“Krissy!”
“Okay, but if I come get you, you know they’ll just follow us, right?”
Becca hadn’t thought about that. An idea came to her after a moment’s consideration.
“The alley behind my house,” she said. “Pull your car in there and I’ll escape out the back gate.”
“Ooh, this is exciting! Running from the press like celebrities! I’ll be there in ten minutes. Where are we going?”
Becca decided the hell with herbal tea. She needed coffee.
“La Vida Mocha,” she said.
“Perfect,” Krissy replied. “And, Becca…?”
“Yeah?”
Krissy was silent for a few moments.
“I always knew your job was dangerous,” she began, “but when I saw that video…I mean…I had no idea. I know I’ve been kind of joking around right now but…when I first saw the video I cried. You came so close to dying…”
Becca heard Krissy’s voice break just before a tiny sob escaped. She felt her eyes watering.
“It’ll take a lot more than a burning building for you to get rid of me,” she said, her own voice a little unsteady now.
“I’m holding you to that,” Krissy replied, sniffling.
“See you in a few minutes,” Becca said.
Chapter 4
Krissy hadn’t been lying when she told Becca about the crying. When she had watched that news video on YouTube and then learned that it was Becca on that roof, saving the other firefighter’s life but seeming so close to falling off herself, Krissy had uttered an anguished gasp just before tears had started falling from her eyes.
And telling Becca about it just now had started the crying again.
She couldn’t lose Becca! She just couldn’t!
Of course, she knew that being a firefighter meant Becca was in dangerous situations rather frequently—and Krissy was proud of her friend for that. To her, Becca was the bravest and most selfless woman she knew. But, goddamn! The footage Krissy had seen went beyond her normal ideas of what “danger” meant when it came to Becca…
Pulling an unconscious person out of a burning—single-story—building.
Knocking down a door in a different burning—but still single-story—building and having to duck out of the way of a backdraft.
Getting a kitten out of a really, really, tall tree.
Stuff like that.
But according to what Krissy had read—as well as seen on YouTube—about last night’s fire, Becca had been in a sky-high inferno. Not only that, but the reason Becca had been on the roof of the building was because all other avenues of escape had been cut off for her by the fire.
Getting ready to leave for Becca’s house, Krissy had to stop and steady herself at one point, imagining how frightening that must have been for her friend. She wondered: did Becca even get afraid at moments like those? Krissy wouldn’t be surprised to learn that her best friend really was like Wonder Woman, so tunnel-focused on saving others that her mind didn’t have space to be frightened.
Despite the rush to get to Becca’s, Krissy still needed a shower. She had just spent the morning and early afternoon having sex with two women; therefore, it was necessary. Nonetheless, she didn’t dawdle in the shower, cleaning herself efficiently and quickly, but using enough of her Olay apple and hibiscus body wash to guarantee Becca wouldn’t smell a blonde and a brunette on her.
Out of the shower, she quickly blow-dried her hair and pulled it into a ponytail. It wasn’t as bouncy as it normally was, but it would do. Besides, it seemed like Becca would be too stressed to notice anyway. Despite her certainty that Becca would not be noticing much, Krissy still chose a supercute outfit, dressing her lean five-eight frame entirely in Lululemon: copper-toned yoga shorts and a soft-pink racerback yoga bra, the color of which matched the scrunchie holding her ponytail.
Another trip to her bathroom mirror, this time to make sure her eyes weren’t still red from the bit of crying she had done earlier. They looked fine but she still added a touch of eyeshadow to bring out the blue of them more and then swiped on a coppery lip gloss which matched her shorts.
After slipping on white Adidas sneakers and grabbing her tote purse, she left her house.