Page 25 of Hot Response
On Tuesday afternoon, Chris Eriksson bellowed to Gavin, who was three-quarters of the way through a magazine article, “Boudreau, you have a visitor.”
Even though he didn’t care about turkey hunting, he was annoyed at the interruption and wanted to finish, just because he’d started it. It was a slow day, with a light drizzle that wasn’t quite cold enough to freeze over and cause problems so he’d been that bored. But his first thought wasCait,so he tossed the magazine on the table.
It wouldn’t be her. She was probably working today since she had the weekend off. But that didn’t stop him from double-timing it down the stairs to the apparatus bay.
It wasn’t Cait. It was her younger brother. Or half brother, anyway, not that it mattered. Carter, of the Snapchat incident.
“Hey, Carter,” he said, reaching out to shake the boy’s hand.
“You remember me?”
Of course he did. They were still giving him shit about the picture Carter had taken and shared, even though it had disappeared. If they knew it had disappeared into his bag and then to his house, they’d really lay it on. But he let them assume it had gone out with the garbage.
“Yeah, you’re Cait’s brother. What’s up?”
The kid shifted his weight, looking anxious. “I heard my sister talking to my mom about the fire. You know, the one with the truck that crashed into the house? They think I don’t hear anything because of my earbuds, but it’s not like they’re noise-canceling or anything. They’re just cheap ones because I shove the wires in my pocket all the time and they don’t last very long.”
Gavin just nodded, since he still wasn’t sure what the kid wanted. And he had that same problem with earbud wires, too.
“Anyway, she said you were ordered out of the building and you wouldn’t leave her, even when she told you to go.”
“I shouldn’t have disobeyed orders, because orders and rules help keep us safe,” Gavin responded, because he really did believe that, regardless of his actions. “But there was no way I was leaving Cait in there alone. Or the little boy. And, to keep it real, they didn’t really expect me to.”
Carter shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “I just wanted to say thank you, I guess. In person. If something happened to Cait, my mom... I don’t know. Without Cait, our lives would be total shit right now.”
There was a lot of emotion and half-information in the kid’s words, and Gavin really wanted the other half. But pumping Cait’s brother for info about her personal life would be a douche move. “Just doing my job, kid.”
“Except the part where your job was to evacuate the building like you were told.”
“Well...yeah.” The big, old-fashioned clock hanging on the back wall caught Gavin’s eye. “How come you’re not in school?”
“My last block’s a study hall, so I signed out early.”
“Your mom know you’re here?”
Carter gave him aseriously, dude?look. “I’m sixteen.”
“I’m pretty good at math, so that’s still two years shy of not having to tell anybody where you are.” Not that Gavin hadn’t roamed far and wide as a teenager, but in today’s weather, it seemed weird that Carter would just roam around the neighborhood.
Also, when had he turned into the old guy who hassled teenagers?
“I just wanted to say thanks and it’s on my way home,” the kid mumbled. “That’s all.”
“I’m glad I was there with her. She wasn’t going to leave the little boy, so all I had to do was keep an eye on her until they got us out.”
“She’s pretty awesome.”
Gavin couldn’t stop the corners of his mouth from turning up in a smile. “Yeah, she is.”
The teen gave him a mildly questioning look, and then shrugged. “I gotta go. But thanks.”
“No problem. You okay out in the weather?” A snort was the answer he got, along with a quick wave as Carter hit the sidewalk. “See you later.”
Once he was gone, Gavin figured he could go back upstairs and finish the article he had no interest in. Or he could take advantage of having an excuse—no matter how flimsy—to finally make use of Cait’s number.
It wasn’t much of a competition. He pulled out his phone, figuring if she was busy, she’d text him back when she got a chance.Hey, Carter just stopped by to say hi and talk about the fire for a sec.
He should be in school.
