Page 36 of Christmas with Brother's Best Friends

This can’t possibly be a drill.

I push open the bathroom door and step outside and find dark smoke curling through the hallway—thick, silent, and terrifying.

Chapter seventeen

Chapter Seventeen: Ryan

My tedious conversation with the CEO of a cleaning supply company gets cut off by the sound of the blaring fire alarm, and it feels like a blessing.

“Nice to meet you,” I tell him before turning away and scanning the crowd for my friends and Emma. I haven’t seen any of them in a few minutes.

“Ladies and gentlemen, please exit through the doors immediately. This is a real fire emergency,” someone shouts.

Gasps and urgent voices surround me as people start to rush for the doors, panic setting in. I try to peer over people’s heads as a wave of them hurtles toward me, my adrenaline rushing. Where the hell is Emma?

“I heard there’s a fire in the kitchen!”

“We need to get out of here!”

“The hallway is full of smoke!”

I look toward the doors to the ballroom as people hurry out of them, my heart dropping at the sight of all the smoke in the hallway. Something really is on fire.

“Ryan!”

I whirl around and see Josh and Max slipping through the crowd toward me, their bodies getting jostled as people push and shove their way toward the exit. “Where’s Emma? Have you seen her?” My chest tightens like a vice. I’ve felt fear before—facing bad investments, tight deadlines, even relationship fallout—but nothing compares to the idea of losing her. Not Emma. Not like this.

Josh’s eyes widen, and my heart immediately stops because I already know the answer. “She’s not with you?”

I shake my head and look at Max, desperation starting to dig deep within me. “When was the last time you saw her?”

“Maybe like ten minutes ago. I don’t know. She said that she had to go to the restroom, but I thought she would be back in the ballroom by now,” Max explains, his head turning left and right to search for her through the panicking crowd.

“Damn it,” I murmur, cold fear seeping into my chest. What if someone knocks her over and she gets trampled? What if she gets trapped in the hallway and inhales all the smoke?

We need to find her. Now.

“We need to split up. Call her phone. Call out her name. Just find her,” I tell them before turning around and pushing my way through the crowd toward the doors. “Emma!”

I hear the guys calling out her name behind me, but their voices quickly get lost in the sea of voices. How are we supposed to find her like this?

It takes me forever to get through the doors, and the hallway is even worse to deal with. Smoke hangs in the air as people hurry toward the doors of the building, coughing, and struggling.

My eyes sting and water, my lungs becoming irritated and heavy. The smoke makes the hallway darker, giving me an even harder time trying to find Emma in the crowd. “Emma!”

“Ryan!”

I stop moving, feeling some people knock into me as they try to get around me. Her voice was faint, but I swear that I heard it. “Emma! Where are you?”

“Ryan!”

I turn. A flash of red hair through the smoke. Emma. I shove through the crowd, fighting the tide, heart hammering. I don’t care that people step on me, shove me, and knock into me. I’m getting to her no matter what. If I have to burn my way through this place to get her out, I will. No one else matters.

Emma lunges at me the moment that I’m close enough. She wraps her arms around my neck, coughing into my chest as I shield her from the chaotic crowd. “I don’t know what happened! I came out and there was smoke!”

“Fire in the kitchen!” I tell her, raising my voice over all the others. “I’m getting you out of here!”

“Where are the guys?” Emma asks as she hangs onto me for dear life, matching my every step as I guide her through the crowd toward the exit.