Chapter 13
Thorne The last few days, I excused myself from doing anything with Lissa. I just needed space. She didn’t push it, but I’m sure she wouldn’t let me continue avoiding her when I got to work. She’s not exactly afraid of confrontation.
Yet, here I stood, checking out of my latest physical therapy appointment with good news.
Looks like I might be back on full duty in another two weeks if everything kept improving at the same rate.
And the one person I wanted to tell the most wasn’t here.
All because I wasn’t prepared for her reason of why we shouldn’t be partners.
She must think I’m a coward. I knew she had training yesterday, so when she left her apartment, I went in and grabbed my pillows and a few other things. I didn’t grab everything. Not yet. If I took all my stuff back that meant I had lost hope. I didn’t want to let go of hope just yet.
She’d be right, though. I am a coward.
Lissa I walked into the station for my next shift with one goal in mind, to smack Thorne on the head. He’d ignored me for two days, answered texts with excuses, and missed everything we had planned. He didn’t even tell me how his physical therapy went. When I asked, he texted back, “Fine.”
I’d come to the realization that I was indeed jealous after I saw Thorne with Milo.
Chelsea helped me wrap my head around that concept.
But this had gone beyond jealousy. If he doesn’t want to continue a relationship with me, fine.
We both promised that this would not affect our job, but poor communication because of some bullshit with his ex was affecting everything.
With my stuff in my locker, I walked through the station in search of Thorne. I found him in the lounge with the other guys. He looked up at me and smiled. He smiled at me after ignoring me for two days. That bastard.
“Thorne, can I talk to you?” I said with a straight a face as I could muster.
His eyes widened, and his lips tightened. Oh, he knew what was coming.
CLANG – CLANG – CLANG
The alarm sounded. I pointed at Thorne, then raced downstairs to get my equipment together. Trevor hopped on the truck and took off as soon as I closed my door.
We ran the entire shift. Any downtime was filled with truck reorganization and showers before the next emergency happened. By the end of the shift, I was too tired to talk to Thorne. I barely managed to shower once I got back home before I collapsed into bed.
Thorne managed to evade me for the next few days. I even tried to catch him at his apartment. The last four weeks had been wonderful. I’d fallen hard and fast for this man. And even before when he was just my annoying partner, I never pegged Thorne as a coward.
I could still feel his body wrapped around mine when I slept. His warm hands rubbing my arms when we watched TV. All the jokes and silly competitions throughout the day when it was just the two of us. All of that was now gone. Because of Milo?
I met my friends for dinner on the fifth day of Thorne ignoring me. My next shift started in the morning, so this would be a great distraction.
“Girl, I can’t believe he’s blowing you off,” Jeff frowned, waving his wineglass around. “I suppose he still replies because he knows he can’t ghost you since you work together.”
I grabbed Jeff’s arm to keep him from spilling his drink. “Calm down. It’s not that important. Let’s talk about anything else.”
My friends gave me sad eyes, then looked at each other.
“No,” I said, then smiled. “Tell me some good news.”
Monica turned to Chelsea. “You said you had something to tell us. Go ahead and share.”
Chelsea hadn’t mentioned anything to me, so I was a bit surprised. She smiled and grabbed my hand. “I didn’t want to tell you while you were still sad, but I’m really excited.”
“I’m not sad. I’m mad.” I laughed. “Please tell me it’s good news.”
Chelsea vibrated when she grinned. “I’m pregnant.”
I jumped up out of my chair and crashed into my friend. “That’s so exciting. Congratulations!”
Three sets of arms engulfed Chelsea as we cheered and swayed.
“Get off me,” Chelsea said underneath us. “I can’t breathe.”
After we all sat down, we begged for more details.
“How far along are you?”
“Have you picked names?”
“That’s why you’re not drinking.”
Chelsea smiled. “I’m twelve weeks, we don’t have names picked out, and of course that’s why I’m not drinking.”
Then she turned to me and grabbed my hands again. “I’m so sorry Lissa. I know I agreed to be your belayer for your competition, but I’ll be seven months pregnant. I don’t know if I can do it.”
I rolled my eyes. “Girl, that doesn’t matter. I can find someone else. You’re pregnant. You’re going to be a great mom, and I’m going to be an auntie and spoil your kid.”
Thorne I wouldn’t be lucky today. Last shift had everyone on the go for almost twenty-four straight hours. And to be honest, I was finally ready to face the truth.
That was until I saw Lissa’s face. Eyes narrowed and looking directly at me. Her hair was in the highest, tightest ponytail I’ve ever seen on her. She walked like she had somewhere to go and that somewhere was obviously me.
I instinctively backed up and swallowed hard.
She grabbed my shirt sleeve. “We need to talk,” she said and practically dragged me downstairs into one of the storage rooms.
“Why are you avoiding me?”
“I’m not avoiding you.” I said it on instinct, and I regretted it instantly. I shook my head. “Yes. I am avoiding you.”
“Are you going to tell me why?”
“Are you going to tell me about your conversation with the captain?”
Her eyebrows furrowed. “What?”
“Yeah, two shifts ago. What did the captain want?”
“You’re mad because I talked to the captain?”
“Depends on what you talked about.” I felt like a child. I should have written everything down first.
“He wanted to talk to me about Trevor. He complained about me making him look bad. Which was your idea, so don’t deny it.”
“That’s it?” I couldn’t believe she left out the other part. Like she wasn’t getting a new partner.
“Yeah. That’s the important part. What about you? Why did you have breakfast with Milo? I thought you hated him.”
“I do hate him.”
She waved her hands in the air like she was waiting for something. “Yet breakfast. And you didn’t tell me you were having breakfast with your ex. You wouldn’t even talk to me so I could find out why.”
“That was…nothing. We had breakfast, and I left. Nothing more.”
“Nothing more? Then why are you avoiding me?”
“Why didn’t you tell me you wanted a new partner? Huh? When we you going to tell me?”
She stared at me like she was trying to figure out what exactly I said. “What? I’m not getting a new partner.”
“But I heard you.”
“Whe—”
“AHHHH. MY LEG,” someone yelled from the bay.
We looked at each other, then left the room. Trevor was at the bottom of the stairs clutching his leg. Three others were surrounding him, one on his radio calling the EMTs over.
“I fell down the stairs,” Trevor moaned.
“Why aren’t you wearing shoes?” Marcus “Dark” Darkowski, one of the lieutenants asked. He sighed and made a call on his radio. “EMTs are on the way.”
I looked down to see him only in socks. Lissa and I gave each other a look. Maybe we could get through this.
Jake Lawson, an EMT, arrived and took over Trevor’s care. Dark pulled Lissa over to the side, and I followed.
“Alright Lissa,” Dark said, “I’m going to check the schedule and bring in whoever is on call to work with you.”
Lissa nodded. “I’ll come with you. I might need to mentally prepare myself for whoever it is.”
Lissa followed Dark, and I followed Lissa up to the office. Dark made the call while Lissa checked the name and nodded her approval. She would probably nod her approval at anyone after working with Trevor the last four weeks.
CLANG – CLANG – CLANG
We all stood up, even Dark who was still on the phone.
“We got a call. I’ll send you the address, meet us there.” Dark hung up the phone.
“Thorne, go with Lissa. Manage the pressure on the engine. Don’t do anything else but drive, manage the pressure, and hand out equipment. Stand down as soon as Donovon arrives.”
I nod, excited to be back in action, even if just minimal. Once on the truck, I raced to the scene with Lissa in the passenger seat. Just like old times.