Chapter 26
Parker
“I’m back, guys, no need to applaud,” I announce, walking into work.
Jo clears her throat.
“Guys and Jo,” I correct.
“What are you back from?” Dave questions.
“Back from the depth of…you know what, never mind.” I shake my head, stopping the rogue thoughts from coming out of my mouth. In fact, I feel a lot like Lily, and maybe she’s rubbing off on me now that she’s back in my life.
That would be fine with me, she can rub off on me as much as she wants. My mind wanders to having her at my house, how she felt, and how badly I wanted even more of her. But I know we need to take it slow; I don’t want to rush her.
“What are you all yapping about?” Jameson asks, joining all of us.
“Parker is back, apparently,” Jo says.
“Back from where?” Jameson looks at me with a raised eyebrow.
“I said never mind,” I grumble.
“Okay? How’s it going with your kitten? Has she forgiven you for the name debacle?” Jameson jokes.
“Nope, still hates me. She likes everyone else though, especially Lily.”
The room goes silent.
I look around to see everyone staring at me, unmoving, and I swear you could hear a pin drop. “What?”
Jo speaks up first. “Lily met your cat?”
“Yeah?”
“How’d that happen?”
A slow smile spreads, and I realize I can mess with all of them. “Sorry, I don’t kiss and tell.”
Dave holds a hand up. “Wait, wait, you subject us to all your escapades over the years and your moping over her. Now there’s something to tell and you won’t?”
“Jameson always tells us not to gossip. I’m maturing,” I say proudly.
Our Captain narrows his eyes at me. “Yeah, that’s bullshit. You rarely listen to me.”
I shrug, not planning on telling anyone here shit. There’s a delicate balance to getting Lily back and running my mouth will not do it. Did I used to come in here boasting that women were all over me? Maybe, but I was honest with Lily, I never did anything with anyone.
Did I secretly hope it would make her jealous? Sometimes.
Did I think it would backfire the way that it did? Nope.
A call comes in, and I breathe out a sigh of relief everyone is about to be distracted enough to not question me further. I hope that when we come back, they’ll all forget.
Jameson groans when he hears the call we’re about to go on. I slap his shoulder on my way to hop into the rig. “Guess you got a hot date, don’t you?”
He clenches his jaw before joining us. I almost think he’s going to refuse to drive us to Margaret’s house, but he wouldn’t do that.
The older woman has a hard on for Jameson and has for years. She calls with the most ridiculous scenarios just to get us to come by so she can see our Captain, the town’s golden boy.
The rest of us usually end up having to stand back and let Jameson deal with her because she will just get snarky with anyone else. Or she’ll yell because that’s what happened last time when I tried to tell her she doesn’t need to call 911 for a paper cut. Yes, that really happened.
My ear was ringing for the rest of my shift after that. I’m not saying anything again; someone else can have that job today. It would take a lot to take away the joy I’m feeling since my life is pretty close to perfect for the first time in a long time.
The only thing that could make it better would be Franki actually liking me. I’m getting tired of my hands burning every time I use hand sanitizer from all the bite and scratch marks covering them.
We hop out of the truck, Jo, Dave, and I hanging back while Jameson knocks on the front door. He did try to convince one of us to do it, but that wasn’t going to happen. It’s not our fault the woman is obsessed with him; he has to deal with his stalker himself.
She opens the door, beaming at Jameson, and I can’t help myself as I put my hands together, under my chin, and pretending to swoon. Until Jo smacks my arm. “Knock it off, be professional.”
“You’re no fun,” I complain.
“You’re a child.”
“I’m twenty-five.”
“You act five.”
“Good thing you’re not my mom.”
“You would hate for me to be your mom.”
“Hey, you done?” Jameson calls out, gesturing his head toward the open door for us to follow. Margaret isn’t standing there anymore, so I assume she went somewhere she wants us to follow.
Or should I say, wants Jameson to follow. I think she would prefer if the rest of us weren’t here.
We step inside and turns out one of her cats managed to get a fish out of the tank and won’t let it go. It’s just sitting on the counter next to the tank with a fish tail peeking out of its mouth.
“Uh, what do you expect us to do here?” I ask.
“Help him,” Margaret snaps at me.
“The cat or the fish?” I try to bite back a laugh. Jo slaps the back of her hand against my chest.
Margaret looks up to Jameson. “I don’t like that one.”
“Margaret, we aren’t veterinarians, I’m not entirely sure how you want us to help.” Jameson’s tone is firm, but still friendly because I don’t think he knows how to be any other way.
“You don’t need to be a veterinarian to help.” She bats her eyes, and this time it’s much harder for me to hide my laughter.
“You’re right.” Jameson smiles, turning toward me so my own falls off my face very quickly. “Parker is a cat expert, he can help.”
Margaret furrows her brows. “The annoying one?”
My jaw drops, “Wha—”
“Yup, he’s the one.” He smiles.
I sigh, dropping my shoulders, and prepare to work a miracle, I guess.
Approaching the cat, he looks at me skeptically. I’m pretty sure the fish in his mouth is no longer alive, but don’t say that.
I keep my voice low. “Just drop the fish, then we all can leave.”
On a positive note, this cat doesn’t seem hellbent on killing me which is a nice change of pace from the one I have at home. I notice the tail of the fish flap, and it must scare the cat because he jumps back, dropping it onto the counter.
I cup my hand over the flopping fish, so it doesn’t end up enduring any more trauma than it already has before I’m able to get him back into the tank. He swims a little sideways at first but seems to even out.
“All better,” I announce.
“Thank you so much, Jameson, you saved him,” Margaret wraps her arms around Jameson’s middle, and I look around to make sure I’m not the only one seeing this. Dave and Jo are both hiding their laughter.
“Um, I didn’t do anything.” Jameson tries to gently pry the woman off of him.
“You’re in charge, so you did. You saved his life.” She tightens her hold.
Jameson gives me a pleading look. I’m about to let out my own laughter and there will be no holding back.
“Glad we could help, we gotta head out,” I try.
“Yeah, we have to get back.” Jameson tries again to free himself from her grasp. This time she lets go and he moves away quickly.
“See you next time,” she calls out as we leave her house.
As soon as we’re back in the truck none of us can hold back the loud laughter we let out. I take it a step further, making my voice a higher pitch, “See you next time, Jameson, you perfect man you.”
“Shut it. If you’re in love with me, Parker, I’m changing your shift.”
I keep going.
“But Jameson you’d miss me too much, I can’t live without you.”
“Want to keep your paramedic shifts? I’ll take them all away,” he threatens and that’s what shuts me up.
“You’re such a party pooper,” I complain.
“And you’re a shit stirrer,” Dave jokes.
I shrug. I’m in a good mood, what can I say? I try to see if it could get better, asking “Do we need to pick up any meds from the hospital?”
“Nope,” Jameson grunts.
That’s fine, it’s not night shift yet. All I can hope is that we have a call that will take us to the hospital later when Lily is working. I already miss her, which is probably unhealthy. But I don’t care; it’s been too long and now I have her.
After we’re back at the station and doing some of the chores to kill the time, Jameson comes up to me, slapping a hand on my shoulder. “Thanks for that earlier. You can pay me back by helping with Bailey and Wes’s move this weekend.”
“They need help? Isn’t that Wes guy the size of a building?”
“That’s a little dramatic. It’s good to help people, though.”
“I know, we help people every day. Not usually cat and fish feud emergencies, though.”
“You’re not wrong there. I’m sure Lily is going to come by to help.”
“Her and I can talk about that.” I smile.
“You’re talking?”
I nod. “Something like that.”
Jameson hums. “Well good, maybe then it can stop being so awkward to have you both in the same room.”
“It’s never been awkward. Unless you can’t handle crazy sexual tension.”
“We’re done here,” he grunts, walking away.
“Come on, don’t make it weird just because you love me and are jealous, you’re going to be replaced.”
“Go clean the bathrooms, Fuller,” he calls.
I start to laugh, and because I’m in such a good mood I actually do what he says and agree to clean the bathroom. Nothing will be able to ruin my mood at this point.