3. Reid
THREE
REID
Lunch at the station was never quiet. Too many men stuffed into one break room, too much heat, too much teasing, too many damn stories about who caught what on the weekend or which idiot nearly blew his hand off with fireworks last week.
And it always smelled like someone overcooked bacon. Which was exactly what Marco was doing now, humming off-key and making the whole kitchen smell charred.
Griff leaned back, boots on another chair, working a toothpick between his teeth.
“I had no idea animal rescues were one of your kinks,” he said, flashing a grin like he’d been waiting all shift to say it.
“Shut it.”
I didn’t even lift my head to glare at my teammate, just kept cutting through my sandwich like it’d done me personal wrong.
Boundaries didn’t mean much around here. That’s what happened when you grew up in a town small enough that your kindergarten classmates were still around to watch you mess up adulthood.
I braced for Marco’s contribution. It didn’t take long.
He looked up from the stove, spatula dangling from one hand. “You hear him? Saying Daddy like that in public? People pay good money for that kind of show.”
“Christ,” I muttered.
More laughter. The cheap, easy kind that bounced off cinderblock walls.
Small-town stations were like that. You worked together, sweated through double shifts together, saw each other puking after fires or breaking down after bad calls. You didn’t hide shit here.
But this was different. This was about him .
I hadn’t seen Ari Goddamn Jackson in years. Not since I made it a damn point to stay busy whenever he came back on breaks. Not that he came that often.
But he’d grown into his body, lean muscle under that soft skin, collarbones I wanted to get my mouth on, jaw clean-shaven, rose-pink lips parted like he was about to either argue with me or beg.
Wild curls, curls I wanted to push my fingers through just to see how he’d react.
Eyes sharp, like he already knew the kind of trouble he was.
Skin smooth, too pretty for someone who never knew when to shut up.
He wasn’t a kid anymore. But he was still Sage’s little brother . The kid who used to trail behind us like a stray with scraped knees, carrying that stupid skateboard everywhere, always trying to get a laugh out of me.
He looked at me like I was both the problem and the solution.
That was the problem. And the temptation.
“Twenty-two going on menace,” Griff said around his toothpick. “Man, I remember when he tried to impress you at the county fair by diving off the dock. What was he, sixteen? He didn’t even see the rocks under the water.”
“Split his forehead open,” Marco said, a smirk curling at the edge of his mouth. “That didn’t stop him, though. Couldn’t keep that kid away from you.”
The way Marco said it made something sharp catch in my chest.
Griff just hummed, toothpick shifting between his teeth.
I finally set my sandwich down, appetite curdling. “He was just a kid.”
“Yeah,” Griff said, eyes wary now. “Was.”
Griff wasn’t lying. Ari was something else entirely. And I’d seen the way he looked at me. Like he still thought I hung the moon, like I hadn’t spent the better part of three years doing everything I could to stay out of his orbit.
It didn’t stop my gut from tightening like a clenched fist the second I imagined him chasing after someone else .
Men closer to his age. Men who didn’t know what to do with a boy like Ari, or how to hold him steady, or how to anchor him when his mouth got ahead of his sense, when his bratty little smiles started looking like pleas for attention.
Hell.
Marco cut his eyes at me again, sly this time. “You’re divorced. Single. Lonely as hell?—”
“I’m not lonely.”
“Right, right,” Marco nodded. “All those hookups keeping you company?”
I didn’t answer.
Because that was the thing about hookups. They scratched an itch, sure. Took the edge off. But none of them looked at me like Ari did. And none of them ever said my name like it meant something more than heat and sweat. None of them call me Daddy.
Griff dropped his boots from the chair, finally sitting up straight. “He’s grown up, Morgan. You see it. Hell, we all saw it.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I ground out.
“Why?”
“Because I’m thirty-six,” I snapped. “And he’s twenty-two. He’s got his whole damn life ahead of him. He doesn’t need someone like me dragging him down before he even gets started.”
The room went quiet for a beat.
Then Griff said, soft but certain, “Or maybe he just needs someone who shows up and means it.”
I didn’t answer. Just clenched my jaw and looked away, trying to ignore the way something in my chest gave a little under the weight of those words.
Across the room, Marco held up his hands like he was backing off. “Alright, alright. We’ll shut up.” Then, with a shit-eating grin, “But when the wedding rolls around, I make a mean potato salad. Without raisins... just saying.”
I flipped him off, but Griff’s words stuck with me longer than they should’ve.
He didn’t know. None of them did. Not about the things I’d done for Ari when no one was looking—quiet things. Small things. Things that didn’t come with thank-yous or recognition, because that wasn’t the point. I never wanted credit.
But hearing it out loud— someone who shows up and means it —made something twist in my chest anyway. Because I had. I’d been showing up for years... just never in a way that gave me the right to have him.
So I swallowed it down, like always. Packed it up tight and shoved it somewhere I didn’t have to look at it.
None of it made a difference—not the logic, not the years, not the careful distance I’d kept from him.
I could still see the way he looked at me under that shed today, dirt on his cheek, daring me without saying a word.
I could hear his voice wrapping around that word— Daddy —like he knew exactly where to land the hit.
“Don’t worry,” Griff said, standing to grab his gear, clapping a hand to my shoulder on the way past. “We’ll let you keep your dignity for another day.”
“Appreciate it.”
“You’re welcome. Just know, the whole firehouse’s placing bets.”
Marco raised a hand like a Scout salute. “My money’s on Trouble.”
My jaw ticked. “It’s not happening.”
Marco just grinned. “We’ll see.”
They filed out, leaving the smell of scorched bacon behind them.
I sat there, staring down at a sandwich I wasn’t gonna eat, thinking about wild curly hair and brown eyes that knew exactly how much trouble they could get me into.
Damn fool thing was, part of me wanted to get into trouble anyway. Literally and metaphorically.
The radio crackled with a new call coming in. Another rescue. Another distraction. Another chance to outrun the thing I was trying not to get caught in.