Page 48 of Burn

I shove him away from me. “I told you to shut the fuck up.”

He doesn’t let up though and well into our equipment check in the morning, he’s asking questions. “She knows you’re a firefighter, right?”

I nod.

“Maybe she’ll set herself on fire and call you.”

“Maybe.”

I’d put the fire out for sure and then start one between us.

Wanting to change the subject from me to him, I ask, “What happened with you and her friend?”

“Fucked on her floor.”

I’m not surprised by it. Owen does shit like that all the time.

His arm wraps around my shoulder like a proud father. “I’m glad you got laid. Your forearms needed the break.” He demonstrates making a jacking-off motion I don’t appreciate.

“Fuck off.” I roll my eyes shrugging his embrace away.

Unfortunately, there’s truth to his statement and it puts the images of Mila into my mind again. Not like they were far to begin with.

“Hey,” he defends, holding up his palms. “I’m just jealous you fucked her before I could. Maybe I’ll be next.”

Over my dead body.

IT’S AROUND TEN in the morning when we’re in the middle of doing equipment checks when a call comes in for a bird in a tree. Not just any bird. Some rare exotic bird the owner thinks is her baby.

“Ma’am, does the bird have a name?” I finally have to ask the hysterical woman while Owen clings to one tree, me on the one beside it because the fucking bird has clipped wings and keeps jumping from one tree to the other.

I don’t like birds. I didn’t like them before this job, but now it’s my general assessment I really don’t care for them.

“Can we just shoot it?” I mumble to Owen who thinks this is the funniest shit he’s ever seen.

“Hey, Cap,” Owen calls down, hanging from a branch by one gloved hand and kicking his legs to reach the branch below him. I hope he falls. Mostly because then we could at least do something besides rescue a damn bird. “Caleb wants to shoot it!”

The woman screaming for her bird, who I now know is called Birdie, screams at me. “Don’t you dare shoot my bird! I’ll sue the department if you kill Birdie.”

By the way, how original on the name. You’d think for a bird she claims cost five thousand dollars you’d at least have the decency to give the fucker a badass name.

“No one is going to shoot your bird, ma’am.” Cap glares up at Owen. “Knock it off and get the bird out of the tree!”

Our Captain, Kirk Gibson, or Captain Kirk—I know, not very original—as we call him when we’re trying to piss him off, tolerates our bullshit for a long time before he yells at us. I think the only reason he’s yelling now is because we’ve been on this call for an hour and it should have taken five minutes.

“Easier said than done.” I laugh, only out of frustration. The bird’s now on the tree I’m in about a foot out of my reach. I can see it between the branches, shitting all over the place and on me. I have so much bird shit on my turnout coat it looks like my shoulders are pure white.

Sadly, it hasn’t shit on Owen once.

“C’mere, you little fucker,” I growl, letting go of the branch to reach for him, only I miss and fall out of the tree, landing on my ass on the ground.

It hurts like you wouldn’t believe.

“Man down!” Owen screams, laughing.

“I hope the fuckin’ thing eats you!” I know, not the best threat and pretty fucking weak, but it’s the only thing I can think to say. I did just fall ten feet on my ass. And I think I broke it.

I flop back and lay in the wet grass staring up at the clouded sky. “Goddamn it,” I grunt, feeling like I’ve maybe in fact broken something.

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