Page 27 of Off-Limits Daddy
Fox Hollow.
Of course it was Wet ’n’ Wild. Every year, that same damn party. Half the town pretending they didn’t know, the other half throwing coolers in truck beds like it was the Fourth of July itself. Officially, nobody sanctioned it. Unofficially? Everyone looked the other way until someone got drunk enough—or stupid enough—to make a scene.
“Could be nothing,” Boone said as we barreled out of the bay, engine sirens screaming to life.
Could be.
Didn’t feel like nothing.
Didn’tfeelright.
Hot night, lake water, kids daring each other into deeper and deeper water like death wasn’t something that could visit them.
The closer we got, the worse that feeling sat in my chest.Not fear. Dread.
But you didn’t get to panic when you wore this uniform.
Wasn’t the first time I’d had to remind myself of that.
Back when Ari was just a kid—thirteen, maybe fourteen—he and a couple of his friends had gone exploring near Murphy’s Creek. Nothing unusual. Summers in Briar Creek stretched long and hot, and boys got restless.
But that day, he’d slipped under a fallen branch and gotten trapped between two submerged limbs left behind after a storm. By the time we got there, he was wet, shivering, scraped raw along his arms—but alive.
And I’d kept my voice steady the whole time. Calm. Clear. Even though inside, it felt like someone was cracking my ribs open with a crowbar.
Didn’t get to panic then. Couldn’t now.
The dirt road leading to the lake was already a mess—ruts dug deep from too many tires spinning out in wet grass, headlights cutting wild angles across the trees.
We parked just shy of the first trucks lining the shoulder. Boone jumped out first, grabbing gear. Trent and I followed, boots crunching over gravel, heavy breaths in my ears.
The smell hit next: bonfire smoke, wet leaves, sweat, and beer.
Crowds.
Dozens of them, scattered like someone had kicked over an anthill, all noise and movement—screaming tires, the glow of phone screens cutting through dark like blue ghosts, the restless slap of lake water against the dock not far off.
“Where’s the scene?” Boone barked, already moving forward with the practiced urgency of someone who’d done this dance too many summers in a row.
A girl near the edge of the mess pointed, eyes wide, mascara streaking down her cheeks. “By the dock—someone’s hurt. He—he?—”
We didn’t need to hear the rest. I was already moving, the weight of my boots forgotten, all that firefighter training keeping my limbs moving while something colder—tighter—wound around my ribs.
We broke through the last of the crowd, floodlights from someone’s truck spilling across the cracked old dock and the worn patch of grass beside it.
That’s when I saw him.
Flat on his back. Shirt gone, joggers soaked, curls dripping against his skin.
Alive.
Coughing, propped on one elbow now, fighting off the EMS guy’s attempts to keep him still.
Ari.
Something in my chest unlocked, just slightly, just enough to breathe again, and I hated the way relief hit sharp and hot and angry all at once.
Didn’t know what I wanted to do more—yell at him or haul him into my arms just to feel him breathing, to know for sure he was here, to make sure none of this was just some goddamn trick of the light.
