Combust

by K. Bromberg

  “I’m here. I’m coming, Drew. I’m coming.” Every part of my body shakes. Scared. Afraid.

  Seconds feel like minutes. Minutes feel like hours. And neither of them are things we have.

  “There’s no way in. There’s no . . . Fuck.” His breath is labored. With fear. With exhaustion. With smoke. “I can’t . . .”

  “Don’t you fucking give up on me. Don’t you dare!” I scream and then radio back to dispatch that I need help. “Mayday. Mayday. Drew’s down. He’s trapped.” I look back into the flames where I last saw him, but only see black. And orange. And yellow. I give our location in the building and then turn my attention back to my partner. “Two-in. Two-out, man. Get over here so we can go two out!” All I hear is his breath laboring through the intercom. “Get through a wall. Push back and swim through it. Goddamn it, Drew, answer me!”

  Another crack of the ceiling. Another deluge of burning debris rains down on us.

  “Grady!” His voice is packed with every kind of fear I’ve ever imagined in my life, and I can’t do anything but cover my head and ward off the flames as they fall on me.

  “Hold on! They’re coming for us.”

  “My mask is cracked. I can’t breathe.”

  Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

  “C’mon, Drew. Hold on.” I take my axe and start hitting anything I can in a blind panic to try to get to him.

  His gasps are in my ear. Each painful draw, coming more and more infrequently.

  “Tell . . . tell Shelby I love her . . . tell her I’m sorry.” Each word is labored exhaustion as the carbon monoxide drugs him. As the fire takes over.

  “No!” I shout the word at the top of my lungs, as if it’s going to help me get to him. “Chief, where the fuck are you guys?”

  “Tell . . . tell Brody . . . I love him . . . promise me . . .Grady . . . you’ll take care of him. Please.”

  “No! I won’t. You tell him. They’re coming for us, Drew. Any minute. Hold on. Hold the fuck on.”

  I try to pass through the fallen beams. I try to get to him. I try to save him.

  “The whole west side is gone. We’re breaching from the north.” The chief’s voice breaks through the panic ricocheting around inside me but does nothing to abate it.

  There is a roar from Drew in my ears, and in that moment, I know it’s a sound I’ll never forget as long as I live.

  If I live.

  Because I’m not leaving him.

  I can’t leave him.

  And then the siren starts. The PASS alarm that tells me he’s no longer moving.

  “Drew! Drew! Get up. Fight! Fucking—”

  Crack.

  I hear it before I feel it.

  It’s deafening.

  The loudest sound I’ve ever heard.

  There’s a split second of pain. Of pressure. Of sparks.

  There is sweat on my lips.

  Or is it tears?

  The Nomex of my jacket gives under the flames.

  Two-in. Zero-out.

  “No!” I wake up, bolting upright in my bed. My sheets are soaked with sweat. My room smells like fear. My back feels like it’s still on fucking fire.

  It takes me a moment to realize it was only a dream.

  But it’ll never be a dream.

  It was a nightmare.

  A fucking night terror that never ends.

  Especially when I have to look into Brody’s eyes and try to hide the guilt of not saving his dad that is rotting me from the inside.

  That I didn’t do the job I’m tasked to do daily.

  Save lives.

  What kind of firefighter am I when I can’t save anyone, not even myself?

  I throw on some shorts and head toward the kitchen. To the bottle of whiskey that is becoming way too comfortable in my hands, but fuck if I don’t need it to get through some of these nights.

  Bracing my hands on the kitchen counter, I look out the window to the half-built playroom. How stupid was I to think building a place for Brody to come and hang out someday would be enough to teach him what it’s like to be a man? After everything my parents have done for me, taught me, how did I ever think that would be enough?

  And yet, when I pick up that hammer, I feel like I’m doing something instead of doing nothing. Like I’m trying, when every fucking time I look at Brody, my goddamn heart breaks in my chest from the guilt weighing it down.

  Because I couldn’t save his dad.

  It’s after my second refill—the burn chasing away the cobwebs of memory—that I hear Dylan’s voice through her closed door.

  It’s soft. It’s haunting. It sounds just like how I feel. When she adds her guitar to the words, I sink down into the couch to listen.

  To lyrics about loss. Hers are about losing love but they’re so fitting to where my thoughts are after my dream. They make me feel less alone. Almost as if she understands.

  And I fall back asleep to the sound of her voice and the comfort she oddly brings.

  I play the same set of chords over and over, making minute adjustments with each strum to see which one works best with my lyrics.

  “We drive into the dark.

  Crash into the wall.

  How do we find our way back from this endless free fall?”

  I write down notes as I go on my three pads in front of me: one for the music, one for the lyrics, and one for anything else that comes into my mind that doesn’t work for this song but might work for another.

  I move my fingers on the neck of the guitar and start to sing again. Just as the first line passes my lips, it dies off when I look up to see Grady standing and watching me from the doorway.

  Did I forget to shut it?

  “Hey.” His voice is quiet, his smile is soft, and there is sadness in his eyes when they meet mine. Or maybe it’s exhaustion. I can’t tell.

  “Hey. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you were home or I would have shut the door. Did I wake you?”

  “No, you’re fine. I got home a while ago. I had some stuff to take care of after my shift.” He takes a step into my room, and once he’s in the light, I can see how tired he is. It’s in his posture. His expression. He’s spent.

  My mind whirls back to the little boy from the other day at the farmers’ market. Was that where he was? Why is he so secretive about it?

  “He’s had a rough go of it lately.” I hear my brother’s words and bite my tongue to keep from outright asking him about the child and overstepping my boundaries.

  “Did you have a good shift? Hopefully, it was uneventful.”

  He shakes his head as if he’s mulling over the answer. “A house fire that burned itself out before we got there. Some medical assist calls. Nothing much.”

  His words are simple enough, dismissive even, but there is something that has me taking note. “Everything okay?”

  His expression—part confusion, part conflict, part uncertainty—tugs on every part of me that wants to fix whatever is wrong. “Yeah. Just . . . I went to the gym for a while to deal with it. Came home. Fell asleep exhausted, but now I can’t sleep at all.” He steps farther into the room, and I set the guitar down. “Don’t stop because of me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There’s something comforting about listening to you sing as you work through lyrics. I can’t really hear through the door, but I know you’re singing,” he explains, throwing me for a loop and making me suddenly self-conscious. “You have an incredible voice. Why aren’t you the one who sings?”

  He moves to sit on the bed beside me, and for some reason, it causes the nerves to jitter inside me. “Because I don’t like the limelight. The attention.”

  “Don’t like it or don’t want it?” He pokes my leg to prompt me to lift my head and meet his eyes.

  “Aren’t they the same thing?”

  “Not hardly. If you don’t like it, you don’t like it. It isn’t your thing. If you don’t want it, it’s because you know you’re good enough to sing but you don’t believe in yourself
enough to take the chance.” He lifts his eyebrows as if to ask me which one I fit into.

  I stare at him for a moment as I mull over my answer, hating that he’s probably right about all of it, and I don’t want to admit it. “I’ve always been a songwriter. Not a performer . . . so that’s all I know how to do.”

  The thought of being on stage makes me want to break out in hives. The staring eyes. The criticism. The constant feelings of inadequacy.

  “Hmm,” he says, making my back straighten. “I think you know how to do both quite well. Aren’t singer-songwriters all the rage these days?”

  “If that’s your thing.” I try to be vague so he’ll drop the topic. Just the thought of throwing myself out there to be torn down by fans makes my stomach churn.

  “Can I sit and watch you work for a while?” The rejection is on my tongue immediately. No one has ever watched me work, except for Jett, but the words die when I see the look in his eyes. It’s as if he doesn’t want to be alone right now.

  “It isn’t very interesting to watch.”

  “I’d like to, though.” He scoots over before I consent and rests his back against the headboard. “I’ll close my eyes if that makes it easier. That way, I’m not really watching you.”

  “Semantics,” I say with a laugh.

  “Semantics are important.”

  Our gazes hold for a moment before he makes a show of closing his eyes and leaning back on my pillows as if he’s settling in for the long haul.

  “What does two-in, two-out, mean?”

  I told myself I wasn’t going to ask him and yet there it is. Out in the open. Me and my big mouth.

  The hand he’s bringing to put behind his head jerks momentarily, but he never opens his eyes. “Where’d you hear that?” His voice lacks all emotion.

  “You yelled it last night in your sleep.”

  His sigh fills the silence and weighs it down. I study him. The fan of lashes against his cheeks and the way he purses his lips.

  “It’s just a saying I used to say to someone.” His eyes remain closed as I debate whether I should speak or let it go. “Technically it means that when two firefighters go into a building, two more remain outside to initiate a rescue just in case shit goes south. Two-inside, two-outside.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  “But my old partner and I . . . we would say it to each other before we entered a fire. We used it to mean that the two of us were going in together, and the two of us were going to come out together, safe and sound. It was our way of saying we had each other’s back no matter the cost.” He pauses and his Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. “The rest of the crew used to razz us over it and say we sounded like an old married couple when we said it. That’s all. There’s nothing else to it.”

  But the emotion swelling in his voice and the fact that he hasn’t opened his eyes at all says there’s so much more to the story.

  “Grady . . .” Thanks for sharing. Who was your old partner? Is he the one your nightmares are about?

  He clears his throat but doesn’t speak. As the silence stretches I battle my need to ask more, but figure I’ll leave it be. So I turn my focus to my work. To my notes and my guitar. And the moment I strum my fingers over its strings, the tension in Grady’s shoulders eases some.

  Music is my therapy, so I offer the same to him.

  I look at him often as I work through the lyrics. Words about love and loss pass over my lips, run through my head, and are jotted down, and yet, he’s the one I keep looking for a reaction from. His fingers thrumming to an imaginary beat he hears in my work the only response he gives.

  I’m self-conscious at first, worried he’s judging me or laughing to himself as I repeatedly work through verses and chords. Then, after a while, I almost forget he is there—if you can forget a six-foot-plus man sitting on your queen-size bed as you work.

  And who knows how much time passes before I look up from my guitar, lyrics on my lips, and find Grady’s eyes open and watching me. My words falter, but he shakes his head and tells me to continue. And so I sing and play and keep my gaze locked on his.

  “Your tongue on my skin,

  My head begins to spin.

  Your heart in my hand,

  Falling like endless quicksand.

  Words are spun and lies are told,

  But in the end it’s you I hold.”

  The connection causes that ache in my lower belly to simmer to life. It’s sensual. It’s intimate. It’s as if he’s hearing the very inner workings of my mind and heart and soul, and as much as I tell myself I need to look away, I can’t.

  “That one,” he murmurs when I finish. “I like that verse better.”

  My pulse pounds in my ears. How can he hear anything when my heart is beating so loudly I can’t even hear myself?

  “Why?”

  “Because love is rarely pretty. It’s messy. It’s complicated. It’s often ugly, but that’s how you know when it’s right. Pretty doesn’t always last. It’s the things you have to work at that make the reward that much sweeter.”

  “And you’ve been in love and know this firsthand?”

  He falls silent but never averts his gaze. “I’ve loved a lot of things in my life. A lot of people. But I can’t say I’ve ever been so head over heels in love with someone that I’d want to stay with them no matter the cost.”

  “No matter the cost?” There’s that phrase again. “That’s your criteria?”

  “No matter the cost.” He nods, and our eyes hold across the dimly lit room as seconds tick by. “Unfortunately, when it comes to me, the cost is too great to ask someone to pay to be with me.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  The muscle in his jaw pulses as he chews over the answer I can sense he knows but isn’t going to verbalize. Then, without warning, he shifts and sits beside me. “Show me how you do it, will you?”

  And once again, he changes the topic.

  “Show you how to do what?” I ask to buy time and make my heart settle since it has decided to use my ribs as a bounce house.

  “Play. Write. I don’t know. Just show me how you work. I’m interested.”

  I laugh nervously as his arm brushes against mine and he takes my guitar from my hands. “It takes an awful lot more than me telling you where to press the strings to make a song.”

  “I’m good at manipulating things to make them sing my praises, Dylan.”

  My breath shutters. I hope he doesn’t notice, because I think he just made an innuendo I really don’t want to touch, given how close we are and how much closer we’re about to be.

  “So . . . hold it like this,” I say as I avoid responding and show him how to hold the guitar. After a few attempts, I realize it’s impossible to teach Grady without being more hands on. I shift behind him so my arms can shadow his and my fingers can help him press the correct strings when needed.

  He laughs as he messes the chords up over and over, but I just keep my hands where they are and guide his.

  “You need to be patient,” I tease.

  “Patience is not something I’m good at.” He groans in frustration as the notes fall flat again. “You need to sing.”

  “Is that the problem?” I laugh.

  “Yes, if you sing, it will mask my horrible guitar playing skills.”

  I press my forehead against his back as I laugh some more before I agree. “Okay. Hands in the ready position.” I guide him back to them when he doesn’t get it right the first time. “Your tongue on my skin . . .”

  And we play through the lyrics I’ve been working on. It isn’t pretty but it’s the break in concentration I didn’t realize I needed. We end with a laugh, and right when I shift to the side of him, he turns to face me.

  It’s a sudden movement that neither of us expects and leaves us closer than expected. So close, I can feel the heat of his breath feather against my lips.

  Everything zooms in and out of focus in those first few seconds. The hitch of his breath. Th
e scent of his soap. The zap of his touch where his fingers rest on my forearm. The firestorm of want burning through me, which is nothing at all like I felt with Wes Winters last week.

  There can only be distance.

  There can only be adjusting to a life without Jett.

  There can only be not wanting this.

  And yet, he’s right here. A whisper away. With piercing eyes and full lips and that body that begs to be touched. Explored. Tasted.

  “Thanks for showing me,” he murmurs, his eyes flicking to where my tongue darts out to wet my lower lip.

  “You’re welcome.”

  And still, neither of us moves.

  “You’ve shown me yours, when are you going to let me show you mine?” His voice is a suggestive murmur, but for the life of me, I have no idea what he’s talking about . . . and I don’t care so long as he keeps talking to me in that tone. Hell, he could probably ask me to remove my panties, and I would without question.

  “Grady?” I’m asking so many things when I utter his name, but I’m not quite sure which one I want him to answer. Show me what? Why aren’t you kissing me? This is dangerous. Isn’t this a bad idea? “What do you have to show me?” The words barely make any sound when they come out.

  “Why don’t you like firefighters?”

  His question throws me, and out of reflex, I slide off the bed and busy my hands by putting my guitar in its case. Again, I’m left to feel like an absolute idiot when it comes to misreading Grady.

  “Well?” he prompts as I straighten papers on my dresser that don’t need to be straightened.

  “My dad was one.”

  “How did I not know this?” he asks as if he’s dumbfounded that neither Damon nor I have told him this before.

  “Because I don’t talk about my dad. That’s why.” Grady starts to talk, and I hold my hand up to stop him while making sure I have a soft smile on my face. “It’s a long story for another time. Another night. What was it that you wanted to show me?”

  Grady looks at me, fighting a smile until each dimple breaks through—one side at a time—before throwing his head back and laughing at something I’m not privy to.

  “What? What’s so funny?” I start looking at my clothes, at my hands . . . everywhere to see what is making him laugh so hysterically.