Malloy
“I don’t know how you eat that crap, Rios.” After nearly twenty years of friendship, you’d think I’d be used to seeing the guy eat fucking anchovies on his pizza, but I still want to fucking gag.
“Get the fuck over it, big guy!” he says as he’s moving his player around the game in front of him. The latest FIFA game, which is now EA Sports , is out, and we never miss an opportunity to play.
The ritual is ordering pizza and playing until our hearts’ content.
We’ve taken the entire day to eat and play games, making it feel like old times again.
It’s been strained for us. In all honesty, things have been strained for Rios between him and all of the guys at the station.
He fucked up, and he knows it since he intervened with Abby and Clay.
I think deep down, he understands he fucked up, but he’s too stubborn to own up to his mistake.
The problem is that Rios is like a brother to me.
And life has been a dick to me, so I need some normalcy in my world.
I need my friend back, so I’ll take what I can get where I can get it. If he will give me this, I’ll take it.
We play a few more hours, and soon, we look up to see it’s after midnight.
I grab a water and rub my hand down my face.
We both still have tomorrow off, and I’m relieved because our last shift kicked our asses.
This summer has been absolute hell. Luckily, Clay is back on rotation.
It’s hard to have your guys off. It throws the entire house off our equilibrium.
“Didn’t you have a date last weekend?” Rios asks, taking a swig of his beer. That’s his third one. Thank goodness he is taking an Uber home.
“Yeah. It was alright. She was interesting.” I leave out the part that she was pretty much trying to hump me from the moment the date started.
I’m certainly leaving out the part where, each time I closed my eyes, all I saw was a dark-haired girl who I kept fantasizing about.
I’ll definitely leave out the fact the fantasy girl was his sister. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Since Rios suspected he saw something between his sister and me, I have kept my distance. I have not spoken to Baylee, not even breathed in her direction, since the day I agreed to go on that fake date with Abby. She made assumptions, and I didn’t try to clarify either.
Baylee’s usually in town for the summer, but she stayed at school in Connecticut this year, stating she wanted to be near her boyfriend and get a summer internship.
She came back during the holidays, but I took on extra shifts and only saw my mother, then hurried back to Dover at my previous station for work.
It’s best this way. After she left, she tried to reach out a few times, but I stopped responding to her texts.
Then she took the hint. I heard from her brother she found herself a new boyfriend, and they’ve been getting more serious ever since.
And I’ve made sure to keep my mind occupied with other things.
It doesn’t mean I keep myself from thinking of her because she’s always on my mind.
Does it mean I’ve been celibate? Absolutely not.
I compartmentalize. I date. I see other women in hopes I can find someone to distract me.
Yes, it’s an asshole move. I just don’t do a great job of it when I’m on a date.
All I do is compare how my date isn’t Baylee: pouty fucking lips, tiny waist, dark brown hair, dark eyes that feel like they look directly into my soul.
“You going to see her again?” Rios keeps pressing, pulling me out of my thoughts, and I honestly don’t want to keep talking about this date of mine.
“Not sure.” I shrug. If I play this as indifferent, maybe he won’t be so pushy. “We’ll see.”
“You should. It might be good for you. Look how happy my sister is. She found someone who’s perfect for her.
” He reaches behind him and pulls out his phone.
He presses a few buttons, then turns the screen to face me, and I’m assaulted with photos of Baylee and her douche boyfriend.
Something about him just rubs me wrong, but I say nothing.
Whenever she posts on social media, I can’t help but check up on her.
I’m a fucking masochist, I’ll admit. When I look at her, though, there’s something off in her demeanor.
And she’s dressing differently now too—dresses covering her up when she’d always wear things that showed her toned arms and legs.
And what’s up with these fucking tight hairdos?
She’d always have her dark locks down past her shoulders.
And I hate that her smile never reaches her eyes anymore.
Her bright smile was so beautiful, and I barely see her teeth showing in photos these days.
I can’t say anything to Rios because he’ll know I’m checking up on her, so I keep my damn mouth shut.
Her smile doesn’t seem genuine, and it kills me I can’t say anything.
I want to shake Rios and tell him his sister looks miserable, but if I even hint there’s something off about them together, he’ll read it as jealousy, so I leave it be.
I smile and give my generic, “I’m happy for her,” comment and turn to toss my bottled water.
Rios orders his ride, and soon he’s headed out. I shove his pizza in his hands because I do not need that pie sitting in my fridge, stinking up the joint. I’ve made the mistake of forgetting it here, and I couldn’t get rid of the stench for days. Just the reminder makes me shudder.
I walk through my apartment, still finding boxes in corners because I have to unpack.
I’ve been here a few months, but life has been busy between shifts at the firehouse and taking my mom to appointments, so unpacking boxes is the last thing on my mind.
Plus, if I have extra time, I’d much rather soak up the nice weather while Boston hasn’t frozen over yet. The winters are brutal here.
I’m brushing my teeth when I hear the faint sound of my phone. I rush to grab it, concerned it might be my mother with an emergency. I finally find it in the living room and see it’s from the last person I’d expect. I press accept and put the phone to my ear.
“Hey, you okay?” I ask into the phone.
At first, I think she dialed it by accident because she never calls me until I hear a hoarse, nearly faint version of her voice.
“Tucker? I need you.” Her voice cracks at the end as if she’s holding back a sob.
“Where are you?” I answer.
“My place,” she croaks.
“Stay right where you are. I’m leaving right now.” In a rush, I grab my things, not even turning off any lights.
Luckily, it’s summer, and it’s the middle of the night because there’s no traffic.
I make it to Connecticut in record time.
I pull up to her apartment complex, and her light is faint but on.
She’s lived here for the past two years.
Thank goodness she hasn’t moved. I helped her get settled here when she and a few of her friends found this place after moving her from the dorms.
I park my truck and lock up, running to her apartment. I’m getting ready to call her to come unlock the door when I see it’s already open. It’s then I realize the lock is broken.
I walk frantically into the apartment, my heart pounding, the whoosh of the blood flowing through my ears all I can hear.
“Baylee, it’s Tucker. Where are you?” I call, taking in the scene in front of me.
The apartment is in shambles. The living room light is knocked down, and some of the chairs are tossed. She hasn’t called out to me in response, but I hear a slight sniffle coming from the back room.
I try to tamper down my breathing because my blood is still rushing through my ears. What the fuck happened here tonight?
I finally go back toward the room that was last hers. When I push the door open, I find her in a corner, her knees pressed up into her chest, her hair a mess, and her arms hugging her legs into herself. Her mascara is running down her face as if she’s been crying for hours.
What. The. Actual. Fuck?
“Baylee?” Who did this to my girl ?
“I didn’t know who else to call.”