Page 4 of Up In Flames
I still had a lot of feelings all tangled up inside me about the firefighter, and normally I’d talk to Byron about shit like that, but he wasn’t around anymore. And I didn’t want to talk to my therapist about it. Which was stupid because that’s literally what therapists were for, but if I couldn’t talk to Byron about it, I didn’t want to talk to anyone about it.
“I’m getting better,” I told Simon. I tried not to tell people I was fine because it always felt like a lie.
“That’s good, because next week we’re stepping up your workload.” Simon turned his attention away from me after that.
Around me, drinks flowed. Realizing that this was the first time I’d been out since the accident was a punch to the gut. My lemon lime soda threatened to come right back up, but I held it down through sheer willpower. Byron would come back and kick my ass if I threw up on Simon Preston’s lap. Simon was the kind of lawyer you learned about in law school.
Chairs shuffled around and suddenly Hal was sitting next to me. He leaned close and spoke to me in a hushed voice. “We don’t always meet up in a huge group like this. Mostly we have our own little cliques, but when Simon lands a big win, he likes to treat the whole office.”
“That’s because nothing happens in a vacuum. My wins are everyone’s wins. I couldn’t do half of what I did without a team of amazing people behind me.”
Hal grinned at me. “And he has the hearing of a bat.”
The conversation turned to other things, mostly law-related. Stories from the courtroom were passed around, but I had nothing to add to that, not yet anyway. The firm I worked with dealt with contracts, not criminals, but that didn’t mean we didn’t have trials and hearings. Simon Preston was one of the toplawyers in his field. He was halfway through a story about what happens when clients sign things he tells them not to sign when the front doors of the pub opened, and a group of men flooded in. They all wore the same clothes. Jeans or cargo pants with dark blue shirts. A logo over the left pectoral that I couldn’t quite make out at a distance.
And then I knew. Firefighters. And among them a familiar face. I couldn’t see the shade of his eyes from across the room, but I knew they looked like the Mediterranean on a sunny day. I knew they held compassion and strength.
A hand on my shoulder snapped me out of my stupor. I’d been openly gawking at Will, watching him grab a table with his friends.
“Are you okay, Oren?” Hal asked.
“I—excuse me for just a moment.” I got to my feet without knowing what I was doing or what I was going to say, but I’d dreamed about Will since the accident. There were so many details that I’d lost to trauma and alcohol, but I remembered everything about Will. The color of his eyes. The cadence of his voice. The feel of his arms around me. I didn’t understand why I couldn’t get him out of my head, but I needed to.
I wove through the crowd and suddenly I was at his table. He was sitting in a booth, sandwiched between a wall and another firefighter.
The table went silent and the one sitting next to Will looked up at me, greeting me with a friendly smile. But all I saw was Will.
“Can we help you?”
“You were there.” I couldn’t look away from Will if I tried. “You pulled me out of the car.”
My chest started to cave in on me. All at once I was aware of what an ass I was going to make of myself.
Then, as if by magic, Will was on his feet and the other firefighter moved to let him out of the booth. Will took my hand and shook it, and only then did I realize that I’d been holding it out to him.
His touch woke me up, and I blinked at him. I took a breath that felt like the first one I’d taken since they loaded me up into the ambulance.
“Do you remember me?” I didn’t know what I’d do if he said no. The idea of him not remembering me when he’d been on my mind every day for seven months was unfathomable to me.
“You look a lot better than the last time I saw you, Oren.” Will’s smile was so dazzling it made the universe shift beneath my feet.
CHAPTER 2
Will
Inever forgot a face, and sometimes it made the inside of my head a messy place to be, but Oren’s face was one I was thankful to remember.
Sometimes I thought under pressure was the only way I functioned, because telling Oren that he looked better than the last time I saw him made me die inside. However true it was, it was an unnecessary thing to say.
The last time I saw him, he was loaded. Stinking like vomit, booze, and terror, and the heavy coppery scent of fresh blood. I shoved that visual out of my head and tried not to ogle him.
Oren Reid topped out at five nine or so. His hair had clearly been tidier that morning. The dark blonde strands now looked like he’d been raking his fingers through them all day. He wore a suit and a tie so green it was almost black. A table of similarly dressed people across the bar had to have been where he’d come from.
Oren pulled his hand away. “I’ve thought about you—about tracking you down, to say thank you.” He glanced back at the table.
“Friends of yours?”
Oren shook his head. “Colleagues.”
