Page 2 of Revived
“Lieu, we’re ready for you.” Steel calls, which makes Blake’s eyes widen.
“Woah, hey. It’s okay, Blake. Those are my friends. Remember, I told you about them? They’ve got things ready here so I can come down and get you, okay?”
He eyes me skeptically but nods.
“I’m going to stand up and put my harness on, and then I’ll be right down to get you. It’s okay, little guy.”
I get my gear on and secure, and after that the rescue takes about five minutes. Once I get down to where Blake is, he practically leaps into my arms. The hardest part of the entire ordeal was my crew having to haul my ass back up. Well, hardest for them. That was the easiest part for me. I love kids. So having a toddler snuggling into my arms while I’m pulled up to safety was no burden for me.
Once we’re back on solid ground, Blake remains wrapped around me like a spider monkey. I shimmy out of my harness with one hand while my other stays wrapped around his back. Medics try to take him from me and check him out, but he just screams and holds on tighter. He’s scared, and without his mom I’m concerned he’ll never let me go. It doesn’t take much for me to convince Wyatt and Aria, our medics on shift, to let me carry him to the bus and have Mom meet us there. While walking through the woods, I notice that the sky is getting lighter and the sun is peeking through the trees as it rises. I’m dead on my feet, but right now my only objective is to get this sweet boy back to his mommy and get back to the firehouse so I can finish my shift.
***
After the reuniting of Blake with his mom and sister, we head back to the firehouse to clean all the equipment. Once everything is back in its proper place, our shift is over, and I’m dead on my feet. I walk out of the firehouse and mentally set the job aside for the next three days as I make my way to my deep plum 1976 Bronco. She’s a classic, and I’m obsessed with her. Pulling my phone out of my pocket, I wait until it connects to my Apple CarPlay (the only thing that isn’t original on this beauty) before pressing the one name on my aftermarket touch screen that calms me more than any other.
“Hey, Monster.” She answers cheerfully; thethump, thump, thumpof her feet running on the pavement echoes down the line and calms the storm brewing inside of me from a tough shift. I can picture her in her favorite navy running shorts, a cropped crewneck, and her hair thrown up in a messy bun while she’s on her morning run.
“Hey, Boo.” My voice sounds exasperated and exhausted even to my own ears.
“What’s wrong?” She asks, her voice a little on edge. The rhythmic sound of her running slows.
“Nothing, just a tough shift. I had a call with a kid tonight, and earlier yesterday I had a fire where we lost one.” I clear my throat to hopefully push the lump forming back down.
“Did you sleep at all last night?”
“Yeah, I got a few hours, but they weren’t anything to write home about.”
“Meet in fifteen? I’m almost done with my run now, and I don’t have to be at the gym until two today.” I want to tell her not to worry about it, but we both know that she won’t listen anyway.
“Okay. I’ll see you in a little bit.” A beeping sound signals that someone else is trying to call through.
“Hey, Elle. Roe’s ringing through. Let me grab it.”
“Okay. I’ll see you in a few.” She hangs up before I can say anything else, leaving me to face the music.
Rowan is my oldest brother and basically my dad. My parents were killed when I was just fifteen, which left me and my twin brother to be raised by our four older brothers. We’re practically a mixture of Mowgli and Tarzan from being raised by a bunch of late teens and early twenty something guys. They did their best, and we aren’t majorly fucked up, but we would be one hundred percent different if we still had our parents.
I’ve put some distance between my older brothers and myself over the past three years. I love them, and I’m so thankful for all the sacrifices they’ve made for me. At the same time, the name Byrne means something if you live on the East Coast. Hell, it means something worldwide if you run in a certain set of circles. As far as people here know, the fact that my last name is Byrne and I fight fires is a funny coincidence. They would never connect me to the New Jersey Byrnes unless I pointed it out to them. Which I will not be doing.
I still take their calls sometimes, and we still have one of the most chaotic group chats in history, but I don’t allow them to come here, and I only go there on Easter and Christmas. Three of my four older brothers run the Byrne Organized Crime Group, or the BOCG. Which is the polite way of saying they run the Irish mob. My brother, Declan, who is no longer working the ‘family business,’ is a medic in Corey Heights. It’s a small town right outside of Jersey City where wegrew up. He and his husband live there and love it. I was supposed to work out there as well and did for a little bit, but at the end of the day it was too far from Flynn and too close to the others.
I don’t blame my older brothers for what happened all those years ago, but I struggle knowing that if we were all just a normal ass family, it would have never happened. So that’s who I’ve become in Temple Valley. I’m just Sullivan Byrne, everyone’s favorite firefighter and Lieutenant. The most exciting thing about me now is that I’m an identical twin, and all of my best friends are professional athletes, but none play the same sport. Oh, and then there’s that thing where I’m still irrevocably and shamelessly in love with my best friend. That’s an entire thing, though. She’s still not ready after what we went through three years ago. So I’ll remain in the friend zone until I’ve convinced her that I’m so far removed from the bullshit that it’ll never touch us again.
I take a deep breath before hitting the accept button, right before the call rings out.
“Hey.” I try to keep my voice as neutral as possible.
I only take his calls maybe once a week. I know that seems like a lot to normal people, but Rowan has control issues. His need to know where all his eggs and chickens are at all times is extreme, to put it lightly. He calls two to three times a day, and if I went longer without answering him, I’m convinced he’d relocate his entire operation here just to keep an eye on me.
“Hey? I called you three times yesterday with no response, and all I get is a hey? Sullivan Rory, I thought you might have been dead.” His deep baritone voice rumbles down the line.
He’s not always this demanding towards me, but I worried him, and he’s not the head of the mob because he can’t be authoritative.Hell, he’s held our family together for eleven years practically single handedly.
“I was working, Roe. I can’t answer calls in the middle of a search and rescue because my older brother is a bit of a control freak.” I roll my eyes, because he still treats Flynn and me like we’re those same young boys who just found out our parents were murdered.
“You barely answer my calls, and you run into burning buildings for a living. Excuse me for being a little apprehensive when you don’t answer. If something happens to you, who would they even call? Would they even know to call me while you’re living this secret life?” He isn’t being a prick. He’s just worried.
“Calm down. I answer every single time Clara calls, and you know it because I know she tells you. If anything were to happen to me, they’d call Clara and then immediately call Flynn. You’d know, Roe. You’re my next of kin. If I end up toasted in a fire and they have to pull the plug, they’ll need your permission first.”
