Things You Save in a Fire - Katherine Center Page 0,50
way.”
I looked over. “Sorry for what?”
“Sorry you’re stuck up here with me.” Then he added, “I feel bad that we started on the same day, and now they’re making you babysit me.”
“They’re not making me babysit you.”
He gave me a look, like, Come on.
I shrugged. Okay. “All rookies need a little babysitting, at first.”
He studied me for a second. Then, like he’d made a big decision, he said, “Speaking of babysitting, I’m wondering if I can ask you to do me a favor.”
Oh God. I studied his face. “This can’t be good.”
“It’s not terrible,” the rookie said. “But before I ask, I want to remind you of what you just did to me.” He lifted up his shirt, revealing a red welt across his stomach.
Also, just—revealing his whole naked, sculpted torso. A shocking sight of its own.
I glanced away, then said, “Are you trying to make me feel guilty?”
His smile was barely mischievous. He bent down to peer at the mark. “I think if you look closely, you can see the boot treads.”
“Guilt doesn’t work on me,” I said. “If anything, it makes me less likely to give in.”
“I’ll just ask you, then.”
“Fine.”
“You don’t mind, right?”
Was he stalling a little? “I’m not going to physically stop you, if that’s what you mean.”
“You can say no, I should mention,” the rookie said. “It’s fine to say no.”
I motioned with my hand, like, Get it over with.
“Okay.” He took a breath. “It’s my parents’ wedding anniversary this weekend. And we’re having a big party.”
Oh God. Was he asking me to go? He couldn’t do that! It was totally against every single rule. He shouldn’t even be thinking about asking, much less doing it. My head started shaking on its own.
He went on. “It’s their thirty-fifth, in fact. But it’s an even bigger deal than that because my dad had a heart attack last year. He wound up retiring from Boston FD, and they moved up here to Gloucester, and when you talk to him, he tells you he’s living the dream, but the truth is, he’s pretty depressed. My mom says he just watches TV most of the day, wearing dirty socks. And she came up with this idea that if they threw a big party, he’d have to pull it together. She’s convinced it’s going to work.”
It didn’t sound like the most promising idea.
“Anyway,” he went on, “all my sisters arrive tomorrow.”
“All your sisters? How many do you have?”
“Four. It’s going to be mass chaos—grandkids and dogs everywhere—and the whole family’s counting on this party to be the thing that turns everything around—and I’m going to be the guy to ruin it and break my mother’s heart because she’s expecting me to bring my girlfriend, Amy—but I haven’t told her yet that we broke up.”
“Wait—what? You have a girlfriend?” I’d never heard anything about a girlfriend. In all this time, the concept of a girlfriend had not even occurred to me. But my voice had sounded way too shocked at the idea. Calmer, more like we were just making conversation, I added, “Named Amy?”
“Had,” he said. “We dated for two years. My family loved her. Polite. Well groomed.”
“You make her sound like a poodle. Hey—whatever happened to that puppy you got?”
The rookie grinned. “The Poo-huahua?”
I shook my head at him.
“I gave him to my mom,” he said. “She named him Valentino and bought him a little sweater. He pines for her when she walks out—even just to get the mail.”
I shook my head again. “Everything works out for you.”
“Not everything,” the rookie said. “Not Amy.”
“What was wrong with her?”
“Nothing. She was fine. Perfectly acceptable. Just a totally vanilla, garden-variety girl.”
“She sounds awful.”
“My mom really, really wanted us to get married. So did my sisters. So did my dad.”
“But you broke up.”
“There’s not much I wouldn’t do for my family,” the rookie said, “except possibly marry the wrong girl.”
“Fair enough,” I said.
“But it was complicated.”
“Complicated how?”
The rookie frowned down at the city below, like he wasn’t entirely sure what to say next. “I used to have five sisters. My sister Jeannie—the second youngest—died about four years ago from a viral infection in her heart.”
“I’m sorry.”
He looked down. “She was twenty-three. I was twenty-two. Irish twins.”
I let out a slow breath.
“Amy was my sister’s best friend when we were growing up, and when I ran into her one night a year or so after Jeannie died, we felt this instant connection and started going out right away. We were both living in Boston,