Page 90 of Fire & Ice

“Tripp? Tripp, it’s me,” the deep, familiar voice says, and Tripp nearly chokes trying to reply, struggling so much that it takes him nearly three false starts to get a single word out.

“Hey, sunshine,” is what he finally manages, trying hard not to sound anywhere near as wrecked as he feels. “What—what’s the weather like where you are? Me, I’m in a bit of a heatwave. Could do with some rain.”

“Oh, Tripp,” Leander replies, huffing a reluctant laugh, and Tripp can just picture him—clutching the mic two-handed like a lifeline, like he might grab Tripp through it if he can hold on tight enough. Such aLeething to do that the mental image actually makes Tripp smile. He really is the light of Tripp’s entire fucking life, and—oh.

Oh,shit.Hecan’tgo out like this, not without letting Lee know. Maybe that’s not fair, not aniceburden to rest on his best friend’s shoulders, but Tripp’s the one who’s about to be cut down in his early thirties, so fuckfairness.

“Lee, I gotta tell you something,” Tripp begins, releasing the mic for a second so that Leander can acknowledge that he’s listening, that he can hear. Wouldn’t it be just Tripp’s luck that he finds the stones to confess his stupid feelings, and the damn radio cuts out over it?

“No,” Leander replies, and Tripp frowns, trying to press his mic’s button, but Lee is still talking, the stubborn asshole. “I owe you an apology, Tripp. I owe you—”

“Holy shit,” Tripp murmurs to himself, tensing as he processes Leander’s voice on the other end of the line, near-sobbing and fighting a losing battle to gain control of his speech.He finds himself clutching his own radio just as tightly as he was previously making fun of Lee for doing.

“Tripp, I didn't mean to add to your distress today,” Leander continues, teetering on the edge of hysteria. “I—Tripp, I just keep failing. Again and again. When you were dropping, I searched high and low and I couldn't find you. And then I screwed up with our aftercare, put you at risk, dropped on my own watch, and you bore the brunt of that fallout. And I just wanted—Ineededto do this right, for this next step between us to be awinfor you. For myself. Forus.”

He pauses, must let his finger slip off the mic, and Tripp quickly jumps in. “You think you're the only one rolling snake eyes here? Lee, hello? Look where I am.” Tripp can almosthearLeander’s eyes rolling, and it makes him smile again, despite the circumstances. He sighs, leaving the button pressed so Leander can hear him do so. “I shouldn’t have put you on the spot. I’m sorry. Or, hell, you know what? Ishouldhave, but only if I had the balls to put myself out there, too. And I’m not—I’m not gonna just...letthis be it for us, not without—”

The words die in Tripp’s throat, not because he’s afraid to say them, not because he’s unsure about his place in Lee's heart, but simply because ithurts.This shouldn’t be the way this goes down for them, not after everything they’ve been through and all they’ve overcome. Lee deservesflowersand candles and a carefully curated, emotionally charged mixtape—all that girly, romantic shit Tripp secretly likes, too. He deserves Tripp in a collar and on his knees, and—andfuck,a goddamn ring, a house in the ‘burbs, and their whole lives in front of them.

Nothere.Not like this.

Life’s shitty like that, though, sometimes. Tripp should have known better than to think that fate wouldn’t pull the rugout from under them. It was too easy with Lee, too goodnotto expect they wouldn’t be allowed to keep it.

“Tripp, I love you,” Leander’s voice crackles over the radio, and Tripp bursts into tears, the way his sobs have him sucking in polluted air quickly leading him to cough. “I would have gone with you into that building if I’d known, all the way, please know that. You don’t need to say anything in return, I just—I was going to tell you tonight. It kills me to imagine you—” His voice breaks a little, and he struggles not to say what they’re both thinking—dying.“—to imagine you not knowing.”

This is it.

Fuck what theyshouldhave had, this is what they get. Tripp’s heart is pounding, but he knows this isright,and now that it’s time, he can’t fucking wait to tell Leander how he really feels. Dragging a dirty sleeve across his face, Tripp inhales a deep, steadying breath and reaches to press the button on his mic once again.

Nothing happens, it doesn’t even key up.

“No! No, no, no,” Tripp mutters, ripping the mic from his jacket and sending the clip flying, but no matter how many times he presses down on the button, it stays silent. In fact, the radio doesn’t even beep, the display dark and lifeless. Looking down at it, Tripp realizes with dawning horror that it’s died, possibly from a drained battery or maybe from damage sustained during his fall.

“Oh,hellno,” Tripp growls. “This is—hell,no.”

Shoving a hand down into the pocket of the pants he’s wearing beneath his bunker gear, Tripp fumbles out his phone. Murphy’s Law—it was stuffed in his left pocket, likely positioned directly beneath his hip when he landed. Naturally, the screen is smashed, and when he tries to mess with the power button, thedisplay flickers tauntingly back at him, offering nothing but a bunch of uneven, colored lines.

Useless.

Whipping his head around frantically, Tripp takes stock of his options. There’s really only the one door out, and it’s no secret that it just may lead him out of the frying pan and into the fire, literally. Still, what does he have to lose? If there’s one thing Tripp isnotgoing to do, it’s sit around with his busted leg and his useless arm, waiting to die. Not when—not whenLeedidn’t even get to hear what Tripp has waited goddamnyearsto say.

A beat-up metal chair is sitting by its lonesome nearby, the kind that looks as if it belongs in a school room, and Tripp uses the frame to drag himself to his feet. Once standing, he leans on the seat back like a makeshift walker, clinging to the rail with both good hand and bad so as not to put unnecessary weight on his busted leg. There’s no time to crawl, not with the way smoke is pouring through that hole he punched through the wall, so Tripp limps as quickly as possible in the direction of the door.

It takes longer than he’d like to get there. He’s forced to alternate pausing to breathe through the pain with crouching low just to suck in slightly less sooty air. Sweat pours down Tripp’s face, soaking the clothing layered beneath his gear and turning it sticky and uncomfortable, but that’s the least of his worries. Summoning every ounce of his training, every survival instinct he’s ever had, and all the crashing adrenaline left in his body, Tripp shoves both the chair and himself forward, one foot in front of the other, rinse and repeat until hefinallyreaches the door.

Slumping against it in relief, Tripp recoils immediately from the powerful heat seeping through the metal. That action sends him off-balance and stumbling, flopping heavily to the floor and leaving him sprawled out in fairly dramaticfashion. In the chaos, Tripp accidentally flings his makeshift walker halfway back in the direction he came from, cursing as he flails. He cries out as he lands roughly on his injured leg, tears springing to his eyes as he cradles his thigh and rocks compulsively until the searing pain abates enough for him to keep a coherent thought inside his head.

The door is scorching hot, and that can only mean one thing—there’s fire directly on the other side, and Tripp can’t risk opening it. He could cause a backdraft in the room that would burn him to a crisp, leaving him dead within seconds.

Defeated, Tripp slumps the rest of the way to the ground, letting his head drop back onto the concrete as he stares up into the increasingly dense smog swirling above. The warm glow of the flames from the other room reflects off the smoke and reminds him of one particular Fourth of July—feels like a hundred years ago, now—just him, Beau, and some fireworks. Tripp had saved up a little money from his after-school job and subsisted on dry cereal for an entire week just to get them, but the look on Beau's face made it allsoworth it.

As Tripp slowly lifts his eyelids, the time between each opening grows longer and longer from blink to blink. In between, he can almostseethe memory playing out in front of him. Feels like he’sin it,like he’s really there.

It’s not so terribly hot, anymore.

“Bozo,” he says softly, turning his head to the side and smiling down at his kid brother, who grins back happily with a popsicle smile.

“Come on, Tripp!” Beau takes off running across the open field, racing to light some more exploding rockets. Tripp follows behind, even though—even though there’ssomethinghe’s supposed to be doing, he’s sure of it—but there’s no pain here.No worries, no tightness in his chest, and no rising fear. The grass feels soft beneath his feet, and the air is cool, crisp.

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