“Thought you were makin’ bank bartendin’,” I said, throwing my arm around her shoulders.
“Please,” she scoffed. “Those college boys don’t tip for shit if they’re not trying to impress you. Spoiled assholes. As soon as I made it clear I wouldn’t be serving anything but drinks, they stopped trying to impress me.”
“That’s bullshit,” I said, grabbing my beer off a table.
“I still make enough for rent,” she said with a shrug. “If we gotta eat ramen for a while, I can hang. Plus, Lily gives me her dining card all the damn time and we look enough alike that no one ever says anything.”
“Mmm, cafeteria food,” I said jokingly.
“Hey, don’t knock it,” she said, saluting me with her glass. “I’m getting fully cooked meals that I don’t have to clean up.”
“Fair enough,” I conceded.
“Still,” she said, watching her brother play. “It’s been fun, but I think we’re both ready to come home.”
“She’s still got two years left.”
“I doubt we’ll be there that long,” she replied. Then her attention was diverted. “Tommy, you suck!”
I was just chalking my cue to start the next game when all hell broke loose.
“Fire!” someone yelled from the front door. “Fire!”
“What the fuck?” I heard my dad bellow as he ran toward the door.
Every person in the room ran for the exits, and I had a sinking feeling in my gut as I realized that if this was some sort of attack, we’d be fucked. I pushed through the crowd trying to make my way outside, but was getting nowhere until Cam shoved his way past me. Following in his considerable wake, I made it outside before almost everyone else.
And then I looked around in confusion. I couldn’t see a fire. The building was fine. The garage bays were open and untouched. The grass and trees were so fucking saturated that we couldn’t get a fire going there if we tried.
“The house,” Cam said, running toward the edge of the building where my dad had broken out into a sprint. “Our fuckin’ house!”
Everything became white noise as I ran as hard as I could toward the property where Cam and Trix’s house sat. It wasn’t actually on Aces’ property, the old president who’d lived there before made sure of that, but the properties butted up against each other. The two buildings were in walking distance from each other, but I couldn’t believe how long it took me to get across the field that separated them.
The house was lit up like a fucking Roman candle.
And my son was inside.
“Call the fuckin’ fire department,” Grease screamed as he ran beside me. I didn’t know who he was talking to, but I didn’t bother to reply. There were people coming up behind us. I could hear them, but I didn’t give a shit who it was. One of them could call. I wasn’t stopping.
The thing people don’t really mention about a house fire is that they’re loud. Really fucking loud. You hear all about the smoke and the flames and the heat, but no one ever really tells you how loud that shit is. It’s practically deafening.
“Not again,” Cam said, as I caught up with his broad frame. “Fuck, not again.” He ran for the front door.
I followed him, my lungs screaming as I got closer and closer to the closed front door, but before I could make it there, I was being tackled from behind.
Chapter 23
Lily
I couldn’t see.
I couldn’t see and I was in the middle of a room.
What room was I in?
I scooted forward, ignoring the throb in my cheek as I swept my hands back and forth in front of me. After what felt like forever, my hand brushed up against something hard. I wrapped my hand around it.
It was a chair. A kitchen chair. One that Trix had been so happy to refinish after she’d found the set at a garage sale the year before.
I was in the kitchen.
I continued reaching forward and ran into a wall. No, it wasn’t a wall. It was a counter. I started to get to my feet, but dropped back down when my lungs started burning. No. No standing.
Lifting my arms above my head, I felt for the edge. I was at the corner.
The corner of the counter in the kitchen.
I knew where I was. Closing my eyes against the smoke, I clenched my hands together in front of me and urged my breathing to slow. It was getting hard to find any air, and I had to be careful with what little I had.
Pushing myself to my hands and knees, I moved away from the counter, counting. I knew my way around this house. I knew that it took thirteen steps from the counter to the hallway. Another seven steps forward and one step to the left and I’d be in the office. From the door of the office to the panic room was another five steps along the wall.