Chapter 8 #2
I can’t help but have a quick thought of what my birth mother’s life was like before she left me in the safety box at the fire station.
Would this have been what my life was like if she’d kept me?
But I can’t go there right now. Once I’ve handed over the baby, I know he’ll get the best care possible, and I have a job to do.
Blocking out distractions is vital in a job like this.
I turn and head back toward the trucks where our station captain is accounting for everyone.
And then we hear it.
The deafening crash of the floors collapsing inside, and Chief orders the water cannons onto the building, trying to get the fire under control.
I’m listening as he gives out the next orders, but at the same time, I can’t stop watching the EMTs working on the little boy.
His mother is on a bed with another crew beside him.
I’m praying so hard they both survive. But like with most victims, we never know the outcome of the people we rescue. It’s just the way it is.
No matter how hard you scrub your skin with soap or your hair with shampoo, some days the smell of smoke never leaves you.
Finally, the shift’s finished, and I’m standing in the end shower cubical of the firehouse’s common bathroom, trying hard to wash away the day.
I just want to go home, crawl into bed, and binge watch The Real Housewives of NYC.
It’s a show I don’t need to think about, I can just zone out.
It’s either that or doom scroll on my phone.
Just something that takes no brain power or physical effort.
Most of my crew has already left the firehouse, but I had some reports to finish writing up about the first job of the day.
I had an interaction with the victim’s neighbor who was abusive to me when we tried to rescue an old lady who had fallen down the stairs in her apartment block.
He wanted us to move so he could get past and head upstairs to his own apartment.
We were there to assist getting her out of the building, as it was a narrow staircase, and she was in an awkward position.
This guy was an arrogant jerk, more worried about getting upstairs to watch the start of the baseball game than he was about his neighbor.
So not only am I trying to wash away the smell of smoke, but the memory of an absolute asshole too.
Letting the water run down my skin and disappear down the drain is cathartic and helps me let the stress of the day go.
The shower is now shut off, my body dried, and as I slide my pants up my legs, I hear footsteps and then Kyra’s irritating voice that to me is like fingernails on a chalkboard.
It’s not the pitch of her voice, it’s just that I don’t like her, and her very presence makes my skin crawl.
We’re work colleagues and that’s it. There will never be a friendship outside of this firehouse, but I can be professional.
Hell, I’ve been doing that around Dean since we broke up.
“There’s no one here, and the next shift is already out on a call. Sooo…” Kyra is obviously not alone.
“Get your ass in that shower cubicle, get on your knees, and suck me off,” Dean’s voice commands, and I almost throw up hearing it.
He likes to be dominant, but I wanted more than that.
I wanted the whole package of intimacy and emotion in the relationship too, but I’m not sure he’s capable of either of those things.
“Don’t bother getting on your knees, you won’t need that long before it’s over,” I call out from my shower stall and start laughing. If I’m going to be subjected to hearing their sexual flirting, then they can take the ribbing I throw back at them.
“You’re such a bitch,” Kyra mumbles.
“Just admit it, you want to stay and listen, remember what you’re missing out on.” Dean is trying to keep his macho image in front of his new little girlfriend, but his bravado does nothing for me.
Pushing open the door on the shower stall, I look him in the eye with the coolest demeanor, not letting him get any read on my emotions as I deliver my final comment before I leave them to it.
“There’s a reason I moved on. If she has any brains, she’ll work that out soon enough.
” The creases on his forehead are enough to tell me that I pissed him off with my words.
“Bathroom’s all yours, kids. And by the way, real men don’t fuck in dirty communal showers.
They invite you into their bedroom so your knees are on a nice soft carpet.
So I discovered recently. Like I said, moved on to bigger…
and better things.” Turning away, I start walking out of the bathroom, ignoring them both as they tell me in lots of not-so-nice words what they think of me, and Dean insisting that no one would want me.
And there it is again.
Dean trying to make me feel like I’m not worthy of being loved by anyone other than him. It’s like he doesn’t want me, but at the same time, he doesn’t want anyone else to have me either.
Well, fuck him!
Landon wanted me, even if it was just for a moment in time. But that man was so delectable. He made me feel more sexual and feminine than Dean ever managed to do. Life can be cruel when it shows you nirvana but then sends you back to the hell that is Rochester right now.
I thought I could cope with being in the same firehouse with Dean, assuming that his fling with Kyra would be brief.
But I was wrong on both counts. Working with him, and now the newly confident Kyra too, has just gotten worse.
I decided I just need to continue to come in to work, do my job, be professional, save lives, and then go home again.
Sticking to myself and not reacting to their stupid comments and public displays of affection.
Even one of my friends, Margot, who lives in the same street as me, has been worried about me.
She’s told me that the spark in my eyes she saw shining brightly after my Christmas holiday back home, is now dimming.
When I finally walk in my front door after the drive home from the station, I place my bag down carefully and slide off my shoes.
After all my thoughts of Landon while I was on the commute home, and how amazing those two weeks with him were, I know I need another shower.
Firstly, to wash off the yucky feeling I had after showering at the station, overhearing Dean and Kyra talking about what they do in the stalls.
I hate thinking my hands had been on anything they’d touched while having sex.
But it’s also because I’m now horny as hell, just like every other time I think about Landon.
Memories of him and his touch do things to me that they shouldn’t.
Well, they shouldn’t anymore. It was a one-time thing, and I need to forget about it.
As soon as the hot water rains down on me, I slip my hand down and work to get myself off. I know I’ll never be able to forget him. But I also know I’ll never be able to have him either.
I’m not sure how I’ll be able to cope with my next visit home, with him being right there, just over the fence.
He’s a temptation that will be hard to resist. I actually hope he has a new girlfriend by then. It would make it easier.
Who am I kidding… no, I don’t hope that at all.
It’s been the longest week at work since the little shower episode with Dean and Kyra.
She has become a hostile bitch toward me, and something is going on with Dean because he’s acting differently around me again.
Almost like he’s flirting with me. And weirdly, I’m now the woman he’s looking at when he should be paying attention to his girlfriend.
Something he used to do to me all the time.
I’m confused as to what has made him flip the switch, but all I can think is that I’ve been standing up to him a lot more since I came home from Boston.
I don’t take his shit anymore, and I’m trying my best to ignore Kyra.
To be honest, I couldn’t give a fuck what the two of them are doing together, as long as they leave me alone.
The problem, though, is that Dean is the kind of man who always thinks the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. But I can say for sure that there’s no way he’s getting another chance to mow my grass.
His flirting became obvious when we all went out to our local bar, The Smokehouse, where all the firefighters hang out after a shift.
Dean was trying to get in my good books again, making sure I was involved in all the conversations that he had been deliberately excluding me from for months.
Brushing past me on the way to the bar, placing his hand in the curve of my lower back.
That place is kind of like the unspoken zone where only your boyfriend places his hand.
Almost like he’s claiming you in front of the other men in the room.
Dean knew the moment he touched me that I wasn’t impressed, by the immediate death stare I gave him and how I jumped forward on my stool to break the contact with his hand.
He backed off for the rest of the night, but Kyra seeing him touch me just made her more agitated, and that has escalated her behavior in the firehouse since then.
Petty things like knocking over my glass of water on the table in the lunchroom so I had wet pants, and I’m sure she put extra chili in my food when she was on dinner duty.
Little does she know I love a lot of spice, so it didn’t affect me.
I actually enjoyed the chili con carne that night, and I made sure I complimented her on the great batch she made.
Probably not a smart move to provoke her, but seriously, she is showing her age with the way she’s acting.
This isn’t high school anymore. Grow up and do your job.