Chapter 6
ANDERSON
“Why do you look like that?” Jack asks from across the table.
“Look like what?” I ask, but it comes out muffled from where my head rests in my hand. We’re at the station, on the last twelve hours of our twenty-four-hour shift, and it has felt like the longest shift of my entire two years here.
“Like I just told you Santa wasn’t real,” he retorts, and I want to throw my hand of cards at him.
I inhale before blowing the air through my mouth. “I fold,” I set my cards down on the table instead of letting them fly directly into Jack’s face.
Jack does the same, our two-person game of Texas Hold’em forgotten between us. “You’ve been down this entire shift.” It’s not a question, but I find myself getting defensive about the answer that comes to mind.
“Just tired.” I settle on.
And it’s true.
I don’t get the best sleep during these twenty-four-hour shifts—the bunks here at the station aren’t as comfortable as my bed at home, and it’s not like you can fall into a deep sleep when a call could come in at any second.
Today’s shift has been busy, mostly with medical calls, which make up the bulk of what we do. It’s easily three-quarters of the job, with that last quarter being actual fires.
So far, we’ve run a cardiac arrest at a nearby nursing home, treated injuries from a few-car pile-up on the highway, and helped a couple of cars that spun out from the snow that’s been coming down on and off for the last day or so.
We responded to a downed power line that couldn’t hold up against the wind, and there was an elderly man who called when he couldn’t figure out how to turn off his smoke alarm.
In between the chaos, I haven’t been able to come down from the adrenaline of hearing the alarms sounding in the firehouse enough to nap—but even if I could, my thoughts of Ava spike my adrenaline more than all our calls put together.
She’s the reason for my mood—or maybe it’s the lack of her.
I’m exhausted from the mindfuck my brain is currently stalled in—the one that has me contemplating if and how I can reach out to Ava.
I can’t stop thinking about it.
Something about the way she and I left things at my house yesterday in the early morning hours—and then getting only snippets of what’s going on with her family makes me feel uneasy.
And then I feel stupid for even caring so much, considering the relationship between Ava and me barely even constitutes as friends.
We’re just two people who sleep together sometimes.
Or more accurately, two people who sleep together when Ava reaches out—and I welcome her with open arms, every time, like I’ve been waiting for the call.
Always at her fucking beck and call.
Those late-night hours, when she’s flushed and sated in my arms, when the world shrinks down to just the two of us and the quiet hum of the house, are addictive as hell.
And the worst part is the soft stuff—the few minutes she lets me hold her before sleep drags me under, when I’m fighting to stay awake—because I know the second I close my eyes, she’ll slip out the door and be gone.
That’s what has me saying yes whenever she asks to come over.
It’s what keeps me taking whatever pieces she offers. It’s what I’ve been doing for eight months now—settling for scraps and pretending they’re enough.
I don’t think I’m stopping anytime soon.
I don’t think I would even if I could.
“Rumi always says she’s ‘just tired’ when she’s upset and doesn’t know how to explain how she’s feeling.” Jack leans back in his chair, crossing his arms. Again, he didn’t ask a question, but he waits for my response as if he did.
The kitchen at the station is quiet, and we all know we’re in the calm before the storm.
It’s already been a busy shift, and with it being the Saturday night before Valentine’s Day—not the busiest holiday of the year, but one that can often prompt candle-lit dinners gone wrong or the burning of ex-lovers' pictures getting too out of control—we’re all just waiting for a call to come through.
“Speaking of Rumi, what are your guys’ plans for tomorrow?” I ask, changing the subject, something I’ve become so accustomed to doing.
Growing up with three younger brothers, I’m used to falling into the background—especially since they’re the ones who needed the attention.
I didn’t.
I’m more comfortable being pushed off to the side anyway.
“My mom’s babysitting, so we can go out to dinner,” Jack answers before asking, “Are you going to tell me what’s wrong with you?”
I exhale, trying to think of another question I can ask to try to change the subject again, but Jack doesn’t give me enough time.
“Is this about Ava?”
My brows raise. I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. Pressing my lips, I swallow, trying to buy more time to decide how I want to answer him. Jack’s tone is bored, and he looks at me as if he doesn’t care if I’ll tell him he’s right or not.
Yet the fact he’s even asking tells me he knows more than he lets on.
That he cares more.
And I guess it’s about fucking time all my efforts to befriend this guy have paid off—but I’m slightly regretting it now.
My initial thought is to deflect—again. I could stick with the excuse that I’m tired and try to change the subject again. I don’t want to make my problems Jack’s problems. And Ava would kill me if she knew I was sitting here talking about how lovesick I am over her to her best friend’s boyfriend.
I’ve been dealing with them alone because I’m too worried to speak them aloud at the risk of losing the small pieces I have of Ava. But I really don’t want to keep these feelings buried anymore. Keeping them to myself for the last eight months hasn’t done me any good.
Maybe it’s because I’m used to being the one who asks what’s wrong, the one who sits and listens and offers advice, and right now, I don’t want to be that person.
I sigh. “I can’t stop thinking about her, man. And she doesn’t give a fuck.”
Jack chuckles, but it fades quickly.
He’s always had a soft spot for Ava, right there next to the one he has for Rumi and Evee, and I think it’s because of what she means to Rumi.
And it stirs something possessive inside of me, knowing that Jack knows Ava better than I do—it’s not jealousy or contempt; I’m glad she has someone like Jack who cares about her.
But why won’t she let me be that person for her?
“She doesn’t want anything serious,” I explain.
“Which I thought I’d be fine with. But it’s been months.
” I don’t know if Jack and Rumi know the extent of my relationship with Ava.
They know we’ve seen each other on and off since our double date with them last summer, and they must know we aren’t anything serious, but I don’t think they know how that’s one-sided, and not because of me.
“And now, you want more?” he prompts.
I place my elbows on the table, letting my head fall into my hands, my dark hair dropping over my forehead. “Yes, I want more.”
“And have you told her that?” Jack asks, and my mind drifts to when Jack was in a similar position with Rumi—where he wanted more but didn’t think he was ready.
He was in a constant battle with his PTSD, and she just left an abusive relationship—and at the time, they were friends.
Even though anyone with eyes could see right through it.
That’s the difference between them and where I stand with Ava.
I want all of her, and she just wants some of me.
And we’re not even friends.
Friends don’t think themselves to death over reaching out to just ask if they’re okay.
“At the beginning, I tried,” I admit to Jack, thinking of my first date when I told Ava I was looking for someone ready to settle down. When she let me kiss her, I figured we were on the same page.
“What do you mean you ‘tried’?” Jack sounds skeptical, even more so after I explain to him about how she came back to my house after the drive-in, but when I asked her if she wanted to stay the night, she gave me that look—the one that meant she was already gone—throwing on her clothes and hurrying out the door with a rushed excuse of needing to work.
“That’s what you’re going off of?” he scolds, and I feel like I’m being reprimanded by my dad.
Jack is almost ten years older than I am, and the difference between my twenty-five years and his thirty-four has always been apparent, but not as much as it is right now.
“What else am I supposed to go off of?” My voice goes high, heavy with defensiveness, and I feel my cheeks heat in embarrassment, feeling very exposed with the way Jack shakes his head at me. “She always leaves before I can even think of what I want to say.”
“Well, you have to tell her. Because saying you’ve tried is horse shit. Asking her to spend the night one time a year ago is not ‘trying’.” Jack places his hands on the table before standing up from his chair.
“Eight months ago,” I mutter, but the correction is pointless.
It could be eighty months ago, and it wouldn’t make a difference.
I’d still feel it in the pit of my stomach, this yearning ache for her—not just for her presence, but for the way I imagine she could fill every empty space inside me.
“What was that?” Jack asks, but I know he heard me, putting his hands on his hips.
I stand up too, not sure why he’s getting up all of a sudden, considering I thought we were still in the middle of a conversation, pretending I didn’t just talk back to him like some moody teenager. “I think if I tell her I want more, I’ll lose her altogether.”
The corner of Jack’s lip twitches. “Only one way to find out.”
My brows furrow. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
He shrugs, rounding the table and heading toward the stairs that lead down to the truck. “You tell me, Sonny,” he says over his shoulder, the nickname he and the other guys gave me when I told them they couldn’t call me “sunshine” anymore, no matter how positive and happy-go-lucky they think I am.
“Stop pretending I should know what that means. Unlike you, I don’t keep my sentences ten words or less, so you’re going to have to use more than four.” I close the distance between us, falling into step with him, still confused why he’s heading downstairs.
Jack stops abruptly, turning to me. “You have to tell Ava how you feel. If she’s willing to give you a chance, you make sure she knows you’re going to try like hell to show her you’re worth it.
If she tells you to fuck off,” he pauses, shrugging before he continues, “then you live with it. It’ll suck, but at least you’ll know, and you’ll be able to move on. ”
“I don’t want to move on.” The words are out before I can stop them, but they’re the truth. There’s something about Ava that feels worth fighting for. I think if she let me in, she’d see how deeply we understand each other, even in the quiet moments when nothing needs to be spoken.
How our silence says more than our words ever could.
“Well,” Jack starts, “then you'd better give her a good reason to give you that chance.”
My mind starts spinning with how the hell I’m going to do that, and I still have the rest of this shift.
I can’t even figure out what to text her to check in, or how to nonchalantly ask how the valentines we got for her sister went over with her.
I’m terrified that just a simple act of showing her I care will be enough for her to go running in the opposite direction from me.
How the fuck am I going to tell her how I feel, that I want to give us a shot, that I think we could really be something?
“And how the hell am I going to do that?” I ask.
I don’t know what the right words to say are or the right way to go about this.
But Jack doesn’t have time to respond because the second I ask my question, sirens begin to sound, echoing through the bay, the lights snapping on, and boots already moving in our direction.
Without another glance in my direction, Jack starts barking orders to the rest of the crew, the Lead Firefighter role taking over as he runs down the stairs toward the lockers to suit up.
I follow the rest of the crew, going through the motions—pulling on my gear and tightening the straps on instinct, my hands moving faster than my thoughts.
By the time the engine of the firetruck lurches forward, I have to blink and refocus, the call catching up to me a beat late.
If I can trust the son of bitch to somehow know we were about to get a call, maybe I can trust him when it comes to telling Ava how I feel, too.