The alarm rang through the building. Jett paused, chin tilted slightly upward as he held onto the blade.
“Medic 2–10, Ladder 2–0–2, med 1 response . . . 525 Skyline Drive. Female . . .” The dispatcher’s words came so quickly through the speakers that to anyone other than a firefighter it would’ve sounded like a foreign language.
His shoulders eased as the dispatcher rambled off the rest of the situation and address. He even managed to calmly set the knife down, scoop the halfway chopped onion onto a plate, and toss the unopened package of chuck roast back into the commercial-sized steel refrigerator.
No fire today, just Donna Gene needing her weekly visit.
“Bentley!” A man twice his age stepped out from a bathroom, soap suds covering half his chin. He pointed a razor at Jett. “Give your lady friend your schedule. Tell her not to call on days you’re up for dinner duty.”
Jett smiled. The bushy mustache above Captain Ferraro’s half-shaved chin, however, didn’t so much as quiver. “Yes, sir.” Jett straightened his shoulders. I’ll tell her, sir.”
Jogging beneath the pulsing blue lights through the stark hall, down the stairs, and into the bay, he met Sunny squatted beside Medic 2–10, lacing up his boots. They were dressed in identical paramedic uniforms: navy-blue buttoned polos with fire-rescue patches, navy pants, black boots, black belt. The badges gave off a silvery shine, reflecting the morning light coming from the sixty-paned fire-station doors that held the four engines neatly inside.
Jett twisted the key of the gleaming Medic 2–10, and it began to hum.
Sunny hopped in the passenger seat beside him and hung his elbow out the window. A moment later, he slapped the door twice and yelled to the two men jogging into the bay. “Let’s go, ladies. Clock’s a runnin’.”
Jarod and Kevin gave Sunny looks that said well and clear they were not impressed. But then, Jett and Sunny weren’t the ones shrugging on Kevlar for what they all knew was a bust call.
“I like you, Bentley,” Jarod said, hopping into his boots and pulling up his suspenders. “You’ve been a good addition these past few months. But that doesn’t mean I’m not starting to think up ways to get you kicked over to Station 3. If you don’t get those two to stop—”
“Then what? You’ll complain to Captain that you’re missing out on beauty sleep when you’re supposed to be on toilet duty?” Jett patted the wheel. “C’mon. They’re just two lonely old ladies on a mountaintop looking for something to occupy the time.”
“Yeah?” Kevin slung his jacket around himself. “I have a neighbor who’s eighty-five. You know what she does for fun? Cross-stitches pillows. Drives a camper out to Utah. Goes to rock concerts with her grandkids. Won in her age group last year for the Turkey Trot 5K. Makes these little star-shaped cookies around the holidays filled with jelly—”
“Should I feel concerned by the depth of these details?” Jett’s voice rose as the station doors lifted.
“Does yoga on a little back patio surrounded by sunflowers she grows in her garden—”
“I’m definitely uncomfortable.”
Kevin yanked open the door to Ladder 2–0–2 beside him. “Notice nothing in that list included calling the fire department.”
The engine roared to life, drowning out any more disturbing details Kevin might’ve been planning to add. Jett closed his window.
Amid the muted noise, Sunny pulled out a Hot Pocket stowed somewhere inside his jacket. “My meemaw likes to catch raccoons sneaking in her chicken coop. She spray-paints their tails and drops them off ten miles past the river, just to see them track their way back.” He shrugged and bit into his Hot Pocket. Through his mouthful he added, “Everyone’s got a hobby.”
The trucks filled the narrow streets as they made their way through Gatlinburg, sirens reverberating off stores and churches. Soon they were surrounded by a landscape of rock and pine. Higher and higher into the mountains they went, and just when it seemed the asphalt had run out, the battered and tilted road sign for Skyline Drive peeked its head out from behind thick, wild bushes.
The airbrakes on Ladder 2–0–2 gave a squeal at the sign, and the massive engine plopped down in the middle of the all-but-abandoned road. Kevin leaned his head out the window. “Go meet your sweetheart, Bentley. Send for us if, miracle of miracles, you actually need our help.”
Gravel sputtered beneath back tires as Jett pressed his boot firmly to the floor and powered the much smaller emergency vehicle up the drive. Tree limb after tree limb snapped at the sides of Medic 2–10 until the one-bedroom house came into view, smoke curling upward from its humble chimney. Frail, eighty-four-year-old Mrs. Edna “Edie” Kolak, the one and only neighbor to Donna Gene in a five-mile radius, tightened her robe about herself as she stood from the rickety lawn chair on the front porch. Jett pulled into the driveway, and Edie grabbed the siding as she began to step off the porch.
Cold air blasted into his lungs as he opened the door.
Despite the mere twelve minutes it took to get to 525 Skyline Drive, he always felt like he was suddenly a hundred miles from downtown Gatlinburg. The air was crisper in these elevated parts, and what was a light dusting in the town below accumulated to well over three inches here, confirmed with a quick glance at the snow overlaying the old, forgotten array of lawn art in concrete shapes of rabbits and angels.
He slid on blue latex gloves.
Like a hesitant ice skater, Edie tested her unsteady slipper on the grass. “Oh, Law’, I am glad you are here.”
“Now, just get back up on the porch there, Mrs. Kolak. Let us come to you.” Jett slung the blaze-orange medic pack over his shoulder.
Edie obediently stepped back and waited. She rubbed at her gnarled, arthritic knuckles, fear powerful in her expression. “I know we weren’t supposed to call, and we’ve been doing so good until lately, but—”
A loud moan came from behind the screen door. A long moan. A moan so long it was a wonder the woman hadn’t run out of breath.
“It’s no trouble at all.” He smiled down at all four foot nine inches of the woman as he took hold of her frail elbow. “Now, why don’t we get out of the cold and see what’s going on?”
Edie all too willingly let herself be guided inside. Jett could gamble on the exact location—to the foot, really—where Donna Gene had taken a tumble. But even if he’d somehow blocked his memories of the last twenty-two times he’d been inside the house, he would still need no directions. They could simply follow the long, continuous moans interrupted only by millisecond breaths.
He led the way through the small, confined living room. On the large television covering the window, a woman yelled hysterically at a man, and the audience unanimously began to boo.
Donna’s backside was the first thing that came into view as he turned into the kitchen.
“Ohh, Jetty boy. You found me.” Donna held out a plump arm, reaching toward him as though he would pull her out of her grave.
Jett pressed his hands to his knees and squatted down to her level. The woman stared back from beneath the square card table. Somehow the three-hundred-and-fifty-pound, eighty-two-year-old woman always managed to fall off her chair and land on the yellowed linoleum, and she always twisted and turned until she’d firmly wedged herself beneath the table legs, caught like a mouse in a trap. “For the life of me, Donna Gene, I don’t know how you do it.”
“You think you can help her? You think she’ll be all right?” Edie’s voice warbled as she clasped her hands together at her chest. The elderly woman had been watching the paramedics pull her friend up from the kitchen floor at least once a week for over five months now, and yet every time, she genuinely seemed to believe Donna Gene was on the precipice of death.
“She’ll be just fine.” Jett smiled, stood, and began the routine. He picked up a pair of small crystal salt and pepper shakers from the table and moved them to the counter. Something smelled foul, but his glance around the room suggested too many contributors to locate the item at fault. A bucket of grease sat next to the range, along with a frying pan containing chicken pieces well over a day—or even three days—old. His boot slid the overflowing trash can a couple feet away, along with another bulging trash bag on the floor. The trash bag pushed into the litter box, forcing him to wonder: when was the last time he’d seen a cat in the house?
Sunny began fighting a defiant window.
“You boys are trying to kill us! It’s all but ten degrees!” Edie pulled her robe tightly around her thin neck and fumbled in her cardigan pocket for her hand sanitizer. She sprayed it over her face to, as she often reminded them, “ward off the germs of outside air.”
Sunny began his well-worn spiel as Jett emptied the containers on the table above Donna Gene’s head. A deep southern accent always magically appeared whenever he talked to elderly ladies. “Oh, Mrs. Kolak, you know how I get when up in these parts. It’s just like in the mountains of Colorado, so high up I can’t get ’nough air in my lungs to keep me from passing flat out like one o’ them faintin’ goats. I need the fresh air to keep on keepin’ on.” He flapped his button-up a few times as he drank in a few breaths from the open window. “And you do want us helping your friend here, don’t you?”
Edie resumed her trusty clutched-hands-at-chest position. “Oh. Most certainly.”
The table cleared, Jett grabbed both sides of the table and carefully began to pull. He met little resistance as he lifted and released the prisoner beneath. Together, he and Sunny unraveled the sheet from his pack, and in less than two minutes Donna Gene was cautiously lifted and settled back into her trusty living-room recliner.
The second her legs touched the burgundy fabric, she opened her mouth, continuing a conversation as if seven days hadn’t spanned their last meeting. “Now, as I was saying, Jetty boy, a solid specimen like yourself is wasting your days without someone nice to warm your toes with.” She lifted the remote and, with eyes glued to Jett, turned the volume down. “Frankly, your fear of rejection concerns me.”
Uh-oh. When Donna Gene used such highfalutin words as “fear of rejection,” he knew exactly where this conversation was going.
Sunny grinned and headed toward the door.
Donna Gene eyed Edie, who was slowly making her way to the couch. “It concerns us both. Makes us wonder if it has something to do with childhood trauma.”
Childhood trauma. Their phrase of choice.
The amount of Dr. Bob they watched in the span of twenty-four hours had done unusual things to Donna Gene and Edie, one of which was turn them into self-pronounced psychologists diagnosing anyone within a two-mile radius. As nobody actually lived within a two-mile radius, all their enthusiastic energy fixated on one of their favorites. Him. So far he was dealing with PTSD, middle child syndrome (he was, in fact, the oldest of two), dependent personality disorder, OCD, an overactive thyroid, and couvade syndrome—which he hoped meant something different to them than the usual definition. Otherwise he’d developed the pregnancy symptoms of an imaginary wife.
Lowering his tablet and medical questions, he gave an acquiescing sigh. “Now, Donna Gene, where on earth would I find time to coax a woman into picking me out of a crowd? If I did, I wouldn’t have the time to visit you.”
“Oh, stop.” Donna’s cheeks lifted as she waved a hand at him. “I’m serious, now. You’re a fine young man. Are you sure there’s not something holding you back from all the blushing brides out there?” She laced her fingers together over the remote as though it were an encyclopedia. This was her office. “Are you dealing with some inner angst?”
A clicking sound came from behind him. He turned to see Edie nodding on the couch as she scribbled something on a paper. “Because we have theories.”
“I have no doubt.” Jett slid the tablet back into his backpack. “Well, all I can say is to the best of my knowledge, I’m not suppressing childhood trauma. But mark my words, if I remember that I am, I’ll let you two know first thing.”
This evidently soothed the old ladies, because Edie began nodding again, scribbling something while she mumbled, “Receptive to help.”
“Do that, Jetty boy. Because we talk about it often and, for the life of us, find your case baffling.”
“I can only say I’m glad you’re on the case, because it’s equally baffling to me as well.” Jett zipped up his backpack and took a step toward Sunny standing by the door. “We’ll be seeing ourselves out now. You two have a nice Thanksgiving.”
Both faces fell. “So soon?”
“Afraid so. I’ve got a roast to cook. Can’t leave the guys hungry.”
Both of them waved as Sunny opened the screen door. Donna Gene tapped her temple with her remote. “We’ll be drilling the old lemons, Jetty boy. Don’t you worry.”
The TV volume kicked back up to deafening level as they stepped out into open air. Pine icicles clicked together as a breeze swept through the surrounding trees. Everything about the world just outside their door was as opposite as could be from the inside: silent, clean, still. And yet, a part—a very, very small part—of Jett could see why these women let the raucous television shows fill their ears with sound. If they sat in silence up here too long, chances were they’d start to feel just how lonely they really were.
“You know what you could do—” Sunny started as he climbed back into the cab of their vehicle.
“No.” Jett turned on the ignition, knowing exactly where Sunny was going. He backed out and turned around. The road made a steep decline.
“Seriously, man. Just a couple months ago I went on a date with a gorgeous brunette—or was it blonde?” Sunny leaned back, resting his hands behind his head. “Met at the aquarium. She actually shared my affinity for shark culture—”
“No.”
“Lost her halfway through, though.” His eyebrows knit together. “I should message her . . .”
Jett shook his head, staring straight ahead. “Date however you want, Sunny, but I couldn’t stand thinking women were out there swiping left and right over my picture. Judging me on the type of food I like. Deciding who I am from a paragraph.”
“Fine, man.” Sunny propped his feet on the dash. “But good luck trying to meet someone in our neck of the woods. You’re not exactly in Atlanta anymore.”
“I haven’t got a lot of time on my hands anyway right now.”
Sunny laughed and raised one brow. “You do realize we share an apartment. And a job. I know exactly how much time you have on your hands. Enough time to wear out that pull-up bar for no good reason.” He rubbed his belly, now rolling like jelly beneath his shirt. “Me, on the other hand, I don’t waste my time. Slim pickings in this town work in my favor. Which is why, if you just tried out the app—”
“No,” Jett replied, his firm tone stating this conversation was over.
Sunny turned his gaze out the window, mumbling several more points to the glass during the rest of the ride.
Jett ignored him. But as much as he pretended not to care, there were moments it bothered him. Unlike many of his buddies, he wasn’t coming up on a decade-long anniversary and struggling to find something decent for his wife. He didn’t get to complain about having to stop by the grocery store on the way home because the wife was in the middle of making chili and had forgotten the diced tomatoes. He never had the opportunity to warrant a wife’s wrath by suggesting she just “do without.”
Now, to be fair, that also meant he didn’t clean up dried macaroni glued to the carpet of the minivan on Saturdays or dress up in matching family outfits for spring photos. When the married guys crawled into work because they’d stayed up all night holding kids who’d thrown up from 2:00 to 6:00 a.m., his act of benevolence was offering a cup of coffee.
No, he had neither interest nor the need to fill his life with those things—those small human beings. Never had. But as for the other, the chance to find the woman whom, as Dr. Donna so aptly put, he could “warm his toes with”—well, that was another matter. And sometimes, more and more of late, he’d felt the nudge to do something about it.
Dr. Donna was better at this than he realized.
Jett thought about it as he wiped down the kitchen after dinner and made his way toward his small, private room. He twisted the combination dial on the locker closest to the wall.
Missy Jenkins. Her name drifted like a song note across the forefront of his mind as the locker popped open. Had it really been that long, that long, since he’d been out to dinner with a woman?
Sure, there was Sarah, his neighbor across the hall. She fed him a casual meal every now and again. But that usually began with them running into each other in the shared hall and her mentioning the idea with as much expectancy and desire as she would have in asking Sunny or any one of their neighbors. They usually sat on her sofa with plates of spaghetti and chatted in between plays of the UT game. He always left with no hint beyond having strengthened their neighborly bond. And frankly, that was just fine with him.
But Missy, the woman who’d moved off to Seattle and taken his heart with her . . . Could it really be coming up on two years?
He caught his face in the small mirror hanging in the back of the locker and immediately frowned. Touching his temple, he tried to decipher if the hair poking out was white or simply his imagination.
He swung the locker closed. He needed to get it together.
In the stillness of his room he lay on his back, picked up his phone. It glowed in the otherwise dark space. Even as he typed the words in the app store and hit the download button, he felt the heat on his neck, the shame in even considering the terribly desperate option. He twisted his neck to double-check the lock on his room door. The mere act of looking into one of these sites depleted the level of his manhood.
This was just testing the waters, he reminded himself as he swiftly created a username and logged in, scrolling down the page as dozens of faces popped up. He would just take a look around, see if this was a real possibility for expanding his connections . . .
The alarm sounded, but this time it was both outside and in. Because there, illuminated in the red light flashing above his bed, was the profile picture of Cassie Everson. Fifteen years had changed the cut of her hair, had altered her muscular frame of high school years to something softer, more feminine. But that unmistakable smile was still all hers, thin lips tilted up as if she was on the cusp of laughter. Hazel eyes twinkled with that same down-to-earth confidence he’d seen on the court all those years before but had never managed to turn his way. She’d been a senior, after all, while he’d been but a lowly freshman.
And yet here they were, single, fifteen years later. His boyhood dreams come true.
“Well, I’ll be,” he murmured as he jumped out of bed, siren wailing.
Cassie Everson.
The one and only.