“You fucking moron. What were you thinking?” Mauro yells at me as I lay on a stretcher with someone looking the burns over, taking my vitals.

“Shut up. I had to help. He was falling down. He needed oxygen.”

“You know rules, Luca, you wait until we’re over the line.” He runs his hands down his soot-covered face.

Mauro was out of the building, trying to grab me when I ran over to help a firefighter down on the sidewalk with an oxygen mask. The mini explosion that propelled me fifty feet, landing me right on my back wasn’t supposed to happen. At least in my mind.

“You always have to cross that line. Why can’t you ever play it safe?”

“Mauro, this isn’t calming him down. His pulse is skyrocketing. We have no idea about his back and I’m pretty sure these are second-degree burns on his legs,” Javin, another paramedic, tells him.

“Cris is calling Lauren. She’ll be here. You’re not the one we’re supposed to worry about.” Mauro runs his dirty hands through his sweat-slicked hair.

“I’m good. I’m talking to you, aren’t I?”

“You don’t get it, Luca. You have a fiancée to go home to now. A future. Someone invested in you. Trusting you to keep the risks of your job to a minimum. Someone you have to put before yourself.”

“Stop with the big brother lecture.”

Javin puts an IV into the top of my hand to prep me for whatever they’re going to do at the hospital. I know the drill well enough to predict what his next step will be.

“I don’t think you’ll ever grow up. Lord help Lauren because one day she’s going to get a phone call that will destroy her.”

Mauro’s talking to himself more than to me now, but his words repeat over and over in my head. Destroy and Lauren the two prominent ones.

“You just can’t do whatever you want. Why don’t you understand that?”

I don’t fight him anymore. Mostly because my mind is swimming with doubts again. Doubts about something happening to me and her not knowing how I really feel. Mauro can fuck himself if he thinks he’s going to make me feel guilty for running to help someone. He would’ve done the same. It’s what we do. So I really don’t care what’s up his ass now. My only concern is that I need Lauren to know that I love her.

I love her. I love Lauren.

I’ve never loved anyone before and accepting it feels like being bowled over by a tidal wave.

Telling Lauren is an urgent need inside me, like my heart is hammering with fists on my rib cage to get out.

“I need someone’s phone. Where’s mine?”

“In your own truck.”

“Give me yours.” I look to Mauro who narrows his eyes.

“Mine is in my truck. I had Trevor call Cris and he’ll make the phone calls.”

My mission is to memorize Lauren’s number as soon as I get my phone back.

“She’ll be at the hospital?” I ask my brother.

“Yeah.” He doesn’t look at me, like my face would sicken him.

In my mind, I figure out my list of tasks while Javin works on me. First is to admit my feelings to Lauren, Then I need to tell my family the truth. It’ll be nice to have it all out on the table and then we can start our real life together.

Luca and Lauren forever.