Burning for Christmas Chapter One + Two
Burning for Christmas
I wanted her with everything I had, but we couldn’t cross that line yet. I’d never forgive myself for taking us there before we were truly ready. Once we had sex, our friendship would never be able to come back from that. We needed to be sure we wanted to go there first because Brielle wouldn’t be a casual lay. If my heart had anything to say about it, she was the top contender for my forever.
-Keith
Chapter One - Keith
My back strained as I heaved an extraordinarily large unconscious man through the living room of his apartment. I was sucking through the air in my SCBA bottle and I questioned whether I’d have enough to get me off the fire floor. At the rate I was going, I wondered if I’d even make it out of the dang apartment. I’d gone into the fire with Jace Palmer, one of the other guys on Ladder 64, but we’d come across a kid, so Palmer had left with the boy while I finished sweeping the apartment. That’s when I’d located this big fella. At two-hundred pounds, I was no slouch, but this fucker easily had a buck-fifty on me. And he was dead weight, which only made him seem heavier.
I’d fastened a halo harness with my webbing to make it easier to drag the guy out, but it was still a challenge. A loud boom bellowed from the kitchen. We had to get out of there. Fast. I wasn’t sticking around to find out what had been the source of the noise—it couldn’t be anything good. I hooked my Halligan through the loops of the webbing in an attempt to use the steel bar for leverage. We inched through the apartment.
Panting, I bore down, digging in with my heels, and pulled. I simply needed enough momentum to keep us moving. I had chocked the apartment door open when we’d entered the unit and I could see the faint light in the hallway mere feet from me. From what I’d gathered, there was fire in two units, but it was also threatening to enter a third. We were the only Ladder company on scene and the other guys on my squad were all occupied, so I was on my own.
I finally got the victim to the door. Don’t ask me why, but I’d half expected conditions to be better out in the hall. They weren’t. My SCBA’s vibe alert went off, causing my face piece to vibrate, telling me that I had maybe five minutes of air left. Under normal conditions, I could squeeze some more time out of it, but all attempts to control my breathing failed miserably.
Being a firefighter was the best dang career in the world. Except when it wasn’t. Then, it was really fucking shitty. This was one of those times.
The salty taste of sweat dripping from my lip into my mouth made me thirsty and I tried to blink away the beads that fell from my brow into my eyes, but they stung nonetheless. My forearms screamed from the strain of the victim’s weight as I hefted him, inch-by-inch down the carpeted hall. It couldn’t be slick, slippery tile, right? No, it had to be carpet, which might as well have been Velcro. Like this wasn’t hard enough. We were thirty feet from the stairwell, but it felt like three-hundred feet.
“You’ve got this, Keith. Don’t be a pussy. Pull,” I muttered to myself before gritting my teeth and tugging.
“Pull.”
I tugged.
“Pull.” The muscles in my neck tightened.
I tugged.
“Pullllll.”
My feet slipped out from under me and I landed on my ass. “Fuck,” I screamed. I was nearly out of air and my frustration level was nearly convincing me to leave the guy there. But I would never do that. No, I’d die trying to save him, but that didn’t mean I was immune to thinking about taking the easy way out. All I had to do was get him into the stairwell, then we’d wait for my team to come up with a stair chair and we’d get him to safety as a crew.
I got back on my feet and heaved the bar again while grunting through my teeth. I was seriously regretting the thousand push ups I’d done earlier that afternoon. Dylan Hogan, one of the guys in my company, had challenged me to it. Said he didn’t think I could do a thousand in thirty minutes. I’d proved him wrong and at twenty-nine-minutes and fifty-four seconds, I’d won myself twenty bucks, but I’d give up that twenty and then some to take back those push ups right about then.
I checked the gauge on my SCBA. It was well into the red zone and I wasn’t gonna make it without running out of air, so I got on my radio. “This is Hart. I’m having a hell of a time getting a large victim out on the fire floor. Can I get some manpower up here with a stair chair? And bring me another bottle. I’m almost out of air.”
“10-4, Hart,” Captain Andrews acknowledged. “Hogan just got out here, I’ll send him back up to you.”
“10-4, Captain. If you can spare another body, too, I think we need it.”
“I’ll see what I can do.
I returned to dragging the guy down the hall. Three-quarters of the way to the stairs, my air ran out. I dropped the Halligan and reached for my regulator, twisting it off. Taking my chances with smoke inhalation was better than wearing a face-piece without airflow. I held my breath and prayed that Hogan would get there soon.
Gripping the Halligan, I got in one more solid tug before falling to the ground again. Like a fucking angel in hell, Hogan burst through the door followed closely by Palmer.
Palmer nudged me forward so he could access my SCBA and change out my empty bottle. Once it was screwed in, he said, “Good to go.”
I snapped my regulator back into place and took in the best breath of air I’d ever had. I’d been on the job for three years and this was the first time I’d run out of air. Not something I needed to repeat. Ever.
“Fuck, bro. How far have you dragged this guy?” Hogan asked as he hauled the victim forward a few inches.
“Too…dang…far.” I was still catching my breath from the exhaustion.
Palmer removed my Halligan from the harness loops and handed it to me. “Go get the chair ready. It’s at the top of the stairs.”
I didn’t argue and made my way to the stairwell while Palmer and Hogan each took a loop and dragged the victim the rest of the way. Once at the stairs, we muscled the victim into the chair and strapped him in. By that point, we were all panting heavily. Hogan and Palmer gripped the handles at the foot of the chair so they’d take the brunt of the weight, while I held onto the handles by his head to stabilize the chair as we slid it down the three flights.
By the time we made it outside, I was ready to collapse. While the Engine charged through the door with the hose line, I took a much-deserved break. After chugging a bottle of water, I was feeling a bit better—just in time to go inside for overhaul.
Of course, the call had come in half an hour before shift change. It never failed. Whenever I had somewhere to be after work, we always caught a late run. Someone had set their kitchen on fire while making dinner, which happened more often that you’d think. Once back at our firehouse on the Upper Westside of Manhattan, I rushed through a shower and headed out to meet my girlfriend, Megan.
I was two hours late by the time I got to her apartment. When I went to kiss her hello, she offered me her cheek and refused to make eye contact as she poured herself a glass of wine, not bothering to offer me one.
I settled into the armchair facing her in the open living space. “Sorry, Meg. I can’t control when shit catches on fire.”
“Language,” she snapped.
“Sorry.”
We’d been dating for six months so things were starting to get serious, but truth be told there was something missing that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Despite that, I wanted to make it work. Although I was only twenty-five, I was under some serious pressure to settle down. Being a fireman already made me the black sheep of the family, and I think my parents thought that if I got married, they’d be able to convince my wife to talk some sense into me and get me to enter politics before I was too old.
Megan was a lawyer and came from a prominent New York family, which made her perfect by my parents’ standards. While they’d never met her, I knew she was exactly the kind of girl they’d want me to be with. My mother was a debutante and sat on the board of several charitable organizations. She came from old southern money. My father’s a senator and former governor of Kentucky. There was a particular image we Hart’s were expected to uphold. My older brother, Corbett, toed the line without hesitation. He was well on his way to following in our father’s footsteps. Me on the other hand? Well, I’m a fireman. No need to say more.
Megan perched against her kitchen island sipping on a glass of Pinot Grigio while twirling a strand of blonde hair around her finger. “We missed our dinner reservation. I can probably get us into La Salle for dinner, but you need to change.” She was dressed like she was going to dinner with the mayor. Her high-waisted black flare pants and satin mulberry purple button-down top were in stark contrast to what I was wearing.
I glanced down at my jeans and long sleeve tee that had my firehouse emblem over my heart. I was in no mood to get dressed up for the likes of La Salle. “Can we order in? I’m beat. That last run really took it out of me.” My muscles were still burning.
She sighed. “What are we doing, Keith?”
I narrowed my eyes. “Not sure what you mean.”
She placed her wine glass down on the counter. “I know that us dating is smart from a strategic standpoint, but we’re so…different.”
I sucked in my cheeks. “Where are you going with this?”
She crossed to the chair beside mine and took a seat. “We come from similar backgrounds. We should be a good match, but while I embrace where I came from, you seem to be running from it.”
I rarely told anyone who my father was, but Megan had figured it out early on. I should’ve known then that she was only interested in me for my connections. “And you’re getting this from me being too tired to go out to a fancy restaurant?” What she’d said hadn’t been a lie, but still.
“Not just tonight, Keith.” Her perfect French manicured nails rapped against the arm of the chair. “You’re wasting your potential. You have your degree in political science from Columbia University, but you choose to breathe smoke for a living instead. I don’t get it.”
The only reason I had that degree was because my parents practically forced it on me. I folded my arms. “Where is this coming from?”
She shrugged. “I had a talk with my dad earlier. If I’m going to make partner in the firm by the time I’m thirty, I need to be with someone who matches my ambitions.”
As exhausted as I was, I hopped to my feet. “Being a fireman doesn’t mean I lack ambition. I’m studying for the lieutenants’ exam. I want to work my way up. Make chief one day. You know that.”
She nodded. “Yes, I know. But that goal doesn’t line up with mine. I need someone who’s going to want to get dressed up and go to La Salle with me. Networking is important, Keith, and I have an image to uphold.”
That world didn’t appeal to me in the slightest, but apparently Megan thought that’s what she was getting by dating Senator Graham Hart’s son.
I ran my hand over my smooth jaw. “You knew what I did when you met me.”
“I did.” She averted her eyes.
“But you thought you could get to my father through me and that’d be worth it.”
She shook her head. “No—”
“Save it.”
“I didn’t care that you were a firefighter. But given how you grew up, I thought you’d be into the finer side of life like I am.”
I scoffed. “The finer side? Honey, that life is full of backstabbers just waiting for you to step out of line. You might be fine with putting on a fake face, but I left that shit behind me.”
She feigned offense.
“And, yes, I said shit. I curse. Get over it.”
She smoothed her hands over the front of her blouse. “Well.”
“I’m out. Have a good life, Megan.”
She didn’t bother to stop me as I went for the door.
Once outside, I tucked my hands into the pockets of my winter coat as light flurries fell onto the sidewalk around me. I probably should’ve been upset, but instead I was relieved. Dating Megan had been a lot of work. Sometimes I truly questioned my sanity when it came to my choice in women. For some reason, I always went for the type I’d grown up around, but it usually happened without my realizing it until it was too late.
Megan didn’t live far from Times Square—right in the middle of the action. People buzzing with the holiday spirit weaved around me clutching shopping bags filled with gifts. Shop windows were adorned with glitter and garland and lights. New York truly was magical this time of year. My apartment was about a ten-minute walk and even though it was cold and my body was aching, I chose to hoof it. I figured taking that time would be good to clear my head.
My phone vibrated and I reached into my jeans to grab it. My mother’s face was displayed on the screen. I swiped the green button and put it to my ear.
“Hello, Mother.”
“Keith, darling, how are you?” Her proper southern accent was almost comical. It sounded like it came straight out of Gone with the Wind, but cross my heart it was genuine.
“Just fine. How are you? How’s the Colonel?” My father had been a colonel in the Army before he entered politics. When we were kids, he had always insisted on being addressed by his rank. It was better than being expected to call him Senator.
“Oh, you know how hectic things get around here before our soirée.”
Shit. I’d forgotten about the annual Christmas party that my parents threw in D.C. before Congress broke for the holidays. “Uh, right. I bet.”
“I’m calling to find out when you and your girlfriend will be arriving. I simply cannot wait to meet her.”
Double shit. “Yeah, about that—”
“Keith Percival Hart, do not tell me that you are not bringing that girl of yours because—”
“Relax. She’s coming.” I leaned up against a building to get out of the stream of pedestrians and pinched the bridge of my nose. “We’ll be down there on Friday.” My parents had made it abundantly clear over the years that I had to show up to the party with a respectable date for the sake of our family’s image. They hadn’t cared that every year I’d brought a different woman, as long as she had fit the mold.
“Oh, goody. I simply cannot wait to meet her.”
“She can’t wait to meet you either.”
“You will be staying with us, yes?”
“No,” it came out more sharply than I’d intended, so I took a breath. “I’ll book us a room.” Staying together with Megan under my parents’ roof would be a nightmare.
Several voices streamed through the phone in the background. My mother replied to them. “Yes, I will be right there.” Then she addressed me,
“Lovely, darling. Listen, I must go, but I will see you in a few days. Kiss kiss.”
She hung up before I could say goodbye. I hesitated for a moment because I probably should’ve marched my way back to Megan’s and groveled to get her to come to the party with me, but I didn’t have the energy for that. Instead, I stepped away from the building and turned toward home. I’d call her the next day and convince her then. At the very least, she’d be thrilled at the prospect of furthering her career by rubbing elbows with senators. Then, when we got home, we could go our separate ways.
I was over this day. All I wanted to do was crawl into my bed and sleep. Pushing away the thought of having to endure a weekend rubbing elbows alongside my ex-girlfriend, I continued down the sidewalk. Each step bringing me closer to home and bringing an end to this supremely miserable day.
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