Page 70 of Burn With Me

“What! What! Tell me. I need to go to the store with you. I miss everything.” She groans.

“Brian just walked in and is giving me a death stare from the other side entrance.”

“Ew . . . Just walk out and load your Jeep up and dip out of there.”

“I am. Let me call you back later so I can load up faster.”

“Bye, bitch. I’ll be stalking your location to make sure no one takes you.”

“Trust me, no one wants to kidnap me,” I mumble.

Laughing, she says, “You’re probably right.”

“Fuck off. Bye.” I don’t give her a chance to say anything when she stops laughing as I hang up.

I half walk and half jog to my Jeep and load it up as quickly as possible because, like always, I bought more than I meant to.

I pull out of the parking lot and head home. I tighten my hand on the steering wheel to stop the shaking as I check all my mirrors, unable to shake the feeling that I’m being followed.

Twenty-Nine

Luke

I’m sitting next to Sam with my head on the table, exhausted from the day.

“Man, it’s been so busy today. Wasn’t it supposed to be slower in a smaller town?” He stretches his legs out in front of him and covers his eyes with his hat. “Are you going back to Am’s tonight?”

“Yeah, she hasn’t kicked me out yet.” I look at my watch again, not wanting to jinx it but hoping we don’t get another call. “I’m going to stop by the rental to grab more clothes and my whiteboard. These little fires popping up over the last couple of weeks are really making me wonder if they’re linked in some way.”

“You think we have a firebug in town? It might just be a bunch of punk-ass kids.” He moves his hat from his eyes to look at me.

“Maybe, but with the pattern, I’m leaning toward a firebug, and they’re figuring out what works for them.”

“Have you told the chief or the captain your thoughts?”

“Yeah, everything I’ve collected is sent off to the lab. It’s weird having leadership who believe you when you say something.”

“I feel that. I had some ideas for group training, and the captain was all over the ideas I had. It’s refreshing.”

Sam may be a fuck boy, but he’s a natural leader at the firehouse. I wouldn’t be shocked if he gets promoted to captain one day.

“Ain’t that the truth.”

My phone vibrates, and I grab it from my pocket.

Noah:

Just a heads-up, Pam let me know that Amelia ran into Brian at the store. It’s a small town, so that isn’t what worried her. It was the fact that he just stared at her as she was leaving that made her nervous.

“Awww, is Amelia counting down till you’re home? Waiting to see what you’ll make for dinner so she doesn’t have to cook?” Sam says to me in a singsong voice.

I flip him off. “No, it’s Noah telling me that he got a text from Pam saying that Am ran into Brian at the market, and he just stared at her from across the entrance. He wanted to let me know in case Am blew it off and didn’t tell me later.”

“I don’t like him. I didn’t realize how much he was bothering her. She and Pam never mentioned it before, but it can’t be all of a sudden that he’s pushing himself on her.”

I’m not shocked she wouldn’t have told him. Amelia is the type of person who doesn’t want to have to be a bother, even to those who care about her.

“From what she’s told me, he’s been pursuing her since she moved here. He just won’t take no for an answer. Plus, you know better than me that she won’t tell anyone unless he gets physical.”

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