Page 79 of Hot Response
“I’m going to go,” she said as she walked toward the door, feeling numb. She couldn’t give him what he needed from her. “I don’t want to do this anymore.”
He caught her arm. “Cait, don’t leave like this.”
“There’s no sense in staying here and dragging it out. We’re talking in circles and we’re not going to get anywhere and it hurts too much.”
His hand fell away and, in that moment—when he let her walk out the door—Cait knew what true heartbreak felt like.
Chapter Eighteen
One second Gavin was standing on the edge of a roof, and the next, Jeff’s knee buckled and he fell sideways and Gavin was holding on to the small lip of the roof, with one arm, while scrambling to get his other hand up.
Then he felt a hand close over his wrist before other hands grabbed the back of his coat and hauled him back onto the roof.
Pride be damned. He stayed there for a minute, breathing hard and trying to process what the hell had just happened.
“Holy shit, Boudreau,” he heard Danny say.
“Yeah, that,” he said and there was some weak laughter.
It wasn’t even a fire. The maintenance man had gone on the roof to check the equipment, smelled something weird and called the fire department.
The weird smell turned out to be an employee of the building smoking pot on his lunch break and, after reporting that info to the building manager to do with as he saw fit, they’d taken their time up on the roof. The sun was shining and spring was around the corner.
Danny had been telling a funny story about his kid and then, bam, Gavin was dangling four stories over the sidewalk.
It was Jeff who hauled him to his feet. “I’m so fucking sorry, man. So fucking sorry.”
Gavin mustered a grin and slapped him in the shoulder. “You tripped, man. I should have been fast enough to get out of the way.”
Jeff looked like he was going to say something else, but then he just shook his head.
Maybe Gavin’s reflexes would have been enough if his head had been in the game, where it belonged. But then Danny started talking about Ashley and Jackson, which made Gavin think about Cait, and he hadn’t been able to dodge the gut punch he got every time he thought about her.
He missed her. Every second of every day, he felt her absence. He even dreamed about her, so not only was there no respite in sleep, but he started every day with a renewed sense of loss.
Back at quarters, Gavin went about the regular routine of the firehouse, trying not to think about Cait and only managing to think about her more. The other guys were giving him a wide berth and he wasn’t sure if they were giving him space after his brush with being sidewalk art, or if his grief was actually surrounding him like some kind of invisible force field of emotion.
It wasn’t until they’d all gathered in the kitchen to eat that he saw Jeff again. He’d seen Jeff’s wife earlier and figured she’d stopped by for a quick visit, either coincidentally or because Jeff had told her what happened. He’d seen her leave a little while later, but Jeff had stayed in the bunk room.
Now that he really thought about the sequence of events, it was weird and he spooned pulled pork from the slower cooker onto his bun with a feeling of trepidation. Sure, he’d almost accidentally killed Gavin, but shit happened. Hell, Grant had knocked his first LT unconscious with a ladder his second week on the job and put him out of commission with a concussion.
Gavin wasn’t the only one who felt it coming. Even once the meal was done, nobody left the kitchen. They all lingered, restless and waiting for the shoe to drop.
“I talked to Cobb,” Jeff finally said, and they all got quiet. “And my wife. I’m putting in my papers.”
Nobody spoke. They shifted in seats and fidgeted with napkins or whatever was at hand, but Gavin didn’t know what to say and apparently neither did anybody else. Only Rick didn’t look surprised.
“My knee is done, boys, and so am I. It’s one thing to push through the pain for a little while, but it’s not getting any better. Lately it’s been even worse, and I knew there would come a day it gave out on me and every day I got more terrified it was going to happen on the job. When lives are depending on me. It gave out on me today and that’s why I fell into you, kid.”
Gavin couldn’t say he was surprised—he spent way too much time with the man to miss the signs of his knee’s deterioration—but he wasn’t prepared for the swell of emotion he felt.
“I’ve been having nightmares about it for a while,” Jeff continued. “And after today... I know I just can’t do it anymore.”
“Today was a fluke,” Grant said, and Gavin wasn’t surprised he pushed back. They might work different trucks, but the Ladder 37 and Engine 59 crews were a team. A family. They worked together and lived together. They rolled out together. “There’s always the potential for an accident, but we got through it. You pulled him back up.”
“But with me out there, the potential is stronger and we—or at leastI—can’t discount what happened today. It’s just plain luck that Gavin caught himself. I almost killed him today and I can’t brush that off. And you guys shouldn’t let me.”
Gavin didn’t say anything. Not because he’d been the one who almost got hurt. It wasn’t the first time he’d almost bit it on the job, and it wouldn’t be the last. But he was watching the others, and when Rick leaned back against his seat with his mouth set in a grim line—not saying a word—he knew Jeff was really leaving.
