Page 17 of Fire for Effect

“I always call on your birthday.” Once a year. The best day of the year.

“But I saw you a few months ago. I figured you’d give this one a rain check.”

“Never.”

I wondered where she was - was she in Mourningkill with Top and his wife, swinging on their porch? Was she at her shitty camper in the middle of nowhere? The camper with almost no electricity, a college dorm room sized fucking fridge, near that frigid stream? Or had she stowed away in my apartment in Northern Virginia, right outside of Crystal City?

I didn’t want to ask. Not on an open line like this.

Not when I had done so well not stalking her. I had let everyone else do it instead while also demanding they not tell me anything. It was easier that way to pretend I wasn’t a creep. Either way, with a leak somewhere out there, I didn’t want to take chances. Not with her.

I was relatively certain that our communication was secure, but you could never be too careful in my line of work. I’d never be too careful when it came to her safety.

“And now I won’t talk to you again until next year.” Was that bitterness in her voice? Did she miss me?

“I’m coming back soon,” I promised.

She never asked where I was, or what I was doing. She knew better than to do that, which is more than any other woman had ever done.

I didn’t know what I’d do if our roles were reversed. I’d go mad with fear, rage and jealousy if I didn’t know she was safe at all times. Now with the added threat of Matthews…

I was teetering on the brink of insanity with my obsession. There were a thousand ways that a human could die. There were a thousand ways I’d imagined showing up at her trailer to find her gone. I made contingency after contingency to make sure that she was safe. The moment her name showed up anywhere - blotter, police report, government report - I was notified. I had our support team running scans of all medical facilities, in total violation of HIPAA, to notify me if she ever went to the ER for any reason. I was consumed with the need to know that she was okay.

If she cared about me the way I did about her, she’d never have let me leave the way she did after I was shot.

“You said that last year.” Taz sounded like an irritated girlfriend, begging for a date night.

My sweet little Firefly. Do you miss me? Even a little?

I opted for sarcasm instead.

“Aww, did you miss me, you little nut job?” I teased, smiling as the words left my lips.

Please, say that you miss me, Taz. Tell me that you think about me as much as I think about you.

“Fuck, no! Not after the last time! You’re such a baby when you’re hurt!” She was lying. I could hear it in her tone.

“You mean when you got me shot?” I feigned irritation.

How could I be mad, though? I was bed bound, or on crutches. She had stuck around to nurse me back to health, with her particular “bedside manner” which consisted of her berating me for three months.

I loved every second of her attention. I would go through it all again. But maybe without the bullet this time.

“I mean it this year. I’m coming home.”

I had been undercover for two years. I had gone home twice in that time. Once, for the bullet wound. A second time for a mandatory family function – one of my mother’s fundraiser galas that she and my father insisted I could not miss. I absolutely could miss it and would in the future.

“I’ll be there for your next birthday. We’ll do it up right, big ass bonfire, throw in some fireworks. Scare the fuck out of the neighborhood.”

She let out a long sigh. “I appreciate that, Griff. But we go so long without talking, I always wonder if… you know…”

She couldn’t say it. It was bad luck to say it out loud.

“Sometimes, I worry about waiting for a phone call that won’t come, because I wouldn’t know if…”

If I was dead.

The air shifted with the conversation, taking hold of my breath.

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