AJ’s Fire (Hampstead Valley #3)

Chapter 4

Chapter Four

Jackson

It had been my fucking brilliant plan. Introduce Emily to AJ. She wanted to meet a hot firefighter, and AJ was a hot firefighter. Thinking about AJ hooking up hadn’t stopped my crazy thoughts about men and friendship and true love, but maybe seeing AJ with Emily would be the reminder I needed that no matter what I was experiencing, my best friend remained aggressively straight.

I hadn’t explored my sexuality at all since the revelation that had started on New Year’s Eve and had slapped me in the face over drinks with Emily a few months later. My newly discovered sexuality was all tied into my feelings for AJ, and I had to shake those feelings so that I could move on, explore, maybe even respond to someone on one of the apps I kept adding and deleting from my phone.

That night at the bar I had a gay hookup app installed and had included a picture of my abs, with just a peak of my firefighter overalls in the shot. My fucking phone had lit up with matches.

“I’m going to delete this fucking thing,” I said to Emily on the way to Lucy's Taphouse.

“No, you're not,” she insisted. “Do I need to remind you”—she grabbed the phone—“that the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else.” She began to scroll. “Ooh, a penis!”

“Ems!” I looked around the sidewalk, but no one was paying any attention to us. “Fine, I won’t delete it, but give me back my phone!”

“I want to go on record one more time as saying this is a stupid idea.”

“You just said not to delete Guys4Guys.”

“I’m not talking about dating apps, and you know it. I know it’s hard to get over your crush on your best friend but throwing me at him is not the answer. I’m only doing this because I finally get to meet him, and you’ve been miserable without him, and I want to understand and help you move on.”

“Please try with AJ.” My voice was exasperated and desperate, and I wasn’t even really sure what I was asking of Emily.

“Try what, to fall in love with him? To fuck him? Jackson, you have to see how messy either of those options would be. I will try to get to know him because he’s important to you. Because he’s your friend, and so am I.”

I still attempted to set them up, convinced it was what I needed to move on. Not a good motive, for sure, but I was desperate. I had looked up every article the internet had on falling for your best friend, and let me tell you, the internet is a fucking romantic place. It was either “be honest and hope for the best,” or “cut them out of your life and move on so you can find your perfect person.” I couldn’t see either happening in my case. I didn’t want either to happen. I would have to come out to AJ someday, wanted to, even, but he didn’t need to know about my feelings. He was straight; it was immaterial. But he was also my best friend, and I didn’t want to lose him. I was there that evening because I missed him so fucking much. I needed my best friend back, and I needed to figure out how to be around him.

Emily had been emphatic that it would be messy for her to get involved with AJ, so I was surprised when I came back from deleting Guys4Guys, for like the fifth time since the summer, to discover that AJ and Emily had made a date for New Year’s Eve.

“And AJ’s gonna find a friend for Ruth, so you’re on your own to find someone.” Emily glared at me.

AJ registered my confused, deer-in-the-headlights look and misread it. “Unless you want to go out with Ruth. Emily seemed to think …”

“No, Ruth and I go way back. Ems is right. We should find her a date.”

“Hey! I can ask my brother. It can be like a new tradition, spending New Year’s Eve with Jamie.”

We shared a plate of nachos and another round of drinks as I watched my two friends get to know each other and wished my life could be simple.

As we said good night to AJ, he hugged me, pulling back to stare at me but not letting me go. I fought to keep the emotions off my face.

“I’ve missed this.”

“I’ve missed Lucy's nachos,” I retorted as I extricated myself from his embrace. “Hey.” I aimed for casualness, my heart racing just from the memory of his touch. “Ems and I might come back to town before Thanksgiving because really, who wants to spend an entire week with their parents? Maybe … maybe we can catch up before you head to Hampstead? You’re leaving after your shift on Wednesday, right?”

“Yeah. Let me know if you come back. We’ll hang. Do whatever you want. ‘Kay?”

“‘Kay.”

I walked off as bewildered as I’d been all summer.

“Go ahead and ask,” Emily prodded, so I did.

“You insisted you didn’t want to go out with him; now you’re going to be kissing him on New Year’s Eve?”

“Something like that.”

“Ems …”

“Trust me.”

The weekend before Thanksgiving, my parents insisted that I stay in the Hamptons through Monday, and by Tuesday evening, AJ would need to be at the fire station, so it looked like we wouldn’t be able to see each other before the break. I did tentatively start to text AJ again, like we had in the past, though with fewer discussions about hookups. I wasn’t having any, and I pointedly wasn’t asking AJ about his.

My mind flashed back to one particular night a few years into my friendship with AJ. He had been very drunk. We’d run into a woman I had been seeing casually, Nina, and she and I had planned to go home together, but we dragged AJ to his apartment first and made sure he was safe before we took off. I was watching him drunkenly climb into his bed, crawling, tighty-whities-clad ass in the air, when he turned his head around, from that position, to talk to me.

“Bro, put my phone on the charger for me. I want you to check in after Nina goes home. Since I’m living vicariously through you tonight. Unless …” He laughed at himself.

“You know,” he slurred, “how chicks are always propositioning both of us?”

I laughed at my friend, thinking nothing of his drunk ramblings other than that he was horny. “I’m gonna stop you right there, dude. Lie the fuck down. I’ll call you later.”

AJ flopped on the bed while I rooted around the pockets of the jeans he’d left on the floor in the bathroom. I plugged in the phone and took Nina back to my place.

We’d been propositioned together before and laughed it off every time. But that night had stuck with me, and I remembered picturing AJ as I ran my hands up and down Nina’s sides, watching her enjoy herself as she rode me. My phone started buzzing before we were finished, but we ignored it until after Nina had leaned back, rocking frantically while I thrust up, and we both chased that elusive end goal. Her long moan and the tightening around my dick helped me lose control, and we both grunted through our orgasms. Nina dropped down over me for a minute, coming down from her high and steadying her breathing before jumping off me and the bed practically in one motion. I fiddled with the condom while she tossed my phone on the bed next to me.

“Go ahead and answer that. Your boyfriend is impatient when he’s wasted,” she said with a lilt to her voice.

I watched Nina throw her clothes on and give me a quick kiss before leaving. The phone buzzed again as I heard my front door close.

“Bro, is she gone? How was it?”

“AJ, why aren’t you passed out? It was hot, she’s hot. You know that. You know the hottest part. She’s totally on board with the no-strings thing.” I paused, but AJ didn’t comment.

“Can I share a little secret?” I sighed.

“Anything,” AJ breathed out like it was a sacred proclamation.

“Truth be told, I’m almost feeling a little lost with the complete lack of cuddling.”

“Bro code,” my drunk friend whispered. “Do you need someone to cuddle with? Cuz, you know, I offered to …”

As I recalled the memory, my dick tightened as it had that night, even though I had literally just come. At the time I’d brushed it off as an aftershock or a thought about Nina as I responded, “Shut the fuck up, dude, and go to sleep. You horny dumbass.”

Thinking back on that night, I couldn’t help but wonder why my drunk best friend had offered to not only have sex with me but to cuddle me afterward.

Ugh! I had to shake my feelings about AJ! Emily’s ridiculously repeated adage popped into my brain as I stared at Guys4Guys. “The best way to get over someone is to get under someone else.” I set myself a deadline. A New Year’s resolution of sorts, to hook up with a guy before the new year.

I was secretly glad that AJ’s work schedule meant I wouldn’t see him before Thanksgiving, but I returned to town anyway to keep Emily company since she was working through Wednesday.

On Wednesday afternoon, we were hanging out in my apartment, having decided it would be better to travel Thursday morning and avoid at least some of the holiday traffic.

“Or I could ask Daddy if we could use the chopper.”

“Do you hear yourself, Emily?”

“Sorry, Mr. Middle-class Fire man . We’ll take your sad little Ferrari instead.”

“Touché.”

I was grabbing our carryout from a delivery person at my door when I heard the words “five alarm” over the police scanner that quietly mumbled in my kitchen. I raised the volume and started unpacking Chinese food. AJ’s shift was almost over, but it sounded like he and the crew were headed out to tackle a serious blaze. I kept an ear on the scanner as I gathered up plates and silverware.

A few short minutes later, the scanner started blaring about needing additional ambulances. “Ten forty-four,” came the scratchy voice. “We’ve got firefighters in the building.”

“Fuck!” I grabbed my wallet, yelled to Emily, and took off down the street.

I arrived on the scene to an image I had seen a hundred times by that point. Like that fire at my grandparents, everything was engulfed, black smoke billowing, reds and yellow dancing hungrily, chasing each other as they consumed everything they could reach.

Our chief was on-site, and I ran to him, scanning the scene. I could feel the heat from where we stood.

“You're on vacation, Dorso. What are you doing here?” He barked orders over my shoulders to two EMTs who were helping an elderly woman walk toward the row of ambulances that lined the street.

“I heard the call come in and … are there injured? Where’s? …”

He looked right at me. “We believe she's the last of the civilians. Gordon and Ramirez are still inside,” he said gravely.

I took a half step forward, and the chief stepped in front of me.

“Stand down, firefighter. You're not in uniform.”

Looking over his shoulder, I nodded, taking a calming breath. “How can I help?”

He nodded in the direction of the ambulances, and I headed toward a curb where residents with minor injuries were lined up. One of my squad members passed by me, and for a split second, I thought about knocking him down and tearing off his turnout gear so that I could throw it on and enter the building.

A collective gasp occurred while I was erasing that thought from my brain, and I watched, heart in my throat, as someone way too small to be AJ emerged from the building. I couldn’t stop myself; I charged toward Freeda along with two EMTs and screamed at her as they helped her onto a gurney and administered oxygen.

“Where is he! Where is he!” Like a light switch had been flicked, I was suddenly hysterical. It was a feeling I’d never experienced before. But I’d never been on the outside looking in before. We’d always been together, partners. When things got sticky, it had always been him and me.

“Where is he!” My voice was hoarse, and I could only tell I was sobbing from the sounds that emitted from me.

“I don’t know, Jax! I don’t know. I lost him. I’m so sorry, Jax.”

Darren was there; his big arms wrapped around me, holding me back and out of the way as the EMTs administered to Freeda. I only knew it was Darren because he was talking directly in my ear, a soothing tone, words I couldn’t comprehend. I forcibly turned us so that we were facing the burning building. He held me firmly; afraid I would run. He wasn’t wrong.

A section toward one end of the building, though not the end Freeda had exited from, collapsed. I collapsed along with it, and Darren came down with me as we crumpled to the asphalt, watching and waiting.

My mind went blank except for one thought, an image, really, of AJ, the sun creating an otherworldly shimmer behind him, a tray of coffee in hand, and the most perfect smile on his perfect face.

Words were coming out of my mouth, and Darren was responding to them. There was movement all around us. The burning building was still in front of me, but at the same time, I saw the memory of a beautiful man walking toward me, all relaxed smiles and jovial retorts. I may have said out loud, “I’ve been in love with him from the start.”

Darren may have responded, “I know, Jax. It’s okay.”

“I have to tell him.” Darren’s hold on me tightened, and the world went silent. There was no more movement, no sound, no heat from the fire. There was only Darren’s arms holding me back, and the man with the tray of coffee coming toward me. But when I looked again, there was no cardboard tray. His arms were heavy at his sides, draped in a thick layer of fire-retardant material. There was no smile, only a helmet so grimy you wouldn’t know it was yellow. But the shimmer was there, the glow surrounding him as the flames framed his bedraggled body. Darren held on to me for a few more beats. As the world began to reform around me, and I began to struggle, he said in my ear, “A few more steps, Jax. It’s not safe.”

The EMTs were racing to him, but when Darren released me, I flew past them all. He threw his helmet to the ground as I reached him, my arms wrapping around him and holding him tight. I expected us to collapse as I had done once already, and I was poised to take his weight, but he grabbed me tight around my neck and buried his head in the crook of it.

“I’m alright. I’m alright,” he repeated over and over again.

“I love you,” I said once in return.

The EMTs were on us as AJ lifted his head, his bloodshot eyes wide, looking into my soul.

The medics pulled us apart but not before AJ squeezed my shoulder and nodded in response. My heart pounded.

“Ramerez?” he questioned, and it helped me focus.

“She’s okay. On the way to Community Hospital.”

AJ was laid out on a gurney like Freeda before him, and a mask was placed over his face. He lifted it, speaking first to the EMTs, “He rides with me,” then to me. “Can you call Jamie and tell him I might be a little late.” Despite the exhaustion evident on his face, his eyes danced.

I laughed at that though I didn’t find it at all funny. It was just every emotion I had ever felt in the history of forever bubbling up at seeing AJ okay, breathing and talking and worried about getting home for Thanksgiving.

I waited until we were in the ambulance. A visit to the hospital is standard operating procedure, mainly due to concerns over smoke inhalation. I texted Jamie, reading out loud as I typed. “ All ok, but AJ needs to get a medical all clear before you guys can take off. Headed to NYCH .”

Jamie called immediately, and the medic and I both had to yell at his brother to keep his oxygen mask on.

“He’s fine, Jamie. This is standard. We’ve been through worse.” I said it with confidence, but I looked at AJ as I said it, and he nodded in agreement. My sense of relief was overwhelming.

When I hung up with Jamie, AJ reached out, and I held his hand. It was something we had never done before. I felt a shock wave cascade through my body, somehow both intense and calming, as his fingers interlocked with mine. I didn’t question it.

Once we were at the hospital and AJ was settled and allowed to take the mask off, he reached out for my hand again.

“I love you, too, bro.” He smiled that bright smile at me. Not shy or awkward or life-changing. Just two best friends, two bros having a moment. I squeezed his hand and squeezed my heart shut as best I could but not before closing my eyes for a moment and letting that overwhelming feeling wash over me one more time.

I opened them to find AJ’s eyes narrowed as he watched me. I ignored his silent question, asking one of my own instead.

“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Kid panicked, ran. Freeda and I chased. Sandol got to him first; we got caught. Separated.”

A nurse came in, insisting AJ rest for a bit before they released him.

I argued the point after she left. “You're driving all the way to Hampstead tonight. Close your eyes. Rest a little. You know that niece of yours is going to talk the whole way there, and you will not have this opportunity again before …”

“Oh, God, before I have to spend four days with my entire family!”

I laughed at him again because I knew he loved it.