His hand found its way to my face, his thumb running through my facial hair. He pried his lips from mine and said, “I think Sexy Donnie Gee needs me to make him feel better.”
“Seems like the least my boyfriend could do…”
He made good on his promise as we headed back into his place, struggling to get up the stairs because our hands were all over each other. As soon as we reached the bed, I fell back and he crawled on top of me, and we took care of what we both had surely been wanting to soothe—seeing each other working all wet with sweat and water all day made us crave each other’s bodies as much as ever.
34
Jace
I threw the ball, and Mac went racing across the dog park for it.
“Good boy, good boy!” I called before Mac gave up and started running back to me. “Oh, no, no, no!”
Dax threw his arm over my shoulders and said, “Well, I think he’s getting better. At least he’s actually starting off heading toward the ball.”
He’d seen my numerous failed attempts at training Mac to fetch, but I convinced myself we were making progress. As we trekked toward the ball, I said, “I think we’d have more luck bringing Carter out here to play fetch.”
“I have a feeling, if you mentioned it, he’d be totally down for that.”
“He’d be down, alright.”
“On his knees.”
As we reached the ball, I stooped down and grabbed it, popping back up and glancing around. Usually, the dog park in my neighborhood was pretty busy, but that evening there were only a few families. A man and a woman waved politely at us and we waved back, but outside of that, it was all fairly quiet, fairly routine.
“This is nice,” I noted.
“What? Having a quiet moment?”
“Having a quiet moment with you outside.”
I turned to him, just to appreciate that we could have that. He wore a red polo and shorts, his sunglasses on top of his head.
“Aren’t you supposed to have these covering your eyes?” I asked, reaching for them and starting to pull them down. “Seems more fitting for today.” I made like I was going to put them on for him, but stopped and placed them back on his head. “Kidding. Don’t want to block my view.”
I enjoyed gazing into those eyes, as I had so many other times before then.
But there was something different about looking into my boyfriend’s eyes that day.
We’d shared the craziest of adventures over the past few months. He’d allowed me to explore some of the most satisfying experiences I could have possibly imagined. That slick facade he showed so many others had come down for me, and in its place was a man who had changed it all.
I’d never been interested in dating before, and now I kept thinking about how much I wanted to pull him into my world…and be a part of his.
“What is it?” Dax asked, surely detecting there was something on my mind. He certainly knew me well enough by now.
“Just appreciating how pretty you are, while we have the moment to ourselves. Also, thinking that you’re gonna be watching Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason tonight.”
“Oh, no. Please don’t.”
But even as Dax said it, I could tell by the way his face was all lit up that he really wanted to.
“Yes, we gotta push you through these. And we’ll have to start it sooner rather than later, because you know I have to be up early for work.”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
He sounded disappointed, and I was bummed too. I didn’t want to be on the clock when Dax was here. I was only working a few days, since I was still under contract with Hacksmore, but it would have been nice to be able to cherish every moment with Dax…to have him without having to work around my job and all the events.
“Well, at least I have Nance and Keeg to keep me company,” Dax said.
They’d planned to have a little day date at Willow Brook Park, something they’d done occasionally when Dax was in town.
“Thank you for spending time with them,” I said.
“I like spending time with them.”
I could tell he meant it too, and like so many other things with Dax, he couldn’t know what hearing that meant to me.
Mac jumped up, putting his front legs on me and looking at the ball in my hand.
“I think he wants you to throw it,” Dax said.
“Why? So he can watch me fetch it?”
We attempted to get Mac to fetch a few more times before returning to my place to spend another magical evening together.
* * *
Zed and I moved through the dense smoke filling the air. My sweat was a blanket covering my body. My breath only warmed my face mask even more as we searched upstairs through the east side of the two-story home for possible victims.
To think that less than twelve hours earlier, my biggest worry had been trying to pin Dax to the bed to finish Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason…and then pinning him to the bed for a whole other delicious reason.
When we’d arrived on the scene, the neighbors said it was a family with kids and that the mother usually stayed at home during the day. No sign of her outside, but with a car in the drive, we’d headed inside to take a look for survivors.
Zed and I used thermal imaging cameras to guide us through the space, cautiously navigating the second level, moving as fast as we could. Beau’s voice came over my two-way radio, letting me know we were running low on time before they had to run the lines. As usual when we had a high probability of a survivor, the crew wanted to give us a minute to search, considering if we ran the hoses too soon, the steam was liable to suffocate anyone in the house faster than the smoke that was already billowing through the space.
As we headed into the master bedroom, I caught something on my camera. Sure enough, even over the sounds of cracking and crushing surrounding us, I could hear what sounded like a woman coughing.
I alerted the guys on the radio, and they prepared for a window removal since we were rapidly losing the west side of the house.
A crashing sound, like thunder, came from nearby, and I turned, searching for Zed, but only seeing the smoke. I knew he had to be in the room, but fuck if I could see him.
“Floor broke. I’m stuck,” Zed said over the radio.
My feet froze in place.
“We’ve gotta run these hoses, guys,” Beau’s voice came through. “Zed, Jace?”
I could hear the house being fucking torn apart, and it only became more difficult to concentrate.
“My leg’s jammed, and I can’t see.”
I could tell Zed was panicking. The worst thing we could have had right then.
“Don’t move,” I radioed to Zed, iterating what I was sure he already knew, but felt he had to be reminded of to keep from totally losing it.
The smoke was too thick for me to see for shit without my camera, so I turned it and caught Zed’s image on the screen.
“Zed, Jace?” Beau pressed.
We didn’t have much time.
In a moment, my thoughts shifted back to my past…to losing Crawford. My anxiety intensified, thoughts of peril flashing through my awareness. What if this was the last job?
Had I said I love you to Nance and Keeg?
Had I said it to Dax?
And the horror of him never knowing the depths of my feelings for him pulsed through me as I became vividly aware that if we didn’t figure this out fast, the guys weren’t going to be doing a window removal.
They were going to be doing a body retrieval.
35
Dax
“Thank you guys for inviting me out today,” I said as I walked alongside Nance and Keegan on a path in Willow Brook Park. They’d been good about making me feel included, and it was nice to spend time with them while Jace was working.
“You’re gonna have to get used to us, it looks like,” Keegan said matter-of-factly. “It’s kind of strange, honestly. Bro’s never taken to anyone like this before.”
“You th
ink you should be telling me that?” I teased.
“From what I understand, he hasn’t been subtle about his feelings,” Nance added.
“Well, he doesn’t beat around the bush about that.”
She giggled. “I don’t imagine he does. You’re a good man, Dax, just like he always says, and you know you’re always welcome in our home.”
“Thank you. I appreciate that.”
“Your mom can come visit too,” Keegan said quickly. “She seems cool.”
“Does she? Cool? Really?”
“Why does that surprise you? She’s funny and she has interesting stories.”
“She’s definitely quirky,” Nance said, the stiffness in her expression suggesting she didn’t quite take to her the way Keegan had.
“Nance, come on. Be honest. You guys are nothing alike.”
“No, maybe not, but not so different either. We are both mothers who care about our children, who want to see them happy.”
“Not sure it’s quite the same,” I said, reflecting on some very different times with my mom. “It’s nice of you to say that, but Serena’s a special breed of parent that I think only exists in Hollywood. Some sort of cross between Mommie Dearest and Valley of the Dolls.”
“Now don’t be harsh. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t know some of the gossip, but she seems to have everything together and wants to be in your life. And you seem to want the same.”
“Eh, you can think of it as parental probation.”
Keegan snickered. “She’s gotta finish PPing?” he asked, stressing the pee-peeing.
Nance worked to stifle her smile, but she couldn’t resist, and neither could I.
A ringing sound chimed, and Keegan pulled his phone out. “It’s Beau,” he blurted out, turning to Nance, his expression rife with concern.
We stopped together on the path as he answered. Nance patted herself down. “I must’ve left my phone in the car,” she said, her expression painted with worry.
Nance and I waited in suspense as Keegan’s face turned white enough to concern us even more.
“Jace is hurt,” he murmured, as though struggling to even get out that much, “but he’s fine,” he added shortly after, though it felt like far too long to hear those words, and I hadn’t realized how fast my heart could beat until he offered that addition.
* * *
A few paps, likely freelancers who lived in or around Fever Falls, waited outside the hospital. It aggravated me that they’d arrived before Nance, Keegan, and me.
Since the media frenzy with Jace had begun, I’d been able to handle the press and the expected attention, but in that moment, getting to Jace was my primary concern. Keeg had said he was okay, but I needed to see that he was safe before I could feel it in my heart.
As we headed inside, the paps called out questions, which only served to further disorient Nance and annoy Keegan. Up until then, the press had worked in our favor, been on our side, but I knew as well as anyone how easily that fandom turned on a person. Because privacy wasn’t a thing the public understood. Truly, once you stepped into the realm of public figure, even the law recognized a shift in your rights as a citizen. While Jace and I might’ve signed up for the attention, Nance and Keegan certainly hadn’t. They were caught in the crossfires of this endorsement deal, and it tore me apart to see what should have been a private moment for them being invaded.
“Nancy, Nancy,” a man with a camera called out to her to get a response. She glanced around, confused, but I was mostly pissed that whoever the fuck it was clearly didn’t even know her well enough to call her what any of her friends would have.
“Come on,” I said, guiding her into the lobby, where we inquired about Jace, and then we were escorted to his room.
As we hurried through the halls, I kept reflecting on visiting Serena in the hospital in the past…after ODing. I remembered being ushered to her room, fearing the state she’d be in. It roused so many powerful emotions within me, and when the nurse opened the door, when I saw Jace chatting with another nurse as well as Ash, Beau, and Zed, I was so worked up, I wanted to kick Jace’s ass for making me worry. It wasn’t his fault, but I’d be damned if anything could have made me feel as protective over that ass than in that moment when Keegan told us he was hurt.
“Dude, I just feel like this is all my fault,” Zed said.
“Don’t do this to yourself,” Jace insisted before they all turned together to us. “Oh, a party? For me?” Jace joked, smiling, but I could see the tension in his expression as we approached, his eyes shifting between us as he seemed to be working to ascertain our concern.
We hurried to the bed. Nance put her arms around him, and Keegan tried to act cool, but Jace pulled him in. While I waited my turn, Jace gazed at me and smirked, though I could tell by his somber expression that it was forced. “Oh, come here, Dax,” Nance insisted.
I joined them, offering a hug, touching my nose against the side of Jace’s face. As worked up as I was, I was relieved he was okay.
“Sorry about the scare,” Jace said. “Not sure where my phone is, but I was trying to call on Beau’s phone, and apparently the reception is shit in here.”
Nance started to cry.
“Come on, Nance. Aren’t you gonna rag on me about not cursing?”
“You can curse today,” she said as she sobbed.
As I pulled away, I saw his eyes fixed on hers as he teared up too. I could only imagine what this brought up for them all, considering their past with Crawford. Even Keegan was having a hard time not getting emotional.
“I think we’re just gonna step out for a second, give you all some space,” Beau said, and he, Ash, and Zed slipped out the door.
The nurse who’d been in the room with Jace already, an attractive blond, approached me. He lowered the clipboard in his left hand to his side and shook my hand with his right. “Hi, I’m Linc. Wish we could be meeting under better circumstances.”
“Tell me about it.”
“How’s he doing, Lincoln?” Nance asked.
We took seats beside Jace’s bed, and Linc explained his condition. “He has a fibula fracture and needs a boot for his leg right now, but he should be good as new in no time. However, we’re keeping him until we can get an MRI and scan for more severe ligament damage that might have occurred during the fall he took on the job.”
He turned his attention to Jace. “In the meantime, enjoy the pain management and free food, but don’t be scaring us like that anymore, okay, Hottie Firefighter?”
A boisterous laugh erupted from Jace at the play on his celebrity nickname. “Thanks, Doc,” he said with a wink. “Go on now to the patients who really need the help…and maybe some eye candy.”
Linc snickered. “Alright. You guys let me know if any of you need anything. Nance, I trust he’s in good hands.”
By the way she inhaled, it seemed as though she’d taken her first decent breath since we’d heard the news. The nurse’s cool bedside manner had gone a long way in calming us down.
“Thank you, Lincoln,” Nance said, and he saw himself out.
As soon as the door closed, she turned her worried gaze back to Jace and asked, “What happened?”
It was the question lingering on all our minds.
Jace took a prolonged breath, and I could tell he didn’t want to get into it, but surely he knew there was no way Nance was going to let him get away with that. “The fire was creeping through the house pretty fast,” he said. “It got up under the bedroom we were in, and as Zed was scanning the rest of the room with the thermal-imaging camera, his foot pushed through the floor and must’ve gotten stuck in some wiring. He was panicking, and while the crew was working on a window removal for a victim, I headed over to help him. I managed to get his leg free, and as he lurched to get out, he sort of shoved me. I lost my balance, and there was a bed nearby, and my foot slammed against the edge of this wooden frame. Hit it just wrong before I took a fall. It was more like the Two Stooges of Firefighting
than anything else.”
I could tell he was trying to make light of it for our benefit, something I could more than understand considering how wrecked Nance looked over it.
“The woman we were rescuing is in a room here too, and as you can see, Zed made it out just fine.”
“He should have been more careful,” she said.
“We all have our moments. Any other day, that could have been me.”
She nodded, likely knowing he was right, but it must’ve been hard for her to see her son injured in that hospital bed.
“Anyway, we can all be appreciative that they’re only keeping me for observation, so we got lucky.”
Luck? What kind of fucking luck was that?
Although, knowing the details of how they’d lost Crawford, I knew luck was right. It could have been so much worse. He could have been gone.
And that thought tore through my heart, terrorized my soul.
In the time we’d been together, I hadn’t had to deal with the real consequences of his job. Sure, I’d known he was working, but he’d always been fine. So in my mind, he could have had any job, and while I was nervous, until that moment, it hadn’t really registered for me.
I could only imagine what it did to Nance and Keegan, who still looked rattled but as though trying to mentally assure themselves he was still with us, and that was what mattered. Zed swung by, profusely apologizing to Jace again, who generously talked him down from his guilt as they swapped stories about errors Jace had made in his early days. I called Carter and Elliott to give them a heads-up about the news, and the hours ticked on by before I headed out to grab coffee for everyone. I noticed Beau and Ash in the waiting area, chatting with Serena. I checked my phone to see if she’d messaged. She hadn’t.
“Serena?” I asked, approaching them.
“I came as soon as I heard.”
“Where did you hear?”
She glanced around. “It’s all over the news, Dax.”
“The news? Like…the news news?”
“There was a bit on CNN…and a few local stations are covering it.”
#BURN (Fever Falls Book 2) Page 23
