Page 59 of Off the Clock

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Caleb

“You with us, Caleb?” Sean asked jokingly as we loaded up for a call about a fire at a cherry farm outside of town.

“Yeah, man, your head has been in the clouds all week,” Suzy added as I slid in beside her on the rig. I was the last one ready, and I couldn’t even blame Tony for my distraction because he had the day off.

“Sorry,” I mumbled as I grabbed my ear defenders, for once welcoming the inability to talk over the sirens.

I missed Tony even when we were on the same shift or saw each other when I picked up Scotty from practice. It had only been a few days, but the gaping hole in my chest from being at odds with him made it feel like decades. Worse, we hadn’t broken up, hadn’t said things we couldn’t take back, hadn’t really fought. Consequently, I didn’t have anger to fall back on. We’d mutually agreed on wishing we could have a future, yet the path forward seemed rocky and unchartered at best. Rather than being mad, I was sad and frustrated, and as a result, every damn thing seemed harder.

Tasks I’d usually roar through, like gear prep, took twice as long. My concentration was also shot, but I needed to get myself together and fast because the farm fire turned out to be a multiple-structure blaze. Two barns and several adjacent outbuildings were smoking upon our arrival, with visible flames in several places.

The grass on either side of the gravel road into the farm was brown and crispy, a summer’s worth of dry heat and little rain, rendering all but the most hardy of plants as potential tinder for the fire. The forest fire potential added urgency to our work. Saving the farm buildings and the orchard would take all of us, and I forcibly pushed thoughts of Tony from my brain.

Accordingly, working with my crew to fight the blaze became my sole focus. Sean gave an order. I followed it. Simple as that. I saw a job. I did it. I was on autopilot to the extent I could audition as a prototype for a robotic firefighter, doing everything by the book.

Except fires didn’t often go by the book. And this one was a doozy that didn’t respond to our efforts in a predictable fashion. We’d get one part of the fire out only for it to spring up worse somewhere else and double back to the previous area. Sean ordered us inside the larger of the two barns. It was used for packing fruit and storing equipment rather than livestock. I followed the orders to work on containment, with no stray thoughts and no focus other than on the task at hand.

And then disaster came out of seemingly nowhere. We’d been fighting the wind the whole call, and the fire shifted, consuming the area where I was working in a matter of seconds. Walls, ceilings, the entire structure went up in a wall of flames. Debris fell like raindrops. I dodged one chunk of wall only to turn into another. Brushing myself off, I heard a terrible creak.

One of the support beams strained and wobbled.

“Fall back,” Sean barked in my ear over the headset. If the beam went, we’d be trapped or worse.

Creak.

I followed the others as we threaded our way out, moving as fast as we dared.

The energy around us seemed to shift, time slowing down even as we needed to hurry the fuck up, every moment seeming more urgent than the last.

Creak.

More debris rained. My neck prickled under all my gear, some inner sense making me turn right as a giant piece of roof came at me. I rolled, reflexes honed from years of training, no trace of my trademark clumsiness. I straightened only to dodge a flaming board.

I crawled forward, staying low, vision locked on Suzy ahead of me. It wasn’t even mid-afternoon, yet there were no signs of daylight. Smoke everywhere. I resisted the urge to check my air supply, an old panic starting to gather. The failure of any of my gear would be catastrophic, but the second I gave into fear, I might be dead anyway. No time to lose, only to?—

Trust.

Trust myself, my training, and my instincts. Trust the team. Trust the gear. Trust the person who’d been checking our gear all damn summer.Tony.Trust Tony.

Doubt was deadly.

Trust was hard, but it was my only option. Trust that we’d find a way out, that I’d see light and fresh air any moment. Trust that I’d see Tony again.

Tony.

There it was. The distraction I’d fought against all damn day. I blinked to clear my mind, and when I opened my eyes, a beam was headed right for me.

A soundless scream rose in my chest as time slowed further.

“Caleb.” Suzy yanked me backward, both of us tumbling and rolling, beam hitting the spot where I’d been a tenth of a second earlier.

And then, daylight. Hazy, but daylight nonetheless as we crawled out of the debris that had once been a mighty barn. And right back into the chaos of trying to contain the blaze, no time to contemplate life or death or the whisper-thin line between the two.

“You okay?” Sean asked me hours later in the locker room as I emerged from a shower. The shift felt like it had lasted a year, yet also like it had been only minutes ago that we’d clocked in. “That was a close call. You need to talk?”

Sean meant well, and undoubtedly, he would have been willing to chat with me if I’d answered honestly. But my thoughts flashed to Tony and our conversation about how hard it was to be honest in this line of work. Yet it was so blessedly easy to be honest with Tony. He was the one person in the world where I didn’t have to worry about what I said because he understood. He knew when to sit quietly, when to ask questions, and when to hold them. When to holdme.

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