Page 83 of Things You Save in a Fire
The knock reverberated through my rib cage.
We startled out of the moment and looked around.
“Are you guys in the coat closet?” came an annoyed voice.
The rookie gave a sharp sigh. “Go away, Shannon,” he called.
“Everybody thinks you’re having sex in there.”
“Nobody is having any sex. Scram.”
“There’s a betting pool, actually,” she went on. “I put fifty bucks on you.”
“I mean it, Shannon,” Owen said again, louder this time.
“Fine,” she said, “but don’t let us all down.” Then she leaned very close and fake-whispered, “Alex has a big box of condoms, if you need them.”
The rookie and I were both out of breath. When she was gone, he said, “She’s a world-class pain in the ass.”
I felt like a person waking from a deep sleep. I blinked and looked around. Reality came back into focus. The moment was definitely lost. I was in a coat closet. With the rookie. Not good.
I pushed against Owen’s chest ever so slightly, and he got the hint and stepped back.
He straightened his clothes, and I straightened mine.
“That was surprising,” I said.
“I agree,” the rookie said.
“Probably a very bad idea.”
“Not on my end. Just saying.”
“I’ll likely get fired now.”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“Yeah, well,” I said. I knew how life worked. I knew how things were. This wouldn’t end well for me.
Then the rookie did something that surprised me. He grabbed my hand and squeezed it, leaning in to meet my eyes in the shadows. “I will never tell anybody about this. Please know that you can trust me, okay?”
I nodded.
“Okay,” he said then. “Let’s get you out of here.”
“How?” I said.
He shrugged, like it was easy. “I’ll carry you out of here over my shoulder, and that mane of hair will hang down over your face, and even if the captain sees us, he’ll never know it’s you.”
Eighteen
THAT NIGHT, WINDOWSopen, I lay in bed watching the pom-pom curtains flutter in the breeze, with my heart gusting around inside my body like a kite.
The rookie. I’d kissed the rookie. Very well. In a coat closet.
I might have expected some mixed feelings on kissing, given how long and how hard I’d avoided it.
But I had none.
