Page 34 of Her Braun
"Taylor-"
"Look. You're a firefighter. You go walking into burning buildings without breaking a sweat, right?"
Gibson shook his head even though Taylor couldn't see it. "Hey, don't make me out to be some kind of superhero. I sweat. I sweat a lot."
"Yeah, well you look cool doing it, sweat or not." He sighed and when he spoke again, Gibson heard all of the joking drop out of his friend's voice. "It's a gut feeling, okay? I feel like I need you there. So if I have to pay someone off at CCFD, I'll do it. Just tell me that you're willing to come."
Gibson didn't know what to do or say at the moment.
Then he went with his own gut feeling.
"Yeah."
"Yeah?" Taylor laughed out loud. "Wait... Yeah, you're coming? Or Yeah, you'renotcoming?"
"I'm willing to come, I just have to find someone to take my shift this weekend because there's no way I'm going to go to the wedding and back on shift less than twenty-four hours later."
"Okay."
He heard Taylor's voice relax.
"That's great, man. Thank you. Thanks."
Gibson had to admit that once he'd agreed to go, he felt better.
Happier.
Yeah, maybe he had a feeling he had to be there, too.
SIX
When Kay droveinto her driveway, she was surprised to see that everything looked basically like she left it, except for Gibson's truck in the driveway. Seeing his name painted in big building block letters on the side of his truck made her heart clench.
"Kay?"
She got out of her car and looked over the hood at the voice she'd heard.
She saw Gibson first. He was too tall and too big for her to miss him standing there, even though he was a good twenty-five feet away.
Kay lifted up her hand to wave at him and Mister Langston standing on his porch.
She locked her car and headed along the sidewalk toward the gate at the front of his property. "I know I need to thank you," she began, but her neighbor dragged the back of his hand across his eyes.
"I'm so sorry, Kay." Mister Langston's cheeks had tears streaming down. "I should have seen... whoever-"
"You have nothing to apologize for." Kay wrapped her arms around the older man and gave him a hug that was meant to be a reassuring gesture, but she wasn't sure that he'd feel it, he was so tense. "I'm so grateful that you called the police."
He was already pulling away from her. "Can I come over and help clean up?"
"I got it." Gibson set his hand on Mister Langston's shoulder gently. "Don't worry. It's all taken care of."
Kay saw the shadow that seemed to cross over his face. "It's all okay," she tried to reassure him. "I'm sure they're going to catch whoever did it. The detective had some ideas when I talked to him. He praised you, too."
She could tell that Mister Langston wasn't buying it even though it was the truth.
"Well," he sighed, "now that you're home and young Braun here has boarded things up, I'm heading inside to watch some TV."
"Thanks again," she leaned in and brushed a kiss on her neighbor's cheek. She felt him tense when she did it, but before she could apologize for it, his lips curved into the hint of a smile, "I mean it."
