.
We didn’t speak about Natalie or the apartment.
He showered while I put the daisies in a chipped blue vase. Then we ate cereal from coffee mugs because my two plates were in the dishwasher.
Gavin sat on the kitchen counter, his wet hair falling over his forehead.
“This is what it’ll be like,” he said.
“What?”
“Our place.”
I looked around my tiny apartment.
“You promised me a table.”
“We’ll have a table.”
“And matching plates.”
“If you insist.”
“And you’ll come home after every call.”
His expression changed.
Not enough to frighten me.
Just enough to remind me that some promises were beyond his control.
“I’ll always try,” he said.
It wasn’t the answer I wanted.
But that night, with his boots beside my door and the daisies on my counter, it was enough.
- Writer
- chap_listContents
- likeADD