Page 17 of Up In Flames

Will

T he day started off like shit, and it only got worse.

We’d no sooner got back from putting a car fire out, and we were called out again.

This time to a structure fire in a residential area.

House fires were the worst. I hated watching people lose so much so fast. It was part of the reason I became a firefighter, to help people on their worst days.

We arrived on scene and bailed out of the truck.

The house was already a goner. Fire had eaten its way through the roof already.

Flames poured out of the second story windows, and black smoke filled the sky.

House fires stank. The smell wasn’t woodsy and nostalgic like campfire smoke, but full of toxic fumes.

Building materials. Plastic. All sorts of shit that wasn’t meant to burn polluted the air.

A couple cops had been first on scene and had their work cut out for them dealing with the frantic family. Even over the roar of the fire and Brigg’s baritone barking commands, I heard them crying and screaming.

Getting the hoses up and running was second nature even with the chaos around us.

We battled back the flames and tried to keep the fire from jumping to the next house.

Their vinyl siding was done for, though.

The heat from the blaze had melted it and left it hanging off the side of the house, but so far they’d been spared worse.

After a while of doing this job, it was easy to tell which houses were goners.

I’d known the roof was going to collapse when we pulled up, and it wasn’t long before my guess came true.

Fires were loud events, but the moment before the roof gave in, it wobbled and it was as if the world held its breath.

A strange silence fell, and then the roof caved in, and all the sound came rushing back into the void. More crying. Briggs shouting orders at us. Cops keeping the looky-loos back and out of our way.

By the time the fire was out, it had burned down to the studs. The roof was gone, and the back wall had collapsed in on the structure soon after. All that was left was wet, smoldering rubble. Ash and soot and water-logged memories.

The homeowners clung to each other, huddled under a blanket on the side of the street in lawn chairs provided by kind neighbors. No one was hurt. They didn’t have kids, and their family dog had been taken to the groomer that morning. They hadn’t even been home when the blaze started.

It was still hard to look at the destruction of their lives and say shit like they were lucky. People didn’t feel lucky when they were watching their world burn. They didn’t feel lucky when you pulled them out of a car that their two best friends had died in.

As it always happened lately, my thoughts circled back to Oren.

I felt lucky that I’d found him, but damned if I knew how to keep him.

He was newly… whatever he was. Newly not-straight.

And I was in the closet. Out to only him.

I’d stolen a few moments of happiness with him and called myself lucky.

But it was hard to hold on to that feeling when I knew it couldn’t last.

He’d either wake up one day and realize that he wasn’t into men after all.

Curiosity sated. Experiment over. Or he’d find someone who was out.

Someone who wasn’t scared of losing everything.

The truth about my sexuality would rip my life apart like a house fire and it was hard to stare at the destruction of your world and say, wow, I sure am lucky .

After we finished mopping up, the crowds dispersed. Even the homeowners found a better place to be for the moment. I guess they couldn’t stare at the end of their world any longer.

“Hell of a day,” Briggs said, sliding in next to me in the rig. We were both covered in ash and soot. Sweat and dirt.

“Yeah.” I couldn’t muster up the energy to say anything more.

He arched an eyebrow. “You okay?”

“Fine. Just tired. The fire took a lot out of me, I guess.”

“Shit sain’t easy, that’s for sure. If it was easy, anyone could do it.” Briggs kicked my foot with his and closed his eyes.

It was hard for me to imagine telling him that I’m gay. Oren had taken it well, but he hadn’t known me that long. Briggs had known me for years. The captain had known me longer. He attended the same church as my parents. The same one I used to go to back when I tried to buy into all that stuff.

I heard the way people in the church talked about gay people.

There wasn’t any outright hate, but there was a lot of sympathy for their families as if they’d lost something by their kid being gay.

I never understood it. Jimmy didn’t die; he just likes dick.

He’s still Jimmy. But they whisper as though he’d passed.

Did you hear about Jimmy? His poor family.

Those whispers would be about me one day.

It would be my parents’ turn to be whispered about.

And I couldn’t even make myself think of their reaction.

They’d always dreamed of having a big family, and then there’d been just me.

I knew they weren’t trying to pressure me or hurry me, but they still hoped that maybe I’d meet a nice girl and settle down.

Have a few kids for them to spoil. It was hard to know I was going to disappoint them.

Even if I stayed in the closet for the rest of my life, there weren’t going to be any grandkids.

No white picket fence. No big, flashy church wedding.

Those weren’t things I wanted, but I didn’t know how to tell them that.

I wanted a quiet life with a good man. Maybe a dog or a cat.

It was hard not to wonder what Oren would prefer.

I almost texted him, but the rig pulled into the station and then it was time to strip out of our gear and look after the truck.

Get everything ready for the next call out.

I went about my business, aware of Briggs and the concerned way he kept looking at me.

Clearly I had to get my shit together. I couldn’t stand to live under his scrutiny.

The man saw too much and what he didn’t see, he guessed.

If I kept giving him reasons to worry about me, eventually he’d get to the bottom of what was really bothering me.

The thought of it made me break out in a cold sweat.

Maybe I should have left Oren’s apartment when he’d told me to. Maybe I shouldn’t have stuck around. Then I wouldn’t know what he tasted like. What he felt like underneath me or how perfectly our bodies lined up.

When I did hook up with someone, I kept it quick.

It was a means to an end. Something to take the edge off.

But with Oren it was different. I wanted to savor him.

Each kiss was a memory I wanted to pin to my wall.

Now that we’d crossed those lines, there was no way I could put him back in the friend zone.

He was more than that to me. He’d been more than that all along.

There was something in Oren that understood something in me.

The aching loneliness I felt was felt by him too.

It was deeper than just needing a friend, or someone to talk to, or to get out more.

It was the kind of loneliness caused by an empty space inside, and Oren filled that empty space as if it had been made for him to slot into.

With twenty minutes left of my shift, Briggs tossed himself down on a chair next to me. I’d holed up in the kitchen, drank coffee, and stared at my phone without focusing on anything for the past hour.

“Let me take you for breakfast.” Briggs plucked my phone from my grasp and put it face down on the table.

“You’re bossy. Anyone ever tell you that?

” I should’ve been annoyed, but it was too hard to be irritated with Briggs.

His intentions were always pure. He was the kind of guy who couldn’t stand to see the people around him hurting.

Part of me hated that he could so clearly see that I was struggling with something, but another part of me was secretly glad.

“I’m not bossy. I just happen to think people are better off if they listen to me.”

“Bossy,” I shot back and resisted the urge to look at my phone as it buzzed. Oren had taken up the habit of texting me when my shift was ending.

“Breakfast. My treat.”

“Hey, why does Dorsey get breakfast?” Jonas asked.

“He’s prettier than you. And he’s housebroken.”

“Pee on a table leg one time.” Jonas sold the joke with a protruding lip.

Laughter was contagious, and some of the worry lines faded from Briggs’ expression when I joined in. I’d have to work on compartmentalizing my angst in the future so it didn’t spill over into the everyday. If Briggs was noticing how tangled up I was, then something had to give.

“Come on. I’m fucking starved.” Briggs waited for me to get to my feet.

I swiped my phone off the table and put my coffee cup in the sink. “I don’t suppose this is optional. Like I can’t just say I’m tired.”

Briggs laughed and slung an arm around me, leading me toward his truck. “We’re all tired, Dorsey. You’ll have to do better than that.”

“I have to wash my hair.”

He gave me a gentle shove toward the passenger side of his truck. “Get in the truck, Dorsey. Don’t make me make you.”

I climbed into the passenger seat and tried to think of something I could tell Briggs. Honesty was out. There was no way in hell I was ready to tell him I was gay and seeing someone.

I put my seat belt on and then checked my phone. Oren sent me a text wishing me sweet dreams. And then another. All the air in my lungs was sucked out when I read the second text.

Oren had told Hal, a guy he was friends with at work, about his recent sexual awakening. He’d been not-straight for ten minutes and was already blowing the walls off his closet, and I was trying to find ways to stay buried inside.

It was easy to hate myself at that moment. Oren’s bravery wasn’t inspiring. It made me feel like a coward. All my adult life, I’d dodged and ducked and curled in on myself trying to keep that part of me hidden from people. And here was Oren, living his life the exact opposite as I’d lived mine.

“Ready to go?” Briggs hopped in the driver’s seat and turned the key before I had a chance to say anything.

He pulled out of the parking lot and took a left, easing into the flow of traffic seamlessly.

“Look, I know the last thing you want to do is pour your guts out to me, but that’s exactly why you should.

Whatever is going on in your head is distracting you. ”

“I’m fine.” A lie. A big, fat, fucking lie.

Briggs scoffed because he knew bullshit when he smelled it. “You’re a terrible fucking liar, Dorsey.”

I begged to differ. I was a great liar. My whole life felt like a lie. It had never bothered me…

until now.

Until Oren.