Page 6 of Her Older Fireman

I sniffle and pull my phone out of my pocket and send a quick text to Colette. Then, with Bruce trotting ahead, floppy ears flying, we climb in and set off.

“I like to come here when I need to reset a little bit,” Gabe says as he pulls into a gravel parking lot on a bluff overlooking a lake. There are almost no lights out here, just the glow of the moon and stars reflecting off the deep, still water.

We climb out of the truck and he leads me to a large, flat rock, still warm from the sun. When we sit down, we have a perfect view of the sky and the moonlit water. There’s no noise except the chirp of frogs and the occasional hoot of a nearby owl.

“What’s on your mind?” he asks as he settles down next to me. Not touching, but close enough that I can hear his steady breaths and smell his clean, woodsy fragrance.

“I—I just got home from school and work, and my mom was there, and suddenly I couldn’t be in the house. I wanted to get away for a little bit.” I toy with the ends of my hair. “My best friend has her own stuff going on and I just...needed someone to listen to me and talk.”

He studies me. “What’s going on at home?” he says softly.

I sigh. “My mom’s not a bad person,” I explain. “I’m just—I’m not good enough for her. Never was. No matter how much I try. And I feel like all of that negativity just gets worse as I get older, and now sometimes, it’s like walking into toxic waste. She wasn’t even awake when I got home, and I still had to get out.”

I look up at him and try to smile. “It’s dumb, I know.”

Gabe shakes his head and places a hand atop mine where it rests on the warm rock. “It’s not dumb at all.”

I take a deep breath and push on. “I’m trying so hard to achieve something and get into law school, and Mom is always there to tell me that maybe I’ll fail or maybe I’m not smart enough. Like she would rather I fail and never leave.”

“That sounds really tough,” Gabe says. “Do you believe her?”

I think for a second. “I don’t want to. But it gets to me sometimes. I just want to carve out a life for myself where I can do something I care about and have some balance, you know? And my mom accuses me of not loving her enough to stick around, or thinking I’m too good for her.”

He turns his head to look at me, and my skin practically tingles under his thoughtful gaze.

“You know,” he says, “this kind of reminds me of the academy, when I first started. I was struggling a little bit, and so was an old buddy who started with me. It was kind of nice to be able to bitch and moan about it with someone who knew me and understood, but eventually, all that negativity just made me feel terrible all the time. One of my instructors pulled me aside and told me that he thought I had a good head for the job, but I wasn’t using it. So, I decided to listen to what my instincts were telling me.”

I scooch closer, just an inch or two. “What were your instincts saying?”

He smiles. “That a friendship built around complaining isn’t really a healthy friendship or way of thinking. It was going to wreck my chances of being a firefighter. I tried to get him on board. But when he wouldn’t step up, I decided to focus on me. I ended up doing really well in the academy, and now I’m a lieutenant.”

He reaches up and pushes a strand of hair behind my shoulder. “I knew what I wanted, Maddie O’Malley. Do you know what you want? What you need?”

I can barely breathe as his fingers graze the soft skin of my neck, sending goosebumps rippling down my arms. “I want to go to law school,” I murmur. “I want to leave my mom’s place and be around people who want me to be happy.”

I turn and place a hand on his cheek. “And I think I want you, too.”

Gabe swallows and places his hand gently over mine where it rests on his face. “And what do you need?”

“I—” I start, but my emotions choke off my words as he reaches out with his other hand and brushes his thumb against my lips.

“Is it this?” he says softly.

I nod, and he quickly replaces his thumb with the gentle press of his soft, sensuous lips. When he pulls away, I take a deep breath and gaze at him, wide-eyed with wonder as my vision sharpens in on this sexy, thoughtful, caring man.

His stare is heavy-lidded and sensuous as he twines his fingers through mine. “I know what I want and what I need, Maddie,” he says. “You. All of you. And believe me, we’ll get there.”

We sit for a few more minutes under the sparkling stars, just holding hands and breathing each other in. An hour later, when I give him another soft kiss goodnight before I slip back over to the trailer, I let myself feel a tiny, fragile flicker of hope that I might be on the verge of something life-changing.

---