Gunnar's Guardian

by Pandora Pine

  “Be safe,” I called out after him.

  I could feel the ghost of his kiss on my forehead long after he’d left.

  17

  Kennedy

  Two hours later, I was still on edge, after hearing my mother tell Gunnar the story of how she and David decided to become foster parents. It had been eighteen years since I’d heard the story for the first time and it never failed to bring me to my knees.

  It was the last Friday of spring break. Mandy had been home with the four of us while David went to work. We were all going on a two-week family vacation to the Grand Canyon in the summer, so David didn’t have any vacation days to use in April.

  Looking back on it now, my brothers and I were awful that week. It had rained for five days straight and all we wanted to do was get outside and see our friends or ride bikes, but we couldn’t. Mom didn’t want us to have any other kids over. None of us understood why at the time. Now, of course, we all knew it was because there would be witnesses if she killed one or all of us.

  I don’t remember what started this particular fight, maybe Ozzy does since he’s the oldest. All I remember was that it ended with the four of us shouting, “You’re not my real brother!” then the fists started to fly.

  When our mom arrived on the scene, Hennessy had me pinned face down on the floor with my left arm twisted behind my back, slamming my face against the floor. Dallas had a bloody nose and Ozzy had a black eye coming on.

  Even though my brains were a bit scrambled, I’ll never forget the look on Mandy’s face when she saw us beating the crap out of each other. She looked devastated. The only other time I’ve seen that look on her face was when foster kids had been removed from our house. She sat down on the floor across from us and shouted, “Boys!”

  That one word stopped us all in our tracks. I remember thinking this was it. This would be the moment when she’d call my case worker and tell her to come get me. I could see Ozzy from my spot on the floor and he looked terrified. It was the only time in my life I’d ever seen that look on his face. He thought there would be trouble too. We’d all gone too far.

  Hennessey climbed off my back and pulled me up. Ozzy sat on one side of me, with Dallas on the other. While we all moved around, I’d been mentally preparing myself to face my doom.

  “So, you’re not real brothers, huh?” Mandy had asked quietly. Her eyes moved to each of us in turn. I remember my eyes were burning with unshed tears. “You stand up for each other when one of you gets bullied. There are hugs when one of you is going through something. Late night talks after lights out when you share your heart and your fears. If these things don’t make you brothers, what are you?”

  No one had answered, but I’d heard Ozzy gasp in obvious surprise.

  “You boys are my sons. Not fake sons. Real sons.” Her blue eyes glittered with conviction. “The only thing fake in this room is my hair color.”

  Dallas barked out a quick laugh before he clapped his hands over his mouth.

  “No, it’s funny alright.” Mandy shrugged her dainty shoulders. “Brothers fight, boys. That’s normal. It’s healthy to disagree and then come back together to figure out how to resolve the issue. What isn’t healthy, and what I won’t tolerate, are the four of you saying you’re not real brothers. Call each other assclowns if you like, but I don’t ever want to hear you say that again.”

  All four of us laughed hysterically. Mandy never said bad words and assclown was the funniest thing I’d ever heard.

  After we finished laughing, all four of us mobbed her with hugs and kisses. After everything calmed down, she told us the story about Jimmy and becoming foster parents. Tears slipped down her cheeks when she told us that she would have saved him if she’d only known how.

  She’d left the room after that and we all apologized to each other. Ozzy had shocked me by telling the story about his scar and how he’d ended up on the McCoy’s doorstep. Dallas went next. Then me. Hennessy talked about what it was like to learn what being dead meant.

  In that moment I realized other kids had lives that were as bad or worse than my own. I’d never heard the others tell their own backstories before and they crushed me. Even at twelve years old, I’d had the empathy to put myself in my brothers’ shoes. I made a vow to myself that when I was older, I was going to protect people like myself and my brothers. I guess the others had the same idea.

  Ozzy became a fireman, Dallas an EMT, and then there was Hennessey’s failed attempt at being a dispatcher. To be honest, it didn’t fail so much as die a quick, painful death. In his own way, Hen was helping people with the bar, even if his soul was paying the price.

  My ringing phone startled me out of my memories. It was Ozzy. “Hey, man.”

  “Hey there yourself. How’s your boy doing?” I could hear the snark in Ozzy’s voice.

  “He’s not my boy,” I protested weakly. “He’s better. Still has a fever and the chills. Gunnar is trying to drink little sips of water and he’s stopped going.” Shit, maybe I didn’t need to give Ozzy that much detail.

  “Yeah, he’s not your boy, but you know more specifics about his health than his doctor.” There was a laugh in his voice.

  “How are you feeling?” I needed to change the subject and fast. The last thing I wanted to do was go down the Gunnar rabbit hole with him.

  “I’m not going to run a marathon today.”

  I couldn’t help laughing. “Let’s be honest, you’re not going to run a marathon any other day either.”

  “Assclown!” Ozzy shot back.

  “Takes one to know one,” I sneered back, sounding like I did when I was twelve. “I’m on my way to see Ella before heading to work. Do you need anything? Gatorade? Toilet paper?”

  “I could use Gatorade and water. Mom isn’t available to drop by for a few more hours. I wonder why that is?” Ozzy’s snark was back in full force.

  Ozzy obviously knew why our mother wasn’t available. “Mom’s with Gunnar.”

  “Uh, huh. But he’s not your boy.”

  “Mom’s been looking out for strays longer than we’ve both known her. Gunnar is just another in a long line.”

  “Bullshit! I saw the way you were looking at each other yesterday before the hurling started. There was a lot of eyelash batting and sighing. I was about to lose my lunch watching it.”

  “You did lose your lunch.” I couldn’t help laughing again. “More than once, if memory serves.” I was giving him shit in hopes he’d stop talking about the way I was looking at Gunnar. Leave it to Ozzy to have noticed. I wonder if any of the others had noticed too.

  What I was interested in was the way Gunnar had been looking at me. The problem was that I didn’t want Ozzy to know.

  “Funny, asshole. Just for that, I’m not going to tell you how Gunnar was looking at you.”

  Ozzy always did know exactly what I was thinking. “Good! I didn’t want to know anyway.” But I did. I really did.

  “Uh, huh,” Ozzy drawled. “I want the blue Gatorade and a box o’ soup.” Ozzy’s voice had lost its snark. Now he just sounded tired.

  “The kind with the circle noodles. I know.” Ozzy’s drug of choice when he was sick was Lipton Noodle O’s soup. I’d been planning on getting him some of that anyway with apple sauce and some crackers. Come to think of it, Gunnar could use some of that too. I’d drop his stuff off during my meal break.

  “In case this thing kills me, I love you, little brother.” Ozzy was definitely tapped out.

  “Love you too.” I hung up before Ozzy got more emotional. I’d seen the same kind of emotions from Gunnar this morning. Being sick made people vulnerable. At least the kid had my mom there to take care of him.

  It had been a long night with Gunnar. I’d moved the television from the living room to the bedroom so we could watch Lego Masters until he fell asleep. After he nodded off, I couldn’t help staring at him to make sure he was still breathing. If I had a nickel for every time I took his temperature, I could retire. My mother showing
up earlier this morning to spell me was a Godsend. The longer I sat with Gunnar, the more I had to admit I liked him.

  I might have been calling him a boy in my mind, but the way he’d kissed me the other night was all man. I supposed the biggest question, at the moment, was if I wanted to explore that further. I wouldn’t wish illness on Gunnar, but I did have to admit it gave me time to think about what I wanted to do next.

  18

  Gunnar

  A week later, everything was back to normal. Firehouse Three was healthy again and no one held any ill will against me. I think the fact that one of them gave me this bug made them all see me in a different light.

  Thankfully, I’d gotten over the harsher symptoms in two days. I still felt like a wet dishrag but got my raggedy ass out of bed to go to work. I can’t say it was all fun and games, but I got the job done.

  Not that I was thinking about the outbreak or who gave it to me now. Today would be the day my dream to go on a ride along with the firehouse would come true. If someone’s house caught on fire, that was. Shit, saying it like that made me sound like an asshole.

  Ozzy had pulled me into this office when I’d gotten to the station and let me know the chief had granted his request to let me come along on a call. Of course, in order for that to happen, there needed to be a fire or an accident that required an attending engine. I also had to sign an ass load of paperwork stating I wouldn’t sue the department or the city of Gloucester if anything happened to me. There were also equipment waivers to sign too, saying I wouldn’t use any of it.

  I practically danced out of Ozzy’s office. A month ago, I never would have given a thought to going out on a call with any branch of emergency services. To tell the truth, before I met Kennedy, I’d never really given much of a thought to the men and women who kept me safe.

  It was pretty humbling, to think that someone like Ozzy had been there for me without me ever having to return the favor. How did people become that selfless? In my entire life, I don’t think I’ve ever done anything for the good of someone else, unless there was something in it for me.

  So far as I could tell, what was in it for Ozzy, Hal, Chasten, or any of the others never crossed their minds. For that matter neither did their own personal safety.

  When I set my house on fire a few weeks back, I’d been terrified. Literally scared shitless. I remember freezing when I saw the flames shooting up from the frying pan. In that moment, I didn’t know what to do or how to save myself or my home. Finally, some kind of lizard-brain instinct kicked in and I ran outside.

  My first instinct had been to run out of the burning building. How on earth did running into a burning building become Ozzy’s first instinct? Was it something David and Mandy taught him? Or was it part of his DNA like his dark hair and eyes?

  Maybe when this was over, I’d ask him. The same for Kennedy. I mean, hell, that man could have bullets flying at his head at any moment, just like that day with Ella. It could have so easily been Kennedy who took the bullet that day in the shitty motel room. Christ, what the hell would I have done if it had been Kennedy?

  I couldn’t breathe thinking about it. My knees knocked together, and I felt my vision starting to grey out at the edges.

  “Hey, Noob! You gonna help me inventory the rig or are you gonna stand there all day with your head in the clouds?”

  I snapped out of my mental nervous breakdown to see Hal grinning at me. He’d mentioned doing inventory on the ambulance when I’d gotten in. I’d promised to help but visualizing Kennedy’s corpse on the floor of a shitty motel room chased any other thought away. “Coming.”

  “You’d know if you were coming.” Hal snorted as I climbed into the back of the ambulance. Now that I knew my way around it a bit, it fascinated me. There were so many drawers and compartments to keep various kinds of supplies and drugs.

  “You finally feeling back to your old self.” It wasn’t a question. Hal’s usually creamy skin had a greenish pallor to it all week. Today was the first day he looked like his old self.

  “I think so. It’s my strength that’s taking the longest to come back.” He had a clipboard on his lap and was peering into the drawer with gauze in it. “Here, you take this, and I’ll call out numbers to you.”

  Dutifully, I wrote down the numbers of supplies in the bus. There was a time or two when I had no damn clue what the hell he was talking about, but Hal was always happy to take a minute and explain the item and what it was used for in the field.

  “What the hell were you thinking about earlier? You looked like you were having a mental meltdown.”

  Leave it to Hal to have noticed my distress. “I was thinking about Kennedy’s family.”

  A bit of the bright light in Hal’s eyes dimmed. “I see.”

  “Three of those brothers decided that running into danger while everyone else was running away was how they wanted to spend their lives. I was just wondering where that comes from?” It wasn’t a surprise to me that Hal had a bit of a crush. He was the nicest man I’d ever met in my life and if I’d met him first instead of Kennedy, things might have been different.

  “When I was a teenager, my best friend and I were riding our dirt bikes home one night. It was dark and we were late getting home. When I called home to tell my Dad what was going on, he offered to come pick us up. I said no because I didn’t want him to leave the house in addition to him being pissed that I missed curfew. We rounded a bend on this back-country road and there was a car heading straight for us. It was on the opposite side of the yellow line. I remember shouting for Tim to get out of the way, but the car hit him. If I live to be a hundred, I’ll never forget the sight of him hitting the hood of the car and bouncing off its roof.”

  “Sweet Jesus,” I gasped. What an awful thing to have seen. I didn’t want to know how the story ended, but I needed to. “What did you do?”

  “I called 911. Told them where we were and what happened. While we waited for help to arrive, I sat by Tim, holding his hand and telling him everything was going to be okay. I didn’t know how that was possible. His legs were twisted into an impossible position and even in the low light, I could see his bone sticking out.”

  “Oh my God.” I’d seen shit like that on television, but the idea of seeing it in real life, and the injured person being a friend of mine, was beyond anything I could imagine.

  “I thought he was going to die.” Hal’s eyes shimmered with unshed tears. “When help arrived, there were two ambulances. One crew started to help Tim, while the other went to the man who’d crashed his car into us. It had never crossed my mind to go see if he was okay.”

  Okay, so running into danger to help people wasn’t something Hal was born with. Although, I couldn’t help thinking if the roles were reversed, I wouldn’t have given a fuck about what happened to the man who hit my friend. “It wouldn’t have crossed my mind either.”

  “That was my first lesson in life-saving. You don’t get to choose whose life to save. You save them all. Sinner. Saint. Best friend. Mortal enemy.” The look on Hal’s face was unreadable. He seemed lost in his memories.

  I kept my mouth shut, not wanting to interrupt.

  “Turned out the guy was drunk, and he didn’t have a scratch on him. Making matters worse was this wasn’t his first DUI. I should have been watching what was going on with Tim, but I’d been mesmerized by the police pulling him out of the car and making him do a field sobriety test.” Hal gave his head a shake. “Dirty fucker.” He looked back up at me with brighter eyes. “The real action was what the paramedics were doing with Tim. They’d gotten his neck protected and his legs straightened out. I’d been right, his bone was sticking out. Compound fracture of his tibia and fibula. What struck me the hardest was that he wasn’t screaming. There was a paramedic at his head speaking to him softly.”

  “Max told me you do something similar on calls.” I grinned at him. I was a big fan of Max.

  Hal blushed. “Max has a big mouth.”

  Maxin
e Smithfield was Hal’s partner on the ambulance. She was in her mid-forties and loved her job more than her life. If there was ever an extra shift that needed to be taken, or if someone had been assigned to work a holiday or important birthday, Max was always the one to take the shift, no questions asked. “Maybe she does, but I’m guessing you wanted to be just like the paramedic who’d helped Tim that day.”

  His face turned a brighter shade of red. “I did. He was cute as hell, but it was the way he took care of Tim. That wreck was the worst thing I’d seen in my life, but that medic spoke to him like all he had was a skinned knee. Not only did Tim live, but he regained full function. We were out riding bikes again in six months.”

  “You wanted to help others conquer their fear.” It was a noble sentiment, that was for sure. I’d never given a thought to that in my life. Until I met Kennedy and his family, no one had ever soothed my fears either. Damn, it was a hell of day for self-realization.

  “We’re all set here. Thanks for your help.”

  “No worries.” I set a hand on Hal’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. I could tell he needed a bit of time to himself.

  I was halfway to the men’s room when the bell rang announcing a call.

  “Load up!” Ozzy shouted, running from his office.

  Just like I’d done that night in my kitchen, I froze. The entire firehouse was in motion and I was standing there like a slug. Firefighters ran past me to get into their turnout gear. Maxine ran down the stairs, while Chasten used the firepole.

  “You coming, Noob? Or are you going to stand there with your thumb up your ass?” Ozzy wore a grin I’d never seen on his face before.

  I took off running for the hook and ladder truck. It took me a few valuable seconds to figure out how to haul myself into the cab. Chasten was pulling it out the bay door before I’d even shut my door. I over balanced and almost tumbled out. A huge hand on my back stopped me. I turned to see Ozzy laughing like a maniac as he held me back.