Page 56 of Que Será, Syrah

“I…don’t know,” she replies, frowning now, shifting restlessly on my leg. “I don’t…think so?”

“Let’s try it,” I suggest. “Put your hands behind your head.”

Her eyes gleam with mischief. “This sounds like more dirty cop talk, to me,” she says. But she does as I ask, clasping her hands together, spreading her elbows wide—shoulders back, breasts thrust forward.

I clasp my hands on her hips, supporting her as she begins to move again. Then I dip my head and suck a nipple into my mouth and in less than a minute she’s crying out, curling inward, hands clutching my head as she shudders in my arms.

Then I’m rising from my seat once again, carrying her with me. I clear the island with a swipe of my hand, shoving everything to the side. I tip her onto the counter, set a new speed record for gloving up, and then I’m sinking deep inside her for the second time tonight.

Her arms are stretched above her head, my hands encircling her wrists. Her legs are clenched around me, heels digging into my butt.

I stare hard at her neck as I pour everything into her. And in my mind, I’m leaving hella marks.

* * *

“So, the fires,” Legs asks, a few minutes later, while we’re once again cuddled together on the stool, muscles lax, bodies at peace, just reveling in the afterglow. “How bad were they?”

“I told you,” I say as a hint of tension begins to creep back in. “It varied. A lot.”

“I know. That’s what I’m asking. How bad was it for you?”

“Oh, you know…” I take a deep breath and tighten my hold on her. I don’t want to talk about this. Not just now, I mean I never want to talk about it. I figure that it was enough that I lived through it, enough that I still have nightmares about it. But she asked for honesty, and I owe her that much. “It was bad. That first night… The fucking wind was insane. I heard later it was something like sixty miles an hour, which, Jesus fucking Christ, if that’s the equivalent of a category one hurricane? I can’t even imagine what four or five must be like. I swear, it felt like the whole world was on fire. Our entire neighborhood got destroyed. Not that we knew that, at the time, because you couldn’t see shit through all the smoke. The noise was horrific—sirens, explosions, screams, and the constant roar. You know how they say if you’re buried in an avalanche, you can’t tell which way is up? It was kind of like that, you couldn’t tell where anything was. If it weren’t for the firefighters and the police who were running from door to door evacuating people. And then herding us in the right direction… And then there was the drive out—walls of flame on both sides of the road, everyone praying and whimpering, scared out of our minds. I just…”

She’s hugging me tight, fingers digging into my hair, and I’m clutching her back. “And then the next year…the same damn thing again. Only, that time, the smoke was blowing down from Paradise—from the Camp Fire—too. The air was thick with ash. It was weeks before you could go outside without a mask, or before anyone could breathe without coughing. And then?—”

“Omigod,” she gulps as she shudders against me. “No. Stop it. There can’t have been more?”

“Yep. There sure was. It didn’t get as much press, what with the pandemic and all, but in 2020 we got the Glass Fire. At least no one died in that one.”

The shaking of her shoulders finally registers. Fuck me, for an insensitive asshole. She’s crying. So, I hug her even tighter, murmuring, “Shh, shh. It’s okay. It’s like with you said about your party; at least something good came of it, right? It helped me decide what I wanted to do with my life. So, that’s good, right?”

She pulls back to look at me. “Really? So, you didn’t always want to be a deputy?”

I shoot her a disbelieving look. “What, are you kidding? You thought the seventeen-year-old who ‘put your life in the toilet’ and was ready to fuck you without even telling you his name was a law-abiding kind of guy?”

“Well, when you put it that way…” She smiles, shakily. “But honestly? Yeah. He didn’t seem so bad; he was kinda sweet.”

“Sweet?” I ask in mock outrage. “Who the hell’re you talking about?” I mean…it’s mostly mock, and I’m pleased when she giggles in response. “Not me?”

“God save me from men’s fragile egos,” she murmurs as she rolls her eyes. “And also hot, okay? Hot and sweet. And, as I recall, he was also very concerned about my little wine theft. So, what does that tell you?”

I open my mouth to point out that a case of wine is not a ‘little’ theft. But then I stop and reconsider. “Okay,” I tell her. “You may have a point. But, to answer your question, no. Even after the fires, deputy was not a no-brainer.” I snuggle her against me once more. “I knew I wanted to give back to the community that had saved my life, to maybe someday be a hero to someone else. But becoming a firefighter was flat out never going to happen. I’d’ve been suicidal within a week. There was no fucking way I could do that on the reg.” Just thinking about it makes me shudder. And I have to pause, remind myself to breathe, and shove the memories to the back of my mind once again before I can continue. “Like you, I wasn’t the best student, so I figured a career as an EMT was out. I just didn’t have the science or math background, you know? And…well, Napa College had a Criminal Justice certificate program, and I liked how that sounded. You know—Justice? It was…”

“Quixotic?” she suggests, teasingly. But she’s not wrong.

“Kind of.”

“And how’s that working out?”

I huff out a laugh. “Well…it’s touch and go. I don’t like everything I have to do, but up until this Summer, I’d’ve said it was going pretty good.”

“Oh?”

“No offense, but your family kind of sucks.”

“Hey. Not all of them,” she replies immediately. “Some of us are just trying to make great wine and make our grandmother proud.”

I sigh and shake my head, reminded again of the gap between us—and all the reasons why we’re just so totally fucked. “Maybe,” I say. “But I thought I was signing up to protect the helpless and serve the community. And lately, I feel more like a hall monitor at a middle school. A snooty, private middle-school full of assholes.”

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