Kira Sinclair - Up In Flames

Reaching out, Colt rolled the chair close and then dropped into the seat, repositioning his legs. Colt had always been a strong guy, but even Erik had to marvel at the flex of his biceps.

“Jesus man, what do you bench these days?”

Colt laughed. “More than I used to.”

“Obviously.” Erik shifted uncomfortably on his feet, about to make his escape. Before he could, Colt started rolling away.

“Get your ass in here and have a beer. And some ice. I bet your hand is throbbing like a bitch.”

Erik followed. What else was he supposed to do? “I’ve had worse.”

“Yeah, like the time you wrecked that piece of shit motorcycle you bought off the internet.”

God, he’d forgotten about that. It really had been a piece of shit, but he’d planned to repair it. The bike could have been amazing...if he hadn’t run it off the road on the way home, smashing it into a tree. He hadn’t been seriously injured, but the bike was toast.

Colt, who had been following behind him, picked up the pieces and drove him to the hospital. And he kept the truth from Erik’s mom, who hadn’t wanted him to buy a bike in the first place.

Those were the days. When he had a brother backing him up. Not that he didn’t get along with the guys he worked with now, but it wasn’t the same. You couldn’t replace the kind of history he’d shared with Colt.

Colt didn’t bother stopping to give Erik the grand tour, just wheeled straight to the side-by-side freezer, tossed him a bag of frozen peas without even looking and then snagged two beers.

The peas felt good on the back of his hand. But the cool beer flowing down his throat felt better.

Although he nearly spit the mouthful back out again when Colt said, “This is the point in the evening’s entertainment when I tell you to get your head out of your ass.”

“Excuse me?”

Colt gave him a pointed stare. “First, whatever you keep thinking when you look at me, forget it. Me being in this chair is not your fault.”

“Yes, it is.”

“No, it isn’t. I made my own choices that night, Erik, knowing full well the risks involved. I agreed to those risks every time I went into a burning building.”

“But you shouldn’t have been there. You wouldn’t have been if I hadn’t gone in after Chief gave the order to pull back.”

Colt rolled across the kitchen floor, wheels squeaking softly against the hardwood. “Come here.”

“What?”

“Come here.” He crooked a finger.

With a shake of his head, Erik leaned down and yelped when Colt smacked him in the back of the head.

“What the hell?” he asked, rubbing the spot.

“Someone needs to knock some sense into you. You know me better than that. Always have. If you hadn’t gone back into that building, I would have. I wasn’t about to leave another boy without a dad if there was something I could do about it. Just like you.”

A jolt rocked through Erik. His hands clenched. And a weight he’d been carrying for so long finally...fell away.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. He needed to say the words. Maybe not for Colt, but for himself.

“Yeah, man. I know. What happened sucked, but it was an accident. I’ve found peace and purpose in it. I’m about to graduate with my master’s in psychology. My plan is to help people deal with difficult situations like mine. I’m good. I promise. You, on the other hand, are in a world of trouble.”

Wait. Hadn’t they just cleared the air?

“What the hell do you think you’re doing with my sister?”

With a groan, Erik slumped against the kitchen counter and knocked back a huge gulp from his bottle.

“Nothing. I’m not doing anything with your sister.”

“That’s not what it sounded like. It sounded like you’ve been home for less than a handful of days and have already managed to get her into bed.”

“It wasn’t like that.”

“Sure, because your dick accidentally slipped, right?”

“Hey! I woke up from a dead sleep to find your sister in my bed wearing nothing but a bra and the skimpiest panties on this earth.”

Colt made a disgusted sound and ground his palms into his eye sockets. “That’s a visual I will never be able to wipe from my brain, asshole.”

Erik had to chuckle. This, at least, was familiar territory. This sounded like countless other conversations they’d had about his relationship with Lola. Honestly, there was a part of him that had enjoyed torturing Colt on occasion. So he was human. Whatever.

“Look, I said it back then and I’ll say it now. You’re both adults, so what you do together is between you guys.”

“You say that, but why don’t I believe you?”

“Because unlike before, this time I know what’s coming—for both of you. What happens when it’s time for you to leave town again, Erik? Lola was devastated. You didn’t have to watch her waste away for months, heartbroken that you’d left without even really telling her goodbye. You didn’t watch the hope she couldn’t quite extinguish slowly drive her crazy...until it finally went out altogether. Which, I have to tell you, was ten times worse.”

Setting his bottle on the counter, Colt backed away, putting space between them.

“All I’m saying is that you really need to think hard before you act. What do you want? And what’s best for Lola? Don’t start something with her again if you’re not sure you can give it one hundred percent this time. I’m not sure she’d survive the aftermath of you running again. And we both know that these days, running is what you’re good at.”

Without waiting for his response, Colt rolled away, heading into the back of the house.

Erik had been dismissed.

But Colt’s words followed Erik out the door and back to his mom’s place. His friend had always been the smart one.

He needed to leave Lola alone. They’d crashed and burned before. Neither of them could survive doing it again.

* * *

IT HAD BEEN six weeks since he’d seen Lola. After his talk with Colt, he’d purposely avoided her so he wouldn’t make another mistake with her.

The last thing he wanted was to hurt her more than he already had.

Honestly, Colt’s words had scared him—a hell of a lot more than parachuting out of a plane into any wildfire he’d faced.

He’d picked up more shifts at the station. A couple of the teams often operated with three men instead of four so it was easy to fill the empty spot, especially when he’d worked with most of the guys before and had a rapport. That history made it easy to blend into a cohesive group.

There were moments when he missed the adrenaline rush of smoke jumping. But with a little distance, he’d realized his chief back in California was right. He’d needed a break. For the last six years he’d been going nonstop. Running from fire to fire in some misguided attempt to make up for what had happened in Sweetheart.

And instead, he’d barreled straight into another tragedy that had cost him a friend and sent him careening into a situation that had almost cost him his own life. Losing Aaron had carried with it a warped sense of déjà vu.

Standing behind Aaron’s widow, listening to her muffled sobs, had ripped something open inside him. And he’d taken the bleeding mess straight into another fire and used it to push himself beyond the point of breaking.

Cut off from the team, surrounded by fire with no way out, he’d been lucky. They’d managed to rescue him. He’d been grateful, until Chief had given him the two-month suspension for ignoring orders.

Restless, it had only taken him a few days to realize he needed to be somewhere other than California, watching news stories about a wildfire his team was fighting but he wasn’t allowed to touch.