First responder, second love

Chapter 6

    "Have you talked to your dad yet?" Malia asks. She's working on her laptop at the dinner table. She works from home most of the time, like today.
    "No, I didn't want to scare him." I pour some hot water in my favorite mug and hang a teabag in it for a few seconds. I walk to Malia and take a seat next to her.
    "So, you're not going to tell him anything?"
    "Would you?" Malia looks at me and I see that she's thinking about it. Why do I need to tell him something that already happened? I'm fine, I wasn't hurt that bad. I would only worry him, and I don't want that. He already thinks that me living here isn't great, he thinks I'm too far away from him. But that was exactly my plan. I needed my own life, to make my own decisions and mistakes. And of course, it wasn't easy moving out. When I went to college, I had to leave my dad behind, all alone. He has never dated another woman after my mother died, and I felt sorry for him. I wanted him to be happy, and if that meant dating, I would have been fine with that. But he never gave it a try, and I'm afraid he never will. My mother died when I was about ten years old. She was a beautiful woman; she was strong-minded and had a good sense of humor. But she also almost never talked about hard things, about her feeling or her pain. So, I never really knew in how much pain she was, because she has never shown that. And maybe that's why my father and I don't talk about the serious things nowadays. We keep are problems for ourselves and share the light things.
    "I think I would tell my parents, even though they would probably drag me back home."
    "You wouldn't survive that," I say to Malia with a smile on my face.
    "That's totally true." Malia's parents are both lawyers at a big firm, and they were very protective of her. Growing up, Malia and her brothers were barely ever home alone. When their parents were working, there was a nanny taking care of them, which latest way too long. It's funny because Malia is the one who's the most independent of us. And going to college meant she could finally escape her parents. But all that doesn't mean she never tells her parents anything.
    "What time is your date?" Holly asks, walking out of her bedroom. She makes a high ponytail with her long curly hair and takes her jacket from the couch.
    "Where are you going to?" Malia asks her.
    "I'm going for a run. But what time is your date, Sammy?" she asks again.
    "It's not a date, and in two hours."
    "Well, don't you need to get ready then?"
    "Yeah, what are you going to wear?" Malia asks.
    "I'm not going to overthink it; I'm just meeting him at the firehouse."
    "Doesn't mean you can't look nice," Holly says, and she opens the door. "I want to know everything when you get back," she says before she walks out of the apartment.
    "Do you need help choosing what to wear?"
    "No, I can manage on my own," I answer and take my tea to my room.

About two hours later I'm driving up to the firehouse and I park the car. And turn the motor off and stare at the building for a few minutes. I feel my heart beating in my chest and my hands feel kind of sweaty. I'm nervous going inside and meeting Evan Buckley. I know I'm the one who sent him that message, who asked to meet up, but I'm regretting it at this moment. I take a deep breath and unlock the door. I get out of the car and walk up to the entrance.
When I get inside, I see two big firetrucks in the room, with an ambulance next to them. I look around and see a few men working on the firetrucks. They're cleaning the vehicles. I walk past them, past the firetrucks, and I see a familiar face. One of the firefighters of that day is walking up to me.
    "You must be Sammy," the guy says.
    "Yes."
    "I'm Eddie."
    "We're you there, when your team got me out of that ambulance?"
    "Yes, I was. How are you?"
    "I'm fine, no major injuries."
    "Glad to hear. Buck is upstairs, by the way."
    "Thanks, and thank you for saving me. I know it wasn't just Evan who got me out of that situation. Teamwork, right?"
    "Yeah, definitely teamwork," Eddie reacts with a smile. I walk past him to the stairs.
When I get upstairs, I see Evan standing at the kitchen counter. He's talking to one of his colleagues. The woman he's talking with is smiling at me, and a second later, Evan turns around and looks at me.
    "You're here," is all he says, but my nerves are admittedly gone, and I have no idea why. He walks up to me and shows a smile. He's wearing his tight uniform with short sleeves, which means his arms are showing. I see some small tattoos on them, and I can see his muscles move.
    "I'm glad I got your text. I was curious how you were doing."
    "You came to the hospital for me, do you do that often?"
    "No, we're not supposed to. I actually got in trouble for that."
    "I sometimes wonder how the people I helped are doing, if they're okay. I never got in trouble for checking on them, but I get it."
    "Thanks for saying that. Can I get you something to drink?"
    "Sure."
    "Would you like some tea?"
    "Yes, please," I answer him and walk with him to the kitchen. The woman he was talking with is still standing at the counter.
    "Hen, this is Sammy," he says to her.
    "Hello, I'm Henrietta, but everybody calls me Hen," the woman says to me with a smile.
    "Do you all have nicknames? Because I heard that guy downstairs calling you Buck."
    "Yes, they call me Buck, indeed." Buck pours hot water in a mug and I pick a tea from the box on the kitchen counter.
    "How are you feeling?" the woman called Hen asks me.
    "I am good, thanks to you guys. I really thought that I was going down with that ambulance."
    "Must have been scary has hell," Hen says.
    "It wasn't great."
    "Want to sit on the couch?" Buck asks with the mugs in his hands.
    "Yeah sure." We walk to the couch and sit down. Buck puts the two mugs of tea on the coffee table and sits back on the couch.
    "Are you back at work?" he asks.
    "I go back to work tomorrow."
    "What do you do exactly?"
    "I am working to be a surgeon, like my friend Holly you have met."
    "That's impressive."
    "You're not so bad yourself. Saving people from situations like mine, that's not nothing. But for you it's just work, right?"
    "Yeah, just like you." I feel a smile on my face, and all the nerves I had in the car are staying away. Sitting next to him, to the guy who saved my life, feels good. I feel comfortable sitting here on this couch, something I didn't aspect to feel at all.
    "I want to thank you for saving my life. And I know it's your job, but you prevent me from dying."
    "It's fine, Sammy, I'm just glad you took my hand when I asked you to. Not everyone does that."
    "I know. Losing a patient is awful, it's like you failed."
    "Yeah, and I don't like to fail."
    "Who does?" I take a sip of my tea and sit back on the couch. The television is on but the sound is turned off. I look at the screen, and suddenly I see the same face I have seen in my dreams the last couple of nights.
    "Can you turn the sound on?" I ask Buck. He takes the remote from the coffee table and unmutes the TV.
    "They haven't found him yet. The police have no idea where the man could be hiding out these last few days. It looks like he outsmarted them. They do know that he is not alone. He had help escaping that ambulance a few days back. And we now know that one of the people working on that ambulance was an accomplice. Who is probably still alive and with the escaped murderer," one of the reporters tells the news anchor.
    "What the hell," I hear Buck next to me say. I can't speak, I just stare at the screen.
    "Are the police worried about the plans of the escaped prisoner?" the news anchor asks the reporter.
    "Yes, they're very worried indeed. The man was in prison for raping and killing two women. And they're worried he will continue this."
    "But doesn't that mean they would find him?"
    "That's a possibility."
    "Are they really saying that another woman has to be killed before they can find him?" I hear Buck ask angrily.
    "I... I don't know."
    "Sammy, are you okay?" he asks. I feel his hand on my shoulder, put I can't move, not right now. They have no idea where he is, or what he is going to do. What if he's coming back? She didn't worry before because somehow, she thought that the police would find him soon. And did one of those men really helped him escape and killing the other two people on that ambulance? Why would somebody do that?
    "Sammy, can I do anything?" I hear Buck ask.
    "I need to go," is all I say, and I stand up from the couch. I walk down the stairs to the doors. When I get outside, I try to calm my breathing. I lean with my back against the car and stare at the distance. I breathe in and I breathe out.