Blue was burning up. The heat was rising in the hallway of the apartment building as his firefighters fiddled around with the door, trying to make entry into the unit that was on fire. Stone and Wade were off on vacation, and the two guys filling in were brand new and apparently had never seen a simple apartment door before. Nikolai was out at the pump panel, pumping water that they would need—if they ever made it inside.

Every second that passed, Blue’s discomfort climbed. His guys would have had the door open, the fire extinguished, and the residents moved back in by now. But Blue had to give these new guys a chance to do it themselves before jumping in and taking their tools away.

The increasing heat was just too much like his life since the skybox incident. Even after nine days he was still burning up about it. Lucy hadn’t returned his texts. Hadn’t even seen them as far as he could tell, and every call he made got the same unavailable pre-recorded message.

Ten more seconds, Blue told himself as the two new guys struggled with the Halligan tool and sledgehammer, trying to force the lock.

He still couldn’t get the headlines and quips from the news stories out of him mind. “Former New Mexico State Standout Blue Reed puts the hurt on Lobo fans intent on trashing Dad’s skybox.” “Six dozen hospitalized after rivalry turns ugly.” “NMSU Athletic Director to step down after mascot scandal in his skybox.”

The media always got the story wrong—firefighting had taught him that—and this time they’d left out the biggest character in it. Lucy. That was a blessing. He didn’t want her name and reputation dragged through the mud and criticized in every online forum as his father’s had been. In small part, blame was being put where it was deserved—on his dad. Jesse’s little punk lawyer friends had so far escaped unscathed. They’d taken a good beating from some fans and would probably come out on top once the lawsuits from both sides went through.

The way the situation had ended up for everyone, and especially his relationship with Lucy being severed at the head, made him growl with anger. That and the ineffective actions of his current crew. They were cooking like tri-tip in a smoker here and these guys were playing patty-cake with the door lock.

“Just bash it!” yelled Blue. The door was already smoking on this side from heat applied on the other side so there was no use trying to salvage any part of the door itself. They just needed to get in there and put some water on the fire so it would stop spreading. There were two stories above this one, and in this kind of building with large common hallways, evacuations could be tricky.

The young firefighter, Maxwell, was slapping at the doorknob with the sledgehammer as if he was afraid he was going to hurt it. At this rate, Blue and his crew would be sitting in this hallway when the building was a pile of cold embers. Enough sitting around and waiting for these booters to figure it out.

“Give it to me,” said Blue, stepping up next to one young firefighter.

Reluctantly, Kendall held out the sledgehammer. Even through the mask, Blue could see the kid’s reluctance. At least Kendall knew enough to realize that Blue was about to do his job for him.

Blue grabbed the sledgehammer and flexed his hands around the handle, feeling his smile stretch from one edge of his face mask to the other.

“Get that nozzle ready and stand back!” Blue ordered, then he took aim at door knob, pulled back and focused all of his pent up anger in the head of the sledge. The doorknob flattened under the blow and the door hasp came free of the catch, but something big and heavy blocked the door from flying open. Flames and the accompanying heat licked out from the narrow crack.

Blue drew back again but this time hit the door on the hinge side. All three hinges came loose, but again, something in front of the door prevented it from flying across the room. Someone had planned this fire and didn’t want pesky firefighters to get inside and extinguish it too quickly.

There were other ways into this apartment, and nothing was going to keep Blue and his guys out. With the head of the sledge, he signaled the wall a couple feet from the door and his guys readied the nozzle. Blue went to work on the wall, bashing it like a kid with a piñata.

Seconds later, fire poured through a two-foot by two-foot hole in the wall.

“Hit it, boys!” called Blue, stepping out of their way. The hallway was really hot now, but the water being applied by his men would take care of that soon enough. Blue was sucking in huge breaths from his air tank, feeling so much better after bashing through a wall and finally facing the beast that had eluded him.

If only there was a wall between him and Lucy that a sledgehammer would work on.

The fire was out and the investigators were inside doing their thing, working out the details of how the disgruntled resident who was being evicted had lit the place on fire instead of moving away. Blue, Nikola, and the two young firefighters were outside loading hose back onto the engine.

The new guys were on the ground feeding the hose up to Blue and Nikola “I’m flying back to New Mexico in the morning,” said Blue.

“Oh good,” said Nikola. “It’s about time you and Lucy put aside your petty arguments and make up.”

“Petty arguments?”

“Petty,” repeated Nikola. “Puny. Paltry.”

“Yes, congratulations on learning alliteration, but you don’t know what you’re talking about.” Blue had told him everything that had happened and shown him the video and the commentary and news coverage. How could he claim that dozens of people being injured, his dad being fired, and Lucy blocking him from his life was insignificant?

“Hold,” called one of the guys from below, and Blue and Nikola each took a knee to give them a minute to make the hose coupling connections below.

“I see this every day in America. People making fights over stupid, inconsequential things.”

“This is not stupid or inconsequential,” insisted Blue.

“Ready,” called the guys from the ground.

Nikola and Blue began pulling the hose up and laying it in layers again. “In my country,” said Nikola, “people fight, they die, they kill. If you are a Serb and I am a Bozniak, that is enough reason for us to kill each other. So when I see people act like sports rivalry is a real reason to hate or to treat another person badly, I cannot condone it.”

“This isn’t about Lobos and Aggies, Nikola.” Blue hadn’t heard him open up about life back in his country very much before. Apparently on the top of a fire engine, hours after dark, was as good a place as any for deep conversations. “I … there’s more than just …” More than just what? Blue didn’t want the divide between him and Lucy, and no matter the cause, he just wanted it to be over.

“Last brass,” called Maxwell, handing up the end of the hose.

“Petty,” said Nikola.

Blue was inclined to agree with him, but that didn’t mean he knew how to make anyone else believe it. “The trip to New Mexico isn’t for that,” said Blue, wishing more than ever that it was. “I have to talk to the police again in Las Cruces. And my dad’s lawyers.” Blue wasn’t in anyone’s crosshairs, but they all wanted to talk to him to figure out exactly what had happened and build their cases, whether for or against the Reed family.

As Nikola climbed down the back of the engine he said, “Maybe someone will figure out how to make things better instead of worse for once.”

“We can only hope,” said Blue, turning to dismount.

He could only hope.