Chapter Fifteen
Aaron
The work week was normal by search and rescue standards. No one was lost that we didn’t find. There were no crazy injuries or helicopter rescues.
Cliff had been pulled away. He was our helicopter pilot and was needed to help with a wildfire burning a few hours drive away.
Without Cliff around, the guys decided I’d become their new entertainment.
We’d just gotten back to the station from a rescue that wasn’t even a rescue. The missing person stumbled into the parking lot before we’d even arrived.
I dropped onto the bench to undo my boots but my phone buzzed in my pocket. It was a social media notification, The Mewtaineer had a new post. I clicked it without hesitation. My screen filled with an image of Kyle sleeping in the dirt in a patch of sunlight.
“You’ve been quiet since you got back from your trip.” I jumped at the sound and looked up to see Jasper leaning against the door frame.
“I’m always quiet.”
He walked further into the room. He was in a t-shirt with all his tattoos on display. He’d be intimidating if you didn’t know him. But I knew him and it was clear he was about to bust my chops.
“When I got back from my trip, I was quiet and you guys all razzed me until I admitted I was all torn up over Wren.”
“What does that have to do with me?” I said a little too harshly.
Jasper grinned, looking far too entertained with himself. “Buddy, you were staring at cat photos.”
“I was not staring.”
“You even smiled.”
“People smile.”
“Not you. You usually look like you’re stepping on a Lego. The only one gruffer than you is Flynt…don’t tell him I said that.”
Despite myself, a laugh escaped me. Our boss Flynt was a hard ass.
“I think you know you’re distracted and the reason for it. I’m just saying, from personal experience, if you can’t stop thinking about her, there’s a reason.”
“Yeah well, the owner of the cat I was not smiling at is also my best friend’s sister.” I left the explanation unsaid but I knew he understood.
“Might be worth a conversation before you spend the rest of your life pining.”
I snorted, but didn’t answer as he patted my shoulder and walked away.
I watched him leave, then sat there for a moment longer than necessary. The station buzzed around me with familiar sounds. A radio crackled. I could hear Emily’s voice on dispatch. There was a coffee pot gurgling in the break room.
It was all the same as when I left. So I guess it was me that changed.
I got a text from Cliff the next day, he was back in town.
Cliff: Dinner tonight at Ruby’s? I have zero groceries
I sent him a thumbs up and braced myself. Everyone at the station had picked up on my feelings, there was no chance he hadn’t.
* * *
The smell of french fries and coffee washed over me as I stepped into Ruby’s Diner. I spotted Cliff in a booth by the back and sank into the vinyl seat across from him.
We caught each other up on work shit until we’d placed our orders, then Cliff leaned his forearm on the table and cleared his throat. “So, I talked to Skye,” he started.
The urge to spill the truth was strong. It was a truth that had become more and more clear as the week had gone on. Every time I went to bed without her, and the menace, I thought about them.
I’d never felt this way about another person. I couldn’t deny that.
“And?” I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear his answer but I needed to anyway. I needed to know what I’d be sacrificing if I sought her out. Being busy with work I was able to resist the urge but with every one of her posts that came up on my social media I was getting closer to the inevitable.
And man, those posts were not helping.
Yesterday she’d uploaded a video of Kyle stealing deli meat out of a camping cooler while she laughed in the background. I’d watched it six times.
Six.
That cat had somehow become emotionally significant to me. Which felt like a real low point.
But I had realized something this last week that I could no longer deny.
That being, I choose her.
Living with my best friend hating me would be hard if it came to it. What I couldn’t figure out was how I was supposed to walk away from someone who fit into my life that easily.
Cliff cleared his throat again. “She mentioned that she had a thing for you, but thought I would have a problem with it.”
“She did?”
He nodded. “I gotta say I am really pissed off about the whole thing.” I swallowed hard.
His wide shoulders were tucked up by his ears and he was clutching his hands together until the skin paled. “I’m really pissed you two are putting me in some sort of dad role, as if I have to rubber stamp this thing.”
My rapidly raising heart rate slowed.
“To be fair,” I muttered, “you do occasionally threaten people with bodily harm.”
“Only when they deserve it.”
“Your standards for deserving it are pretty broad.”
That finally pulled a laugh out of him. “Man, we’ve been friends for a long time. I don’t want my sister with some asshole who will try to change her or won’t treat her right.”
“So you’re saying I’m not an asshole?” I teased.
He leaned back in the booth, his shirt sleeve shifting to show the tattoo on his arm.
“Oh you’re a giant asshole, just not to her.
If she gives you a chance then you’ve already passed some sort of test. That’s good enough for me.
Just don’t tell me the details, and if you break her heart, I’ll break your face. Easy enough, right?”
I laughed, not about to remind him I’d fought MMA and would destroy him. “Yeah man that works.”
His expression turned more serious and I felt a pang of guilt. Technically I’d crossed the line with her before sorting this whole thing out, but he clearly didn’t care so long as she was happy.
He pulled his phone from his pocket. “I think you two are a good fit, you should see the article she just put out. I think you rubbed off on her.” He passed me his phone and I skimmed through it.
It was good. I thought social media was all surface level, attention grabbing shit but she had shown me I was wrong over the course of our time together. This article solidified it.
The people who live and work in these mountains understand something most people don’t: nature is not a backdrop for our lives. It is a living thing that can humble you in a heartbeat. Beauty here is tied tightly to danger, and you can’t fake your way through surviving it.
Too many travelers arrive wanting untouched wilderness without understanding that “untouched” only exists because someone cared enough to protect it.
I encourage people to visit this place and fall in love with it like I did, but don’t disrespect the work of conservationists, search and rescue or local aboriginal groups by treating the land like it’s there for you to use and throw away.
“You made an impression on her out there.”
“She changed the way I see things too,” I said. “So you really don’t have an issue with this? If I asked her out I mean?”
He shook his head. “Besides, I promised Jasper I’d get you to stop moping around the station.”
I glared across the table. “Jasper is a dick, I wasn’t moping.”
“He said you looked like you were a minor inconvenience away from writing bad emo poetry. Then you’d look at your phone, presumably at her stuff, and smile like an idiot.”
“I was not smiling like an idiot.”
“Practically kicking your feet, I hear.”
“Shut up.”
He grinned into his glass. “So are you going to do something about this or keep brooding around the station making everyone uncomfortable?”
“I’ll figure it out,” I said noncommittally, then let the arrival of our meals distract us from the conversation.
The scary thing was I already knew my answer.
I’d spent the whole week trying to convince myself I could let this go. That I could go back to my normal life and eventually stop thinking about her.
But every road somehow led back to Skye.
I opened my social media app when Cliff was in the bathroom and hovered my thumb over the message button on her account, but closed it again. If I wanted her, I’d have to put myself on the line and hope she wanted me back. I just had to work up the courage to do it.