I landed right on top of him, probably broke his ribs, maybe even punctured a lung. The next minutes were a haze of action as Gage and Tyler dragged us out. Throughout it all, Roman was unconscious, as he was strapped to a gurney and whisked away to Northwestern Memorial.
“Why did you go back in? I heard you handed off the kid to Simpson.”
“Someone had to!”
And that someone had to be you? The least experienced person on the crew?
He doesn’t say it but I can tell he’s thinking it. They all are. Maybe it should have been Gage but I was the last person to see Roman on that landing. “He was out cold when I found him. Flat-out on the floor. Concussed. Groggy when I woke him up. He wasn’t making it out on his own.”
Venti nods. “And what about how it started?”
A shadow falls across the entrance to the waiting area. It’s Woz, a bandage on his head, his face smoke-streaked and blotchy. On shaky legs, I walk over to him.
“Hey, Woz, you okay?”
“Yeah, Sullivan. I’ll live.”
Pity. He has maybe two inches on me but it’s not enough to keep his nose out of the trajectory of my fist. I probably should have gone for his jaw, but I’ve always found a nose punch much more satisfying.
His squeal is reminiscent of Betsey the Boar. “What the hell, Abby?”
I don’t stop there, picking up the thread of rage with a push against his chest as he clutches his nose. My knuckles sting but my righteous anger is the perfect salve. Blood drips over his lips but it only makes me angrier, recalling that Roman was injured with a wound on his forehead, a wound sustained after this guy fucked up—and that was before the man I love crashed over that bannister and broke my fall.
“You fucking asshole! You and your macho pissing contest.” Push. “You had to mark that wall and prove to everyone that you’re the man.” Shove. “The minute I mentioned Roman’s name, you saw red and ripped a hole that almost killed us!” I add another hard shove that lands him against the wall.
He’s still holding his nose. Someone grabs my arm and pulls me back. “Abby, leave it,” Gage says.
“Why? So he can weasel his way out of this like he did before?” I gesture angrily at Woz. “We don’t even know how Roman is and you’re here, you blackmailing little turd, right as rain with barely a scratch.”
Woz wipes the back of his hand across his nose, smearing the blood I raised over his stubbled cheek like war paint. “Don’t worry, your boyfriend will be fine, Sullivan, and you can go back to screwing in his office.”
So maybe I shouldn’t have reminded him that he has the goods on me, but at this point I don’t care. I lunge for him again, only this time he defends himself with a hand on my shoulder. I can take it. I am Captain Fucking America. I can do this all day.
“Get your hands off her.”
We all turn at the sound of that voice. Roman.
He’s standing at the nurses’ station, steri-strips on his forehead, arm in a sling, wearing a hospital gown with little ponies on it.
He looks amazing.
And though it has to hurt him like a mother to move, he does so anyway, right to my side.
“You okay?” he asks me.
“Am I okay? Roman, how are you even walking?”
But thank God he is, and then because I’m so relieved, I promptly burst into tears.
Some tough girl I am.
“Hey, sweetheart, it’s okay.” He pulls me into his arms and he doesn’t even flinch though I know it has to hurt him. I’ve cracked ribs before; it’s not pleasant.
“I thought—I thought the worst.”
I was holding it in like a ticking bomb while we waited to hear the news. Seeing Wozniak emerge first looking like he was going to skate clear, and with no sign of a safe, healthy Roman, turned me into a rage monster at the unfairness of it all. Not pretty thoughts, I know, but I can’t help it.
Roman is murmuring soothing words against my temple, assuring me I’m safe, he’s safe, and the world is right again. This man’s arms are the best place to be. Awareness comes at me in fits as I become conscious of how quiet it is.
Everyone is staring at me. At us.
Because there’s no doubt that we are an “us.”
I take a step back, then another. Roman levels me with an expression that reads as hurt, though that might be the pain he’s in from his numerous injuries.
“Abby, it’s okay.”
No, it’s not. I don’t say that but my head is shaking, my heart is thundering, my skin is itching with panic. Feeling so exposed makes me want to crawl into a hole beneath my feet, the grave I’ve dug for myself by getting involved with (a) my commanding officer and (b) someone who could die at any minute.
It’s hypocritical, sure. The same thing could happen to me. Anyone I’m with romantically would have to suffer, wait on a scalpel’s edge, knowing I could be hurt on a run. But I don’t want to be the one feeling that way.
I don’t want to hear that the man I love died in the line of duty.
And because it’s not enough that my entire crew knows I’ve been sleeping with my boss, the last person I want to see—even more than Wozniak—is standing not ten feet away from me, blocking all the sun.
Commissioner Chuck Sullivan.
“I can’t do this,” I say, finally putting my panic into words.
The rest of the crew are gaping. Roman’s eyes have never left my face, his expression unreadable. My father’s stormy presence is rolling toward me, a wave of disapproval, though he hasn’t moved an inch.
Roman reaches for me, but I pull away. One more second under this heated scrutiny—from all of them—will lay me out flat. I push past him, bypass my father without a word, and leave what I can’t face behind.
Times like this I wished I smoked. Though I suppose I could just inhale my turnout gear and get the same carcinogenic effects. Or walk to where the smokers are huddled like Biblical lepers twenty feet from the hospital entrance.
“Abigail,” I hear after a few minutes pacing and trying to calm down.
My father looks concerned, though I know that won’t last. I brace for the Chuck Sullivan onslaught of censure.
“Are you okay?” he asks, and my heart thaws a fraction at his apprehensive tone.
“I’ve been better.”
“You want to tell me what I just walked in on?”
Where to start? The part where I lost it on a fellow firefighter or the part where I burst into tears on realizing my lieutenant, the man I love, was going to be okay?
I figure he saw the latter so I may as well start at the beginning. “I punched one of my co-workers because he’s an ass who almost got us killed.”
His eyes widen, no doubt surprised at my candor. Thought I’d try to sugarcoat it, Dad?
“You’re not the judge and jury here, Abigail. There are procedures to follow. An investigation to open. You don’t get to decide how a fellow firefighter should be punished.” He inhales deeply. “How long have you and Rossi been seeing each other?”
I swallow my discomfort. “I don’t see how that’s relevant.”
“Oh, you don’t, do you? You’re disobeying orders, getting into physical altercations, engaging in inappropriate relationships with your superior officer, and you’ve been on the job for little more than a month. You’re just like your mother. Reckless, emotional, not suited for this kind of work at all.”