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Russo is at the stove, cooking up breakfast, and I’m thankful he always starts his shifts by making breakfast. The man could be a world-class diner chef if there were such a thing. My stomach rumbles from the scent of bacon and hash browns.

I notice a few stragglers from the departing shift hanging around to eat before they head home. Can’t say I blame them.

“You win Saturday night?” Russo calls to me.

Everyone knows about and has tried to get in on my family’s weekly poker games. Mostly because they think they can make easy money on the Thermos Crew. Little do they know.

“Down, but not all the way.” I sit in the living area that’s open to the kitchen.

“Want to lose the rest? We can get a game going tonight. I’m happy to make you part with your money,” Fleming says, peeking around his phone with a shit-eating smirk.

We bust each other’s balls as I look around the room. They’d all hate me if they knew I’d kissed Collins. They’d probably stand in line, all of them wanting their turn to kick my ass, and I can’t even blame them.

Caleb was my best friend, my fellow firefighter, my brother.

Everything about that night is still etched in my brain.

We’d been called to a residential fire outside of town in the middle of the night. It was early spring, and the ground was muddy. I remember how my boots suctioned in the mud as Caleb and I approached the old house in search of the homeowner. A neighbor had reported the fire and that there was one person who lived inside who was unaccounted for.

Heading out to the call, we all knew that it had the potential to turn nasty. A lot of the homes built out there had balloon framing, allowing the walls to act as a sort of chimney that helped the fire move quickly.

Time was of the essence if we were going to save the homeowner.

Once we were inside, conditions deteriorated faster than expected. The fire was in the walls, not just the rooms.

I got that feeling—the one that every firefighter knows—the instinct that tells you things have shifted out of your favor. Caleb was in the lead. We were in the hallway, and visibility was near zero. I was about to tell him that my instincts were telling me we needed to retreat when we heard the loud thump.

To this day, I can’t be sure whether it was the homeowner or the house itself. It’s something I’ve run over in my mind again and again and again but still can’t decipher. People underestimate how loud a raging fire can be, how fast you have to make decisions.

I’d give anything to change mine from that night.

Caleb took the sound as a sign of life and wanted to push forward. My gut was telling me—no! Retreat, retreat! But I pushed the feeling back because it was Caleb. He was more skilled than me. Hell, he was teaching down at TEEX. He knew what he was doing.

Sure, some said he was too aggressive, but he was a good one, and his instincts never failed. Not once.

I trusted him and his knowledge.

We pushed farther into the home to what I’d learn later was the primary bedroom, and we found the homeowner. We started to extract him, and the floor gave way. With no warning. There one minute, gone the next.

Caleb screamed through the comms. When I turned and looked, I couldn’t reach him through the smoke and the wreckage, so I sent out the Mayday. I hauled the homeowner up and out of the house while the team went in to retrieve Caleb.

Was it my moment’s hesitation in the hallway that had put Caleb in that exact spot for the floor to give way at that moment? If I hadn’t hesitated—or better yet, if I’d listened to my instincts and pushed back—would he still be alive?

This is the question that has haunted me for almost two years.

Then the homeowner died anyway, and it felt like it was all for nothing.

“What do you think, Mercer? You up for it?”

Fleming’s voice drags me from the memory.

“Sorry?”

“Asked if you wanted to hit the sleds later this week.”

“Yeah, sure. Sounds good.”

Keeping busy is good. Has always been good for me. Keeps me from having too much time to think.