Chapter 4-14
618 Words
Two-Tall tried razzing Akbar for not being in his bunk last night. For leaving the morning before without rousting Tim from his rack.
When neither worked, Tim looked at him strangely. “Is Victoria back in town?”
“Not that I know of.” They’d had a couple of good nights together before the New Tillamook Burn had set in. He’d jumped into the fire and she’d caught her flight back to a Boston banker’s job. Couple of nice texts back and forth, but that was long since done.
“You didn’t go back and get my little blond, did you?” Two-Tall’s little blond had been taller than Akbar, though not as tall as Laura.
“Nope!” This was getting fun. Clearly Tim had blocked out the woman at the Doghouse that Akbar had declared a “washout.” Well, if that was a washout, bring it on.
He kept Tim going for almost an hour. At first it was impressive just how many different women he came up with from Akbar’s past. Then it started to get a little depressing. He sounded even more shallow than, well, he was.
Then Jeannie came by and asked if he’d passed on her hello to his new girlfriend. It was enough to trigger some synapse in Tim’s brain.
“No! It can’t be. The hot brunette?”
“Thanks a lot,” he mouthed at Jeannie.
She tugged on the bill of her LA Dodgers hat as if tipping it to say he was welcome, and headed off whistling Take Me Out to the Ball Game.
“You tagged a local?”
“She’s not a damned tree marked to cut,” Akbar snarled at him and headed over to the radio room atop the control tower to get away.
Damn! He had to get his head together. That line was milder than most things he and Tim teased back and forth about the women they bedded. He’d never reacted like that. Of course, the women he’d “tagged” before hadn’t been like Laura.
He climbed the tower stairs slowly. By every definition of his life so far, he’d “tagged” Laura.
But he hadn’t.
Not merely “had s*x” either. They’d made love. No two ways about it. How had he gotten to a place where that was the exception rather than the rule?
That stopped him cold halfway up the tower stairs.
He wanted to blame it on Two-Tall, but he feared that finger pointed the other way around. Akbar had been the bad influence. Back in high school, he’d pretty much been a loner. The ultimate nerdy geek—he’d taken every AP class and even been in Chess Club for crying out loud. He’d had so many credits, he could have earned a BA in two years, but never got around to it once he’d jumped fire.
He shuddered at that memory of his former self and continued up the stairs. Then he landed the job as a seasonal on an MHA fire-crew when he was hard up for cash and it was the only work he could find. He hadn’t thought it beneath him for long. He loved the work. He’d bulked up, filled out with muscle from the hard labor.
Suddenly the girls were paying attention to him. Man, but the lonely outsider had eaten that up, hadn’t he? The ultimate ego stroke. Drop the “wildland firefighter” line and watch ‘em fall. A few years later when he added “smokejumper” to that, they’d fallen on their backs ready to go. Johnny Jepps had been lost in a world of willing women.
He gave them the best thanks he could, but he never gave for long.
Akbar the Great fought fire and mowed down the girls to ease something inside. Some lack he couldn’t put his finger on. He stopped with his hand on the radio room doorknob. Whatever the lack was, whatever he’d been hunting for, some part of him had found it and really, really liked the way it felt.
He couldn’t wait to see Laura again and let whatever that was suddenly make sense once more.
- Writer
