Things You Save in a Fire(53)

I didn’t want to have to solve this problem. “What was I thinking coming here?” I demanded into the darkness. “This was the dumbest thing I’ve ever done.”

“You were helping me out,” Owen said.

But I was just getting started. “I knew this place would be lousy with firefighters. Even if the captain wasn’t coming, there was no way we weren’t going to get caught somehow, by somebody. I knew that, but I came anyway. My captain in Austin specifically told me not to do this. Of all the ten thousand things I was not supposed to do, this—right here—was number one! But here I am, like a chump. Sabotaging everything I’ve ever worked for. I’ve never even been kissed, and now I’m going to get fired for sleeping with a rookie!”

The rookie held very still. “Wait. You’ve never been kissed?”

I gave an angry sigh. Tried to think of a way to backtrack. Then gave up. “Not properly.”

“How is that possible?”

“I’ve been busy, okay? I’ve been working.”

“Yeah, but—no one’s that busy.”

Silence.

“What?” I said.

“Nothing.”

“What?” I demanded, stepping closer. My eyes had adjusted now. I could see him.

“It’s just,” he said, shaking his head like he was trying to shake the idea out, “hearing that makes me want to kiss you.”

“Don’t kiss me,” I said, pushing him by the chest back up against the closet wall. Our faces were just inches apart. I stood my ground.

Was I trying to put out a fire? Or trying to make it worse?

I should step back, I thought. But I didn’t.

“I will get you out of here,” the rookie said then. “I promise.”

And that’s when I kissed him.

He was startled but not too startled. In a flash, his arms were around me and he was kissing me right back—and not just with his mouth, with his whole body: arms, legs, shoulders, hands. He leaned into that kiss so hard that we stumbled backwards and bumped against the back wall of the closet. Then he was pressing against me, running his hands all over that silk hankie dress, and up my shoulders, and behind my neck, and into my hair—and I was doing all the equivalent things right back.

It was like a wave crashing.

And I got swept right in.

Is it too dramatic to say time stopped?

Because time stopped.

Maybe kisses are special for everybody, I don’t know.

But this was my first one.

My first good one, anyway.

When the rookie’s mouth touched mine, somehow everything in me that had been aching—for years, it seemed, now that I noticed—got soothed.

I felt some new kind of joy that I’d never felt before.

Was this what love was?

I had no idea.

I did know that this kiss, this moment right here, was something special. I’d seen and done and felt a lot of amazing things in my twenty-six years. But nothing like this.

The rookie slowed down but pressed closer. I tightened my arms around his neck. I touched my fingers to the velvety hair at the back of his head. I slowed down, too. Savoring. Relaxing into the moment.

He was kissing me. And I was kissing him back.

Impossible. But true.

Somehow we slid against the closet door, and he pressed up against me and brought his leg between mine, wedging us together in a way that made every cell in my body hum. I started melting like a stick of butter in a hot pan. I just dissolved into him and gave in to all of it—all this amazing, heart-thumping, breathless goodness.

This was what I’d been missing. All this time. Huh.

The thing that would astonish me later, looking back, was that nothing was bad. Not one part of this unbelievable moment in the story of my life felt scary or creepy or painful. And for a minute there, as I gave in to every good thing about it, it felt like nothing could ever possibly be bad again.

Until there was a loud knock on the closet door.

The same door we were pressed up against.

The knock reverberated through my rib cage.

We startled out of the moment and looked around.

“Are you guys in the coat closet?” came an annoyed voice.

The rookie gave a sharp sigh. “Go away, Shannon,” he called.

“Everybody thinks you’re having sex in there.”

“Nobody is having any sex. Scram.”

“There’s a betting pool, actually,” she went on. “I put fifty bucks on you.”

“I mean it, Shannon,” Owen said again, louder this time.

“Fine,” she said, “but don’t let us all down.” Then she leaned very close and fake-whispered, “Alex has a big box of condoms, if you need them.”

The rookie and I were both out of breath. When she was gone, he said, “She’s a world-class pain in the ass.”

I felt like a person waking from a deep sleep. I blinked and looked around. Reality came back into focus. The moment was definitely lost. I was in a coat closet. With the rookie. Not good.

I pushed against Owen’s chest ever so slightly, and he got the hint and stepped back.

He straightened his clothes, and I straightened mine.

“That was surprising,” I said.

“I agree,” the rookie said.