Page 4 of Choosing a Forever
The alarm blares through the station, and my blood immediately starts pumping.
Here wego.
I’ve been back with the Springville Fire Department for almost two years, and even though it’s slower here than in California, I like it more. I worked one season with a hotshot crew—the firefighters who specialize in fighting wildfires—a few years ago and ultimately decided it wasn’t my jam. Those guys are a different breed, and I’m just not cut out to be gone for weeks at a time at the drop of a hat. I like the rush of adrenaline from house fires or smaller wildfires I can help with. The danger of being a hotshot doesn’t appeal to me.
Springville, Utah is small in comparison to the neighboring college cities of Orem and Provo, but it doesn’t mean it’s any less wild. Being near the mountains and close to Utah Lake, we have our fair share of accidents and house fires. It’s December, so a good portion of our calls are due to the slick roads from the snow or the rain.
I swear, everyone in Utah forgets how to drive as soon as the first flake falls. Even if they’ve lived here their whole life.
According to dispatch, there’s a three-car pileup on Main Street, but nothing fatal. Our job for smaller accidents like this is to create a safe work area, clean up any debris or liquid from the vehicles, and stabilize them if needed. It should hopefully be a quick and easy run.
When we get to the scene, there’s a maroon minivan with a crunched front end, a small, blue sedan with a clipped rear, and a black SUV with damage to both ends blocking the traffic trying to come down Main Street.
It doesn’t look like anyone is severely injured, but the EMTs are checking out the people involved while we help the police officers direct traffic and move the cars to the side of the road.
Once traffic is moving slowly but steadily past the scene of the accident, I walk over to the ambulance to see if I can help in any way.
There are a few officers taking statements from people. A flash of red catches my eye, and I turn. Something about the shade of the auburn hair falling past her shoulders feels familiar. She isn’t wearing a coat, even though it’s thirty degrees and lightly snowing. My eyes trail her curvy body, taking in the way she fits her jeans, and I have to look away before I stare at the curve of her hips too long. It would be inappropriate. I don’toglewomen. Especially at the scene of an accident.
I shake my head lightly to put myself back into professional territory before I approach her.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” I say as I tap her on the shoulder. “I was wondering if…” Anything else I was going to say dies on my tongue as she turns around and looks up at me with her piercing green eyes.
Green eyes that remind me of emeralds. Or the scales of a dragon. Or grass after it’s rained, shiny and vibrant.
Eyes filled with tears because of me more than once in high school.
Eyes that look sad and distraught right now.
“Mack?”
Chapter 2
Mackenzie
14 years old…
Thank goodness I can use the temperature as an excuse for my heated face and not the fact that Talmage is looking at me like I’m something special.
It’s making bees buzz in my stomach, and for the first time in a while I feel nervous around a boy.
I haven’t felt this way since…No. He has no place here. Not after what he did and how he treated me.
How did I never notice the way Talmage looks at me before? Is this a new thing for him, too?
I can’t remember the first time I really noticedhim.When my crush started digging its roots in my heart. All I know is one day, my stomach flipped when he gave me his signature grin. Without him and Jacob, there’s no way I would have passed that dang class. Math help turned into messaging on Facebook, and messaging on Facebook turned into organizing a group hangout session at the city’s summer festival.
Next year, we’ll be in choir and theatre together, so we’ll be around each other evenmore often.
I can’t wait.
Under the lights strewn across the little patio outside of the recreation building, his hand nudges mine.
Then his pinky wraps around my own. Sparks skitter across the skin he’s touching, and my face heats further.
We stay like that, pinkies locked, as we listen to everyone else talk about what they’ve been up to this summer, what they plan on doing next year.
No fucking way.
