“Ignore them,” said Irish, his voice low and close.
She turned and he was right there, close enough to touch. She could smell the menthol of his shaving cream, and for an instant it reminded her of her father, from when she was a little girl.
She swallowed some of her fury. “He was about to call you—” She faltered. “He was about to say—”
“You think I don’t know?”
“You don’t care?”
“Of course I care. But they’re just looking to start trouble. I care about my job more.”
They. She thought of the slamming lockers and male laughter she’d heard earlier. “Who else? You should report them.”
He snorted and turned away, returning to the sink to let the water out. “You’re funny. You going to report Stockton for what he just said to you?”
She thought about that for a second and wasn’t sure what to say. Of course she wasn’t going to report him. The best she could hope for was an eye roll and a promise from the chief that he’d talk to the guys.
And then the next time would be worse.
“It’s not the first time, Blondie. Won’t be the last.”
All of a sudden, her firehouse nickname sounded belittling.
“Hannah,” she said.
Irish smiled. “Hannah.” Then he shook his head. “We can do better than that.”
“What do you have in mind?”
Crap. It sounded like she was flirting.
Was she flirting?
She had no idea. Her brain was too tired, and the conversation had gone in too many directions in the last three minutes.
“I’ll work on it,” he said.
She turned away. “Close the door next time, okay? I don’t need to see what else you guys have to offer.”
Then she was through the door and into the parking lot before anyone could mistake the blush on her cheeks for anything more than a reaction to the early-morning chill.
CHAPTER 7
Michael sat on the edge of the concrete patio and put his bare feet in the grass. Sunlight beat along his neck and shoulders, fighting a losing battle against the lingering chill in the air. His breath made quick clouds that drifted away. He didn’t have a sweatshirt, but Marshal Faulkner had allowed him to check his laundry room to see if any clothes had survived the smoke damage. Luckily, there’d been three pairs of jeans and a ton of T-shirts in the dryer.
Unluckily, those were all the spare clothes he had for five people.
Adam had some old sweatpants that made up the difference for now. Michael added clothes to the mental list in his head. He’d drive to Target right now if he weren’t deathly afraid to separate from his brothers.
Every time he blinked, he saw the destruction of his neighborhood. Adam didn’t have a television, but he did have a laptop. He’d pulled up the local news coverage of the damage, but Michael had walked out here to get away from the conversation. He didn’t want to hear names and details. He didn’t want to know who was battling for life—or who hadn’t even gotten a chance to fight.
Now he’d been out here for an hour, and he could barely feel his fingers. At least his brothers had taken the opportunity to find a space to sleep for a while.
Michael unlocked his phone, tapped his text message icon, and then sat there, his thumb hovering over the keys.
He’d done this four times now. He had no idea what to say to Hannah. Was he okay?
No. He wasn’t. She’d seen him near breaking, and if he let go, just a little, he’d completely fall apart with no hope of gathering up the pieces.
She’d known, though. She’d grabbed his hand at the right moment. You’re shaking. She’d whispered it, leaving him a shred of dignity in front of her father.
He thought of those bookcases, charred almost beyond recognition. His whole house was unstable, but those damned bookcases were what his brain wanted to latch on to. His mother was long dead. Bookcases didn’t matter. Nothing in that house mattered.
He locked the phone and set it on the concrete.
Dirt shifted under his heels, feeding him strength, but not much else. His element wasn’t one for lightening a mood. He hunched over and rubbed his arms. Damn, it was cold.
He couldn’t stop fidgeting.
He picked his phone back up. Put it down, then picked it up again and woke the screen to check the time. He couldn’t call his insurance agent for another fifteen minutes. He could hold it together that long.
You can do anything for fifteen minutes.
His father’s words, often repeated. Michael first remembered hearing them when he was nine and didn’t want to do assigned reading for school. His father had set a timer on the stove and shoved the book in his hands.
His father had been right. He could read for fifteen minutes. He could do a lot of things for fifteen minutes.
Those words had haunted him after his parents’ deaths. He’d broken time into chunks to get through every day. Fifteen minutes for breakfast. Fifteen minutes to get his brothers to school. Fifteen minutes to travel between landscaping jobs. He could cook a frozen dinner in fifteen minutes.
Lights out in fifteen minutes.
His own words, when his brothers were younger, when he’d had no idea how to be a parent because he wasn’t done being a kid. The minutes after they were asleep were both the best and the worst. The best because the house was finally quiet, and he was alone with his thoughts.
The worst for the exact same reason.
You can do anything for fifteen minutes.
He hadn’t been able to save his parents. And the fire had killed them a lot quicker than that.
The door behind him slid open, and he inwardly sighed, wondering who else couldn’t sleep, and how quickly their stress would double the weight of his own.
His money was on Chris, but the footsteps on the concrete were light and unfamiliar. Michael turned his head to find himself face-to-face with a travel mug, steam escaping through the hole in the lid.
“Hot drink?” said Adam, his voice quiet.
“Sure.” Michael cleared his throat and forced his frozen fingers to wrap around the mug. He barely knew Adam, and he wasn’t sure if he wanted this distraction. He turned his gaze back to the horizon. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
He expected Adam to retreat into his apartment, but a blanket dropped over his shoulders, a weight of rich brown fabric that felt velvet soft to the touch.
Michael froze, unsure how to react.
Adam gave his shoulder a quick squeeze before moving away. “You were making me cold just looking at you.” He sat cross-legged against the beam at the corner of the patio. His movements were unhurried and graceful, so different from Michael’s brothers. He offered half a smile. “Nick ignores my chairs, too.”
Michael glanced over his shoulder at the patio chairs. Saying he felt better with his feet in the grass felt like admitting vulnerability, so he kept his mouth shut.
Silence swirled between them, and though it wasn’t strained, Michael wondered if he was being rude. “Thanks for letting us crash here for a little while.”
“Stay as long as you need to.”
Michael