CHAPTER ELEVEN | BRADY
I kept a firm grip on the firehose, but I couldn’t stop my mind from wandering back to Cassidy. I was supposed to be washing the engine, but all I could think about was how I’d guide my own firehose into her soft curves the next time I saw her…
“January!” a voice shouted in my ear. I startled, losing my grip on the thick length of hose. The rubber hose curled from the pressure of the water, and before I could stop it, the nozzle had snaked around and blasted me with a wave of icy water.
I regained control of the hose, but it was too late: the front of my jeans and my Firehouse 56 t-shirt were soaked.
I glared over my shoulder, and my eyes locked on the culprit: my brother.
“What the hell, man!” I shouted. I dropped the hose onto the ground and dodged the wild spurts of water as I made my way to the shut-off valve on the side of the station. I gave the valve a few twists, and the hose immediately went limp as the water supply tapered to a stop.
“I called your name, like, fifteen times!” Josh shrugged, tossing me a towel so I could dry myself off.
“I was washing the engine,” I said. “I probably couldn’t hear you over the sound of the hose.”
“It wasn’t the hose,” Josh shook his head. “You just weren’t paying attention. You must have been in dreamland or something. I literally watched you rinse the same section of the engine for over five minutes.”
“Hmm,” I shrugged dismissively, burying my face in the white cotton towel. “I guess I just have a lot on my mind…”
“You guess?” Josh chuckled. He shook his head, eyeing me incredulously. “That’s an understatement, don’t you think?”
“What are you talking about?” I tossed the soiled towel over my shoulder and got to work, wrapping up the hose. Josh followed behind me.
“Well it must be a lot of work, planning a wedding with someone you weren’t even dating last week.”
“Oh,” I sighed. “That.”
“Exactly,” he snapped back. “That.”
I finished wrapping up the length of hose, then I went back for the bucket of cleaning supplies that I had left in front of the vehicle bay.
“What’s going on, Brady?” Josh asked, still following behind me. “I asked you point-blank if you wanted to settle down, and you told me some bullshit excuse about how you ‘hadn’t found the right woman yet.’ Then a few days later, you’re engaged?!”
“I guess I found her,” I shrugged. I lifted the supply bucket onto my hip and started to walk back towards the vehicle bay, but Josh blocked my path.
“No,” he snapped. He was angry. Very angry. I hadn’t seen my brother this way in years.
When our father died, Josh had struggled to find an outlet for years and years worth of pent-up anger and aggression. While I found my place in the 101st Airborne, Josh struggled to find his own calling or purpose in life. After living in our father’s shadow for so long, he wasn’t sure what to do with himself once he was free.
It had taken years for Josh to get over the anger and resentment, and channel his energy into something positive. When he asked me to help him get a job at Firehouse 56, I had hoped that it was the start of a fresh chapter; the first step on the right path.
But seeing the flash of anger and hurt in his eyes, I wondered if my brother was still carrying that grudge, all of these years later. And I wondered, too, if I had just replaced our father as the subject of Josh’s anger.
I tried to look my brother in the eye, but I couldn’t. The pang of guilt that was spreading through my chest was too strong. There were a lot of things I’d done in my lifetime that I wasn’t proud of, but staring my brother in the eye as I lied to him probably topped the list.
“You didn’t ‘find’ anyone,” he said, the anger still rattling through his voice. “You’ve known Cassidy Laurent all your life. We both have.”
“You’re right,” I nodded. I looked down at the pavement below my feet. The guilt was building, growing heavier and heavier as it filled my chest. “I guess we just started hanging out again, and we both felt a spark, and…”
My voice trailed off.
What if I just tell him the truth? He’ll understand, right?
I knew that Mrs. Laurent had earned a special place in Josh’s heart for looking after us as kids, just like she would always have a special place in my own heart. But would Josh understand why I had agreed to Cassidy’s proposal? Would he understand why I was willing to go to such extreme lengths, just to make an old woman happy?
I sighed. How could he understand? It was a crazy plan… and it was even crazier, now that Cass and I had crossed the line and made our relationship physical. We were playing the role of husband and wife, for all intents and purposes. I had promised to be monogamous… she was moving into my house… we were going on dates and telling all of Hartford that we were engaged. Hell, we even picked out a wedding cake.
The line between real and fake wasn’t just blurred; it was obliterated. How could I make sense of it all to Josh, when it didn’t even make sense to me? How could I answer his questions, when I wasn’t even entirely sure where this was going?
“And… what?” Josh snapped, waiting for me to fill in the blank. “You just sat down, had a couple of drinks, and said to yourselves, ‘fuck it, let’s get married!’?!”
Pretty much, I thought, but I remained silent.
“She’s not even wearing an engagement ring,” Josh pointed out. He was sounding more and more exasperated. “And I talked to the Colonel on the phone today -- he had no idea you were engaged!”
“You told the Colonel?!” my eyes shot up in a panic.
“Yes, I told him,” Josh snapped. “The more important question is: why didn’t you?”
“I was going to,” I lied quickly. That definitely wasn’t true. I didn’t care if all of Hartford believed that Cassidy and I were getting hitched… there was only one person I wanted to leave in the dark: my grandfather, Colonel Thomas Hudson.
My father’s father was strict, stern, and sometimes downright cold. Case in point: the fact that he had insisted that my brother and I refer to him as ‘Colonel’ instead of ‘Grandpa.’
Even after retiring from his decades-long career as a high-ranking official in the military, the Colonel still had a nose that could sniff out bullshit from ten miles away. Which was why I had decided that the less he knew about all of this, the better.
“What’s going on, Brady?” Josh asked, staring me intently in the eye.
I sighed.
“Ok, look,” I said. “We’re not really getting married. I mean… we are technically getting married, but it’s not real.”
Josh blinked at me, waiting for me to explain myself. I sighed again, then I continued:
“You know how Mrs. Laurent’s been fighting cancer for a while now?”
Josh nodded slowly.
“Well… she’s in remission, but she’s not getting her hopes up. She’s in bad shape, and she’s just trying to make the most out of the time that she has left. And…”
Stop babbling, I reminded myself.
“...anyway,” I continued. “One thing that’s really important to her, is that she sees Cass get married and settle down.”
Josh frowned, but he said nothing.
“Cass doesn’t want to get married, but she does want to make her mom happy. And since I’ve always been pretty close with the family anyway, she figured that I was the best man for the job.”
“So… let me get this straight,” Josh said, the frown on his forehead deepening. “You are pretending to be get married, all so that Mrs. Laurent can die believing some bullshit lie?”
“Well when you put it that way, it sounds…”
“Fucked up?” Josh finished for me. “Yeah. It is pretty fucked up. You’re lying to everyone. And how long are you supposed to keep this charade going? What if Mrs. Laurent lives for another decade? Are you stuck together until she croaks?”
“Don’t talk about Mrs. Laurent like that,” I snapped. My brother recoiled, surprised by my tone.
“I know this all sounds kind of... unorthodox,” I admitted, lowering my voice. “But these last few days that I’ve spent with Cassidy… they’ve felt more real than anything I’ve felt in a long time, maybe ever. I think we might actually be giving this a shot.”
“Are you even listening to yourself?” Josh fumed, shaking his head in disbelief. “You think having a couple of fun days together justifies what you’re doing?!”
Josh shook his head in disgust. “Maybe it feels ‘real’ now, but that doesn’t make it any less of a lie. Once the excitement wears off and you get bored, this is all going to blow up. And then you’ll be breaking two hearts: Cassidy’s, and Mrs. Laurent’s.”
I swallowed back the anger that was building in my chest.
“What happened to all that crap you said about me settling down?” I demanded. “Last week, you were practically begging me to meet someone and get married. Now I’m telling you that there is someone, and you’re acting like I’m the Big Bad Wolf. Which is it, Josh?”
“I was talking about dating someone,” Josh said. “Not staging a sham marriage to deceive the woman who practically raised us!”
He shook his head again.
“I might not have always liked you,” Josh said, “But I’ve always respected you. But after all of this? I don’t know if I can say that anymore.”
Before I could say anything, he turned on his heel and stomped back towards the firehouse.