by Kaye Kennedy
I saw his jaw tick. "The medical bag."
"Damn, right. So why didn't you grab it when I told you where we were going?"
"I'm sorry, Lieutenant."
"Sorry wouldn’t cut it if we were going to an imminent emergency and you had to waste time running back to the rig, now would it?"
"Won't happen again."
"Better not." I turned my back and opened the front passenger door to my officer's seat.
We got back on our rig and returned to quarters. Because we'd gotten called out for the manhole fire as we were about to sit down for lunch, we were all starving. As we were backing into the firehouse, we got called out on another run.
The guys grumbled in the back.
"You signed up for this shit," I reminded them, as we zoomed down the block.
The cold lager was exactly what I needed after the twenty-four hour shift I'd had. I reclined on the chair in my brother's living room as I sipped from the amber bottle, feeling some of the stress evaporate. Every once in a while, I stopped by Dylan's apartment for a beer after work since he lived close to my fire house. This was one of those nights that called for it.
My sister-in-law, Autumn, was cuddled up on the couch with her cat on her lap and Dylan had his arm around her. They were disgustingly perfect for each other. Sure, I was happy for my little brother, but I could only handle so much of the love before it made me want to poke my own eyes out. All of my brothers were happily paired off. Dylan had gotten married that summer, Jesse and Lana's wedding was in the spring, and I knew it was only a matter of time before Ryan asked Zoe to marry him.
Again, stoked for them, because I loved my brothers, but I found my limit getting lower and lower every time we were all together. Love was more damn pain than it was worth, and I hoped my brothers would never have to experience that heartache. Their women were cool, and they were all well-matched, but sometimes even being perfect for each other wasn't enough. Love wasn't always enough.
Autumn looked up from her phone. "Jace and Britt are back from Vegas and they want to stop by." Jace was Dylan's best friend. They both worked together at Ladder 64 and Britt was Autumn's best friend from college. The two of them had started dating after Dylan and Autumn's wedding.
"Cool." Dylan took a sip of his beer.
I nodded. Just what I wanted; another happy couple to hang out with. While I'd thought Ryan settling down had been shocking, finding out that Jace Palmer was serious about a girl had damn near floored me. He was as big a playboy as they'd come.
"They're in a cab and should be here soon," Autumn added.
I remembered Autumn's best friend Britt from the wedding. Had to give it to her, she was fun. If I really thought about it, it wasn't all that surprising that she and Jace had shacked up. I grabbed a handful of popcorn from the bowl on the coffee table and tossed it back in one bite.
"What the hell was that ref?" Dylan shouted at the television.
Sunday nights were for football and hockey. Dylan had a massive TV that was perfect for watching the games. There was even a split screen feature so we could watch two channels at the same time. Super clutch. Toronto was facing off against St. Louis, and while I wasn't particularly invested in either hockey team, I was still all about it. I missed my hockey days.
For football, it was still early in the season, but Dallas was crushing our New York team, which was exactly why Dylan was giving the ref an earful as though the guy could actually hear him. Autumn wasn't all that interested in sports, but she made an effort because Dylan liked it. She was cute like that.
When they broke for commercial, Dylan went to get us another round of beers. Just as he handed me mine, there was a knock at the door.
"It's open," Dylan shouted.
Jace and Britt let themselves in. They were practically skipping from new relationship bliss.
Fuck me.
They squeezed into the chair and a half that bookended the other side of the couch, opposite me.
"How was Vegas?" Autumn asked.
"Amazing"
"Incredible"
They spoke over each other, seeming a little too happy.
We all narrowed our eyes at them.
Autumn said, "Spill it, sister. I haven't seen you smile like that since," she paused looking to be in serious thought. "Ever."
Jace and Britt glanced at each other and giggled. Like fucking schoolchildren. Then, they held up their left hands, each of which sported silver bands on a very significant finger. In unison, they announced, "We eloped!" And then he kissed her like they were alone in the room.
They might as well have been, given how deathly quiet the three of us were. The pit in my stomach that had been growing larger ever since my brothers started settling down made its presence known with a twist. I winced.
They finally came up for air.
Autumn pointed at them. "You're messing with us."
Britt shook her head. "Nope. Jace proposed and I said yes."
Jace added, "Then we found ourselves a wedding chapel on the strip and made it happen."
Autumn pounced to her feet and jumped up and down. Britt met her mid-air and they hugged each other while they squealed at a decibel that I never needed to hear again.
Dylan stepped over the coffee table and wrapped an arm around Jace. "Congrats, brother."
I got up for the obligatory congratulations as well. "You're a crazy SOB, Palmer."
He bumped my outstretched fist. "It's all her, man. She does things to me that make no damn sense, but I've never been so happy."
My stomach gave another twist. "This calls for champagne. I'll run to the liquor store and get some."
"Great idea. Thanks," Dylan replied.
I was out the door within seconds and once it closed, I pressed my back against the wall in the hallway and sighed. Even Jace Palmer got his happily ever after. What the hell?
I rode the elevator down and took some much-needed breaths of fresh air once I was out on the sidewalk. I couldn't get out of that apartment fast enough and I was proud of myself for coming up with an excuse to leave as quickly as I had. After pulling my phone from my pocket, I typed liquor store into my GPS and walked the three blocks to my destination.
I was half tempted to stop at each bar I passed on the way to get a shot of Irish whiskey, but I resisted the urge. Stumbling back to Dylan's apartment wouldn't be a good look. I told myself that if I still felt like I needed a shot on my walk back, then I'd stop for one. Just one.
The bell jingled when I opened the door to the liquor store and I raised my chin at the guy behind the counter before going in search of the champagne. Foil tops poked out two aisles down, so I made my way over there, assuming that they were champagne. As I turned down the aisle, my eyes caught sight of a familiar head of chocolate-colored hair and my feet froze to the tile.
As involuntarily as my breath, her name slipped out of my mouth, "Allie?"
She glanced up from the chardonnays and her bronze eyes widened as she turned toward me. The bottle she was holding slipped from her hand and her foot broke its fall, preventing it from shattering. It had to have hurt, but she didn't even flinch. She simply stared at me with her mouth agape as the bottle rolled under the shelf.
My blood drained to my feet as every last feeling I'd had for her since we were four came rushing back like they'd never left. Sixteen years ago. When she did.
I didn't know if I should run away and scream, or run to her and pull her into my arms.
I wanted to do both, so I didn't do either.
We stood in the wine aisle, neither of us making a move beyond staring in silence.
I was ten feet from the one that got away, and the sight of her told me what my heart already knew: she may have gotten away, but I had never let her go.
28
Allie
Instantly, my palms began to sweat and a chill ran up my spine. This can't be happening. I'd been living in Manhattan for a month and out of the three million people who crammed o
nto that island on a daily basis, I somehow managed to enter the same liquor store as the one person I'd hoped to never see again. Life could be cruel.
I glanced up and turned toward him. My mouth hung open, but I struggled to come up with words. Kyle Hogan. My childhood best friend who I'd selfishly abandoned sixteen-years before. The wine bottle fell from my hand and hit my foot, but the pain hardly registered.
In many ways, he looked the same. He was still a big, muscular guy with those captivating crystal blue irises. His hair was cropped short in a military style and he had lines around his eyes that showed every one of his thirty-four-years.
I fought the urge to run into his arms and tell him how much I'd missed him and how sorry I was because certainly he hated me. "Kyle," I managed to choke out. "Hi."
He blinked several times as though he was trying to figure out if I was an apparition. I was having the same thought. As I stared into his eyes, I got a glimpse of what was beneath his rugged exterior, and I saw the boy who’d loved me in our youth. He was my biggest what if? in life. The boy who might have been my forever…if only…
"Allie," he repeated.
"H-how are you?" I asked. It was a platitude I almost immediately regretted.
He shrugged. "What are you doing here?"
"I, um, I live here."
"Oh." There was a tinge of hurt in his tone. He folded his arms across his chest. My gaze dropped to his biceps, which swelled beneath the hem of his t-shirt sleeves. He'd managed to get even more muscular than he'd been at eighteen.
"I moved back from Michigan a few weeks ago."
He nodded. "I see."
Yup, he definitely hates me.
I pointed to the emblem on his shirt. "So you're a fireman?"
He nodded. "Lieutenant."
I smiled. "That's great."
"Yeah." He took a couple steps forward. "You living around here?"
I hooked my thumbs in the belt loops of my jeans. "Two blocks away. You?"
"I own a house in New Rochelle, but I work on Columbus Ave."
An entire island and I picked an apartment right by Kyle's station. Fucking life. "Oh, so did you just finish work then?"
"Earlier. Dylan lives around here, so I was at his place."
Fucking life times two. "Yeah? How's he doing."
"Good. He got married this past June."
I grinned. "That's great." It was weird to imagine the sixteen year old boy I knew being all grown up and married.
"Yeah. His firehouse is in this area, too."
Of course it is. "So, you're both firemen?"
He nodded. "Jesse and Ryan, too."
My brows arched. "All four of you?"
He nodded.
"Wow, that's wonderful, Kyle."
He stared at me and as uncomfortable as it was, I couldn't look away. There was a heavily guarded pain in his eyes that I recognized because I saw the same distant emptiness in my own when I looked in a mirror.
I bit my lip and his gaze dropped to my mouth.
"Allie..." his voice trailed off, but that one word—my name—said a million things. He wanted answers, and I couldn't blame him for that, but I wouldn't put him through that pain. I'd carried the burden on my own for close to two decades and I was content with my decision to shield him from that.
I swallowed.
He sighed.
I held my breath.
He said, "It's nice to see you. You look great."
Trying not to dwell on the fact that I was in my gym clothes, I exhaled. "Thanks. So do you." I had to get out of there. "I, um, I've gotta go, but it was good to see you, too."
He reached into his back pocket and retrieved his wallet, pulling out a business card. "I'd love to get together and catch up." He extended the card to me. "If you want."
When I took the card, my finger brushed against his and we both flinched. His card had the FDNY emblem on front with Lieutenant Kyle Hogan imprinted in the middle. I grinned with pride over his success. "Sure."
"My cell is on the back."
I flipped it over to find the numbers scrawled across the back in his familiar abysmal handwriting.
He stepped back. "I hope to see you soon, Allie."
I nodded and began to walk down the aisle toward the door.
He stopped me. "You're forgetting your wine."
I spun around to see him holding the bottle I'd dropped, so I went back to him. "Oh, right."
He held out the bottle and I noticed there was no wedding ring on his finger. I reached for the other end and both of us held on for a few seconds too long. My heart raced from the sensation of being near him again after all this time. He let go and stepped back.
"Thanks."
"You're welcome."
I clutched the chardonnay to my chest and scurried to the register where I paid for my wine before high-tailing it out the door. The entire walk home, I wondered if that encounter had really happened or if I'd been daydreaming. Seeing Kyle again was surreal, to say the least. There had been so many times over the years where I'd come close to contacting him, but I'd always chickened out because I was embarrassed about how I'd behaved. Plus, after disappearing the way that I had, I figured he'd never take my call. Months turned into years turned into a decade and a half.
I'd moved on. Gotten married. Gotten divorced. But the memory of Kyle was always in the back of my mind. I’d thought of him often and wondered how his life had turned out. I couldn't dwell on it long though before the familiar sense of self-loathing kicked in.
Back at home, in my tiny one-bedroom apartment, I put the wine in the fridge, having lost the craving, and curled up on my living room couch. I squeezed my eyes closed and repeated the mantra that my therapist had practically beat into me. "I am enough. I am enough. I am enough." Eventually, I fell asleep.
My mother had invited me for lunch on Saturday, so I drove up to Mamaroneck to the house she shared with her new husband. Well, not exactly new. They’d been married twelve years. Since I'd moved to Michigan, I'd only been back to my hometown maybe ten to fifteen times. My ex-husband, Kevin, wasn't big on New York so we'd mostly stayed in Michigan, which is where he'd grown up.
Mom's husband, Jerry, had two kids of his own. One was in college in Florida and the other was some tech genius in Silicon Valley, so it was just the three of us. Mom wanted to go to the Farmer's Market, so we drove to the parking lot on the beach where the market was held every Saturday. The last time I’d been there had been the night Kyle had told me he’d been in love with me. I rubbed my lips together as I got out of the car.
While Mom got lost in conversation with one of the bakers, I wandered. There were various pop-up tents housing all sorts of makers. Most of the items were food, but there were a few artists selling their wares, as well. I stopped to look at a pair of dangly earrings.
"Allie Dupree?"
I spun around to the smiling face of Ann Hogan. "Mrs. H?
She held her arms open. "Well don't just stand there. Come give me a hug."
So I did and it felt damn good. When I'd left for Michigan, I hadn’t just lost Kyle, I’d lost my family in the Hogans. "It's great to see you, Mrs. H."
She pulled away. "Please, dear, you can call me Ann now. I'm no longer your principal." She had quite a few more wrinkles than I’d remembered, but there was a comforting familiarity in her iconic blue eyes that she’d passed on to her boys.
I grinned. "How are you?"
She tucked her fabulous silver hair behind her ear. "I'm well. Retired. Enjoying life."
"I bet."
"Are you here visiting your mom?"
I nodded. "For the day, yes. I actually moved back to New York. I'm living in Manhattan."
"No kidding. What are you doing there?"
"I'm a kindergarten teacher."
She beamed. "That's wonderful, dear. And your husband? I remember your mother mentioning that you'd gotten married."
I shifted my weight on my feet. "Divorced, actually."
&nb
sp; "Well, I'm sorry to hear that. Do you have children?"
I winced. "That's okay. It was for the best. And no, I don't."
There was pity in her eyes. "I would've thought you'd have fifteen little ones by now. I remember when you kids were little and you used to play with my boys. You were always so wonderful with them." Ann smiled. "It's no wonder you're a kindergarten teacher."
I gave her my standard response for whenever the subject arose. "It's the perfect way to get my kid fix, but then I can send them home to their parents for the tantrums while I enjoy a glass of wine and some peace and quiet."
Like everyone always did, she laughed. "The best of both worlds."
"It is," I agreed, despite the fact that I would've cut off my own leg if it meant I'd been able to have children of my own.
A forlorn look filled her eyes. "You've been missed, Allie."
I knew full well she hadn't been referring to just herself, but I played dumb. "I've missed you, too. Mrs. H. I mean, Ann." Her name felt weird to say.
She sighed. "I know you're seeing your mom today, but if you're free next Saturday, I'd love to have you over for dinner. Take pity on this retired widow. " She winked. "I’d enjoy the pleasure of your company."
I swallowed the lump in my throat. "Sounds great. I'll be there."
"Splendid. I trust you still know how to find my house."
"Blindfolded and barefoot," I jested.
She “grinned. Five o'clock?"
"I'll see you then."
She gave me a goodbye hug and went on her way.
I’d surprised myself by agreeing to dinner, but seeing Mrs. H again made me happy and I hadn't felt that in a very long time.
"Oh, and Allie?"
I spun around. "Yes?"
"He never married." Her knowing eyes stared at me for a beat before turning away in search of fresh apple cider from the orchard vendor.
I stood in the middle of the row watching her weave through the crowd. Unsure of what to make of her statement, I sighed. I thought back to the previous weekend when I'd run into him at the liquor store. Several times throughout the week, I'd tried to text him, but I could never bring myself to hit send. He'd said he wanted to get together and catch up, which a part of me wanted to do as well, but there was a bigger part of me that didn't want to dredge up the past. More than anything, I wanted to believe that Kyle had gone on to live this amazing life with the family and the career he deserved because if he didn't, then my protecting him would have been for nothing.
