“You’re going to turn into a pumpkin, man,” Cash eventually said to Seth as we wound down from another gut-busting laugh over the past. “And you have a wife at home waiting for you.” He directed that comment and a still-can’t-believe-that-shit look my way.

Before I could respond, a siren sounded outside.

“Sounds like fire and rescue,” Seth said as he stacked our appetizer plates.

My thoughts went to Kemp, who was a volunteer firefighter, and I wondered if he was on the truck and where they were going.

“Coming this way, sounds like,” Cash said. He tipped his glass back to drink the last of his IPA, which he’d declared as his favorite of the three.

I was putting lids back on the empty growlers when the sirens sounded like they were right outside. They must be turning toward the residential area just west of us. I knew a lot of people who lived in that neighborhood and I hoped like hell everyone was okay.

“What the fuck?” Seth said as he went over to the open doorway to the host vestibule to look out the window.

As soon as he said it, I realized the truck wasn’t turning to the residential area. It was in the Henry’s parking lot. The three of us were out the front door in a split second.

It was in that split second that I knew in my gut, before my brain could even form the thoughts, that something was catastrophically wrong and about to get personal.

The fire truck pulled over to the Bergman building, and the rate at which four firefighters disembarked told me this was not a drill.

I approached, trying to discern whether Kemp was among them, but with them fully turned out, I couldn’t tell much of anything.

“What’s going on?” I yelled, trying to be heard over the sounds of the truck and the shouts between the firefighters.

I didn’t need them to answer, though, as in the next second, I picked up the smell of smoke and then I noticed flames coming from the loading dock side of the Bergman roof. Nausea surged, the taste of bile combining with the acrid smell of smoke, as the realization hit me.

“Fuck,” I bit out as Cash and Seth came up alongside me.

“What the fuck?” Cash said.

I’d forgotten to unplug the battery charger.

This was all my fault.

I pulled the collar of my shirt over my nose and mouth as the three of us stood and helplessly watched the firefighters do their thing. One of them seemed to be talking to dispatch. One went to the hydrant near the road and hooked up the hose, then waited there while the guy who’d been driving manned the truck.