Page 15 of Bronx

Present

Helix had brought an ice chest full of Bulldozer's favorite beer to the gravesite. After a lot of words, some producing tears and some laughter, everyone took a beer.

Layla and I got caught in each other's gazes several times during the service. Sometimes, her eyes would be glassy with tears and other times, sparkling with fond memories. I'd stayed on the opposite side of the circle, deciding it was easiest and best.

Helix stepped forward. "Hey, Bull, my bro, brought your favorite brewskies out for everyone to drink over your grave. I still remember when you and I were talking about death and you told me 'I hope everyone fucking parties on my grave. That's the only way to go out of this world, with a party.' You were always the life of the party, man. Base camp, the locker room, the mountainside, nothing has been the same without you." Helix lifted his beer, and we all took a drink.

Layla stepped forward next. Just seeing her sent a rush of emotion through me. I hated that we couldn't save Bulldozer, that that fateful day had ripped apart her life and there was nothing I could do. She looked far less frail and lost than the day of the funeral, but it seemed standing out at his gravesite had taken its toll on her. Her usual vibrancy was dimmed by the stark reality once again sitting right in front of her, his name carved in the big stone with the nickname "Bulldozer" carved right below Adam Rafferty.

"Your friends called you Bulldozer." Her voice, so familiar still, had a profound effect on me. My heart was slipping into third gear just hearing her. Fuck, I'd missed her. "But to me, you were Bear. And I was your Tiger. You were that guy who made me laugh at the most inopportune times, like Grandma Suzie's funeral." Everyone chuckled. "You were the guy who could clear out the refrigerator just eight hours after I'd filled it." More chuckles. She smiled briefly, then it faded. "Most of all, you were that guy who was always meant to be a part of my life. You were the guy who always made me feel safe, secure, loved when I was on unsteady feet or ground. You were the guy who I couldn't wait to see after you'd been on a mountain for days or at training camp for a week. I'm still waiting to see you walk through my door. Wish you would walk through my door again, Bear." Her voice trailed off, and she took a long swig of beer. Once we'd cleared the lumps in our throats, the rest of us followed.

We lingered a few minutes longer, in silence mostly, everyone playing through their own memories with Bulldozer.

Jane cleared her throat politely. "Everyone, there's food and drinks back at base camp. Please join us if you can."

12

Afive mile run and hot shower had done me a world of good. The day was over, the memorial, seeing Layla again for the first time in a year. Now, Helix could put to rest his asshole attitude. Layla would be on her way to New York soon, and I could spend the next six months clearing my head of her. I'd managed to get through the day without doing more than nodding hello to her across a field of Bulldozer's friends and family. I'd stood by my decision to avoid the after memorial food and drinks. I knew it was the right choice. No sense in rekindling so many of the feelings I'd worked hard to douse. Not that they'd ever been fully extinguished. Since Bulldozer's death, I'd managed to push them aside to a more appropriate place, somewhere deep in my heart, a place only I had access to.

The small house I rented five miles from base camp was hot and stuffy from the day's heat. I turned on some music, grabbed a cold soda and headed out to the front stoop. It was a quiet street with only three other houses set far enough apart that I rarely saw my neighbors, a young couple with a toddler on one side and a retired couple on the other.

The sun was low enough in the sky to throw long shadows from the surrounding trees. My west facing yard was also getting the brunt of that setting sun. I leaned forward to pop open the cola and heard car tires crunching the grit on the road. I shaded my eyes to see who might have turned the corner. It was a small blue Toyota, a car I didn't recognize. It stopped in front of my house, and the driver's door opened.

I stared at her, wondering if she was just a mirage. Like someone dying of thirst in the desert, maybe I'd thought about her so much, I'd conjured her image. She had changed into some shorts, a blue tank top and sandals. She pushed the sunglasses onto her head as she strolled up my front walkway on long legs.

"One person," Layla said and then stopped in front of me wearing a sweetly sexy scowl. "The one and only person I really needed to talk to today, and he couldn't even be bothered to say hello."

I pointed to myself.

"Yes you, darn you. Why didn't you come back to base camp?" She spun around and sat next to me on the step. Our arms brushed against each other. "I was hoping to see you."

"Can I get you a cola?" I asked.

"You're avoiding the subject."

"Guess I'm good at avoiding lots of things." It took every ounce of my courage to look at her. Every ounce of emotion I'd ever felt in her presence returned like a rushing river. She was sitting close, like the day on the island, like those fifteen incredible minutes where I was sure I'd just met the girl of my dreams only to find out she was married to a fellow smokejumper. "I'm sorry I didn't show up. I don't really have an excuse." The last thing I wanted to do was explain why. She never knew my feelings for her ran far deeper than a light friendship, and she wouldn't understand why Helix had warned me off of attending the memorial. Her previous words were just hitting, the one person she needed to talk to. "I'm an ass. You've been so much help to my family, such a great friend when I really needed someone who understood what I was going through, and I—as mentioned—am an ass."

"Actually, I'm the ass." Layla sighed as she leaned down to tighten the strap on her sandal. Her legs were smooth and tanned. She finished with the shoe and leaned back to rest her elbows on the step behind her. The new position lifted her breasts and pushed them against the tank top. "I know why you didn't show up, and it's my fault. All of it, the fight, the, what I can only imagine, friction from Helix, the guy who thinks he was anointed my guardian and protector after Adam's death."

I nodded absently. "He is taking his job seriously, that's for sure."

A delicate sound, one of aggravation blew from her lips. "I knew it. I'm sorry. It is blazing hot on these steps. Can we take a walk?"

"Definitely." We stood from the steps and strolled slowly out to the sidewalk. "You shouldn't be apologizing. None of it was your fault." I was about to jump into my confession about my feelings for her. I figured she'd be across the country soon, and we probably wouldn't see each other again. What could it hurt? "The truth is, Layla—"

She took hold of my hand to stop our walk. "No, it's my fault. The fight, it was my fault. As you probably noticed, Adam was the jealous type." She laughed dryly. "Pretty hypocritical considering the way he acted with other women, but when it came to me—" She shook her head to stop that trail of thought. "It was stupid. We were both angry at each other and a little drunk one night, just before the ski trip. We'd been to a friend's barbecue, and Adam—" she took a deep steadying breath. "Shouldn't be complaining about him on this day in particular, but I rarely ever talked about my frustrations with anyone. He was even more flirtatious than usual at that barbecue. He was in the pool with other women, even women who were married, and he—well—you know how he was. So, on the way home, I wasn't talking to him. I was really freezing him out. He had the nerve to ask me why I was so mad. I asked him how he would feel if I flirted wildly, freely with one of his fellow firefighters. He laughed and asked facetiously 'do you have anyone in mind?'" Layla looked down at the sidewalk, then lifted her brown gaze. "I told him, yes, Jack Devlin." She smiled and shrugged as she turned to keep walking. It took me a second to move my feet. Her words had stunned me. "I suppose I shouldn't have come up with your name quite so quickly." She laughed. "Guess he decided I'd been thinking about it a lot. Which maybe I had been."

This time it was me who stopped first.

She turned to me. "This probably sounds crazy, but after that, well, Adam got sort of obsessed about it. That's why he was being such a jerk on that ski trip."

I glanced around for no other reason except I needed to gather my thoughts, my wits. "I thought Bulldozer sensed my feelings about you. I figured he was mad at me because he knew—" I trailed off. It was turning into a conversation with a lot of unsaid words, a lot of sudden dead ends. I decided to ignore the dead end and just barrel through. "I just assumed the fight began because Bulldozer knew that I had fallen in love with you."

My words seemed to wash over her like a mild rain shower, unexpected but not altogether shocking.

"Jack," she started, but didn't seem to know what else to say.

"Sorry to make this awkward," I said.

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