Series: Fever Falls Series by Riley Hart
Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 85157 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 426(@200wpm)___ 341(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85157 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 426(@200wpm)___ 341(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
My adrenaline started pumping, transporting me to another world, that place I went when I was heading into the flames.
We were dressed and in the engine in no time flat, the sirens loud, fueling the spike of courage and determination we needed to do what we did.
As always in a situation like this, Mom was there, in my head…joined by Kenny…Lincoln…and now Ash. All the people I had to make it home to.
I shook those thoughts. They were okay. We would be okay. This was what we did.
Flames danced in the distance, a large billow of smoke, and I felt the familiar stab of guilt that I was letting Kenny down tonight. I wouldn’t be able to coach…but Ash could. I didn’t like depending on anyone else, even other assistant coaches, but this was…this was Ashton Carmichael.
Fire. Won’t be at the game. Can you let Mom and Kenny know, Coach? You got this.
The reply was almost instantaneous. Be careful. I kind of like you. Get yourself home safe. I’ll take care of everything else.
In that moment, I knew I was one hundred percent gone for Ashton Carmichael.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Ashton
Let’s see how well Ashton Carmichael can perform under pressure!
Fires were scary as shit.
My nerves were on edge from the second Beau texted me earlier in the day. I played it off well when what I really wanted to say was, Can you just come home, please? ’K, thanks, bye.
Obviously, this was what he did. He always had, and I wasn’t freaking out like this every day, but I’d heard the tremor in his voice when we’d talked about his job, the knowledge of just how dangerous it was. How was I supposed to deal with this all the time? And wait…all the time? Apparently, I was getting a little ahead of myself too.
Trying to ignore those thoughts, I called his mom and offered to pick Kenny up and take him with me. I went to Campbell’s Confections, and she told me she’d meet us at the game; then Kenny came out and got in the car with me.
The last thing I wanted was to overreact and stress him out, but who the fuck knew—Kenny seemed to have his shit together more than most people I knew. Maybe was more settled about Beau running toward fires than I was. I just wanted to kidnap Beau.
From the passenger seat, Kenny asked, “Is Beau your boyfriend?” prompting me to swerve into the other lane, get honked at, and almost kill my maybe boyfriend’s brother. I was doing awesome.
“Huh?” I answered with, my hands suddenly sweaty and my heart running a marathon. Now I had to worry about Beau and figure out how in the fuck to answer this.
“Do you love Beau? I love Lori.”
My throat swelled. Shit, I couldn’t breathe. I suddenly couldn’t fucking breathe. Love? How did we get from boyfriends to love? And was this something everyone assumed? That we were boyfriends in love?
Oh God. I was going to puke.
Not that I didn’t want to be Beau’s boyfriend, because let’s be honest, I really fucking did. And we maybe already were, and we’d kind of talked about it, but it was different talking to Beau than anyone else. That didn’t change the fact that I didn’t know what the fuck to do. I wasn’t ready for anyone to know. What if everyone knew?
I settled on, “Who’s Lori?” as I gripped the steering wheel and held back the urge to vomit while running the car off the road with the brother of my boyfriend, whom I might be in love with, in it. Beau was going to kill me. He was going to have to fight a big-ass fire and then put out the extra energy to kill me.
“She’s from the center…she’s pretty. Do you think Beau is pretty?”
I swallowed hard. Beau was sexy as hell. He got my dick hard in no time flat, and yeah, he was beautiful, but I was pretty sure I wasn’t supposed to say all that to Kenny.
“Does Lori know how you feel?” I asked.
“Yes. I’m going to ask Beau to take us on a date.”
My heart melted right there on the damn spot. I wanted to take Beau on a date with Lori and Kenny.
But I wouldn’t…not yet. Even just thinking about it made me dizzy. It was one thing when it was just me and Beau, but I didn’t know how to do this with other people. Christ, what would my old teammates say? I’d been the talk of the league for years, and I didn’t want that anymore.
“Is Beau your boyfriend?”
“No,” jumped out of my mouth before I could think about it. Bile burned my throat. It felt wrong…it was wrong, but then, I wasn’t out. I didn’t know what was expected of me. Beau would understand, wouldn’t he?