26. Markus
CHAPTER 26
MARKUS
I always assumed hosting civilians to dinner at the fire station was a department policy violation, but no one seems to balk when Knox invites me and my man-eating dog to join them.
It’s a wild ride back to the station in the back seat of Engine 31. I sit in the center, where I have a great view out the front window. Adam drives and Dee is in shotgun, while Knox and Drew sit in the back with me, and Rufus is in one of the jump seats at Drew’s feet, being a very good boy as we go through yet another new and strange experience tonight.
Drew shows me where to find my seatbelt, and he hands me a pair of headphones with an attached microphone, so I can listen to the team chat as we ride the few blocks back to their station.
I enjoy the casual banter as Dee gives Knox a hard time, calling him Probie and asking what temp he left the lasagna on to warm while they were away on the call to my clinic. The normalcy of their conversation is a soothing relief after the screwed-up day I’ve had.
When we arrive at the station, Knox gets out and waves his arms to direct Adam as he backs into the garage bay, making sure he doesn’t rear-end any of the exercise equipment they’ve fit into the space.
Coming down from the truck is quite a step. Rufus leaps out, no problem, but I take my time and use the handlebar beside the door to land carefully on my injured feet. Once I’m safely on the ground, I find that Rufus has been waiting for me. He leans into my legs again as he works like my guide dog, and we follow the crew inside.
I’ve never been in a fire station before, and I’m not sure what to expect, so I just take it all in as we step through the door from the truck bay into the kitchen. My first impression: I thought it would be bigger. The kitchen isn’t much larger than what might be found in an average home, with a standard set up of appliances and cabinetry. Beyond the kitchen is a dining area, filled with one very large table that can seat about ten, I’d guess. Past the dining table is a rec room with two sectional sofas, a large television, and some dart boards on the far wall.
Off to one side is an entrance to a utility space with a laundry facility, and on the other end of the room, a hallway leads away, I assume toward the bunk rooms. I don’t know why I expected this place to smell like a high school locker room, but it smells scrumptious, thanks to the warming lasagna, I assume. My stomach rumbles; I’m starved. But first?—
“This is the men’s locker room,” Adam says, like he’s reading my mind, and he points to one of the two doors that open off the laundry facility space. “Feel free to shower and change. I’ll keep Rufus entertained.”
I smile at him in gratitude and tug my backpack a little higher on my shoulder as I go into the shower room. Discarding my soiled clothes as hazmat, I rush to get under the spray of hot water and wash the stranger’s blood off me. Finally, as the steamy heat eases my tense muscles, I take deep breaths of the damp air and start to relax.
Everything in me hurts. My muscles are sore from holding me upright for the past week as I survived and survived and survived again. From the car accident to the trip home to the robbery, I’ve been coiled tight and pumped full of adrenaline more than is probably healthy. Now, as all that tension washes out of me, swirling down the drain with someone else’s blood, I feel beat, exhausted.
When I’m as clean as I can get, my skin pink and angry from the vigorous scrubbing, I dry and change into a new pair of scrubs and a tee. I apply fresh bandages to the wounds on my feet, and rinse off my Crocs before slipping them back on. Then I head out to the dining area.
God the smell. Pretty sure I consume a few hundred calories with each inhale of the scrumptious aroma. Knox is cutting the lasagna into sections and serving it onto each person’s plate. I arrive just in time to watch him scoop up a big serving and pull it loose from the casserole dish; the cheese stretches in long strings until it lets go, and he sets a big square in front of me.
Without a word, Adam sets a bowl of what looks like Pralines ’n Cream ice cream beside my plate, then walks away. When he returns a moment later, he sets down two glasses of water, one for me and one for himself as he takes the seat beside me.
“What’s this?” I ask about the bowl of ice cream. From the look of it, I’m the only one with this side dish.
He glances at me as he licks the tip of his thumb, like he got some ice cream there as he was dishing it up. “You like to eat sweets before savory, and I figured if any day called for dessert before dinner, this is that day.”
I’m surprised he remembered my habit. My mother was the only other person who paid attention to my sweet tooth, and she never stopped giving me grief about it. During meals, she’d fill my plate with too much meat and vegetables, then withhold dessert until I cleaned my plate. At my first dinner at boarding school, I realized I had the power to decide my portion sizes and the order in which I ate them. I’ve started with dessert ever since.
I smile at Adam and chuckle a bit, and I think it’s the first time I’ve used my humor muscles since seeing my father in his death bed. “Thank you,” I tell him, and he smiles, too, that dimple in his cheek almost enough to distract me from my food.
Almost.
Without waiting for anyone else to start eating or say grace—my mother would be horrified by my bad manners—I take a bite of the confection and nearly faint at the taste of it. The sugary cream melts on my tongue and runs down my throat in sweet goodness.
Everything around me vanishes, just for a few moments while I experience this meal: a perfect bowl of ice cream followed by the hearty goodness of Knox’s lasagna, which somehow manages to taste better than it smells.
Is this heaven? Maybe I died in that car accident, and these past few days were my purgatory as I found my way here. Jesus, I’m losing my mind.
I take a big gulp of water and don’t stop there, drinking the whole glass down in a matter of seconds. Adam gets up to pour me another, and I drink that one down, too, so he brings a third. Trying to be courteous, I thank him each time between bites of food until my plate is clean and my stomach is full and roiling, making me decline seconds. Sitting back in my chair, I reach for Rufus so I can pet his head and shoulders as I enjoy the spirited debate about Halloween costume ideas as everyone else eats. Yes, I think this is heaven, and the best part is, I’m pretty sure I’m not dead.
After dinner, Adam offers to let me rest in one of their bunk rooms, but this isn’t a hotel, and they don’t need to wait on me, so I settle onto one of the couches, Rufus at my feet, and watch a movie with the crew. It’s some old Patrick Swayze and Keanu Reeves movie that Drew insists I need to see. Everyone else groans—apparently they’ve seen it a lot. It seems like a good flick, but I only half watch as my eyes droop between each blink, and my head feels increasingly heavy on my shoulders.
Daylight streams through the windows beside the couch when I open my eyes again. Did I fall asleep in the middle of the movie? Glancing around, I find myself alone in the rec room, a blanket draped over me. Rufus whines, and I sit up so I can pet him where he still sits beside my feet, like he’s still on high alert, still protecting me.
“You’re such a good boy,” I whisper to him as I scratch behind his ears and kiss the top of his head.
Standing, I fold the blanket and set it aside as I stretch and yawn. Everything hurts. I twist, and my back pops, but it all still hurts. Shuffling on my aching feet, I go into the kitchen where a pot of coffee has started to brew. In this moment, when it’s just Rufus and me and the steady drip, drip, drip of the coffee maker, it’s too quiet, and the quiet unsettles me.
Except… Wait, there’s another sound. It’s a steady rhythmic beat, like the coffee drip, only metallic, a banging noise. And it’s coming from the other side of the door leading into the garage. I hobble on my wounded feet over to peer out the window in the door, and there I see the source of the sounds—weights clanking together.
In an instant, I recognize the shirtless man working out. Adam has his back to the door as he performs a set of cable curls with an impressive amount of weight. I watch him, mesmerized by the shifting muscles of his arms, back, and shoulders as he lifts and lowers the weights.
His skin glistens with sweat, and the sight makes my fingers twitch to touch him and my mouth water to taste him. Has it only been two nights since we were together? It feels like a lifetime ago.
When Adam reaches the end of his set, he lets the weights go with a final clang and turns to grab his towel from a bench. He notices me watching him and freezes, staring back at me like he’s waiting for me to make a move, do something, say something. There’s so much that’s been left unsaid between us, I wouldn’t even know where to start.
Well, I start by pushing the door open and limping out to where he is. He quickly wipes the bench off with his towel and gestures for me to sit there, so I do. Rufus, seeming to consider me safe with Adam, walks past us and out to the front lawn to relieve himself.
Adam slips a T-shirt on over his sweaty torso and sits beside me. Then he quickly jumps up. “Sorry, I probably stink.”
“No!” I argue too quickly, too loudly. “You smell”—amazing, mouthwatering—“fine.”
Slowly, he sits again, putting a little more space between us this time.
We sit there, side by side, each staring at our feet and the pavement beneath. It’s absurd that we can’t just talk to each other. I have so many things I want to tell him, ask him, and yet when he’s near, I just stare and grin and fawn like a teenage boy amid his first crush.
When the silence has stretched far too long, I realize I need to say something. I did interrupt his workout. after all, and surely I did that for a reason.
“I’m sorry—” I say.
“I’m sorry—” he says at the same time.
We both glance up, staring at one another, not sure who should speak first.
He’s the first to try again, asking, “Why are you sorry?”
Oh, I thought that would be obvious. “Because I was an asshole to you in Mineral Wells. I treated you terribly, and I’m so sorry. I was blaming you for things that aren’t your fault.”
“Oh.” He sort of chuckles and shakes his head. “Markus, you were going through a lot of shit. And, I’m sorry, too, about that night. I shouldn’t have…we shouldn’t have had sex.”
Wait. What? “Why not?”
“Because you were in a bad place, and maybe you weren’t thinking clearly. And then again last night, when I kissed you… I absolutely should not have done that, and I’m so sorry.”
“You regret it?”
“No!” His eyes dart up to mine, and he shakes his head. “No. I don’t… It’s just… I shouldn’t have kissed you without your consent, especially in front of other people. I don’t know if you’re out or not, and I just kissed you in front of everyone like I had the right to do that when I didn’t, and I’m sorry.”
“Oh. Well… I don’t regret it either.”
His expression changes in an instant, from pensive worry to ecstatic relief. And, God, that’s a sexy look on him. His eyes seem to darken, his pupils expanding as his gaze moves from my eyes to my mouth and back.
“You don’t?” he asks in a breathy tone.
“I don’t.” I sound breathy too.
“Thank God,” he says as he shifts on the bench, erasing any distance between us as he lifts his hands to cup my face. His lips are practically touching mine when he asks, “May I kiss you again?”
The question, the fact that he asked it, is so charming, I’m rendered practically speechless. I nod, an emphatic yes, and finally manage to use my words too. “Yes. Please.”
This time, when we kiss, it’s sweet and slow, not starved and desperate like the times before; not tinged with the stench of musty motel curtains or the tang of arterial blood splatter. This time, it’s just him and me, and it’s perfect.
All the anxiety I’ve carried since that first time we made love seeps out of me. I grab him, desperate to hold on, and fist my hands in his shirt, pulling him closer, so close he’s pretty much on top of me on the weight bench. He’s hard and growing harder in those loose workout shorts. I’m hard, too, so damn ready for him.
Just as I’m starting to wonder what the firehouse policy is regarding fucking members of the community in the truck bay, Adam pulls away. Looking kiss drunk and huffing deep breaths in and out as he presses his forehead to mine, he whispers, “When my shift ends, come home with me. I know there’s a lot going on, but I need you.”
That’s a hell of an invitation, and Adam’s rough voice as he extends it sends shivers down my spine. I sound far less seductive when I awkwardly squawk, “Yes.”
Rufus’s nails click and clack against the garage pavement as he comes to sit before us, staring as we share this moment. Adam’s lips twitch and turn up into a grin as we both laugh at my dog.