Chapter 5 Not To Plan
NOT TO PLAN
The minute Jocelyn pulled her comfy black athletic shorts on two days later, the damn fire alarms went off again. Are you freaking kidding me!?
What the hell was going on in the building?
She grabbed her white T-shirt that said McCarthy Construction on it and quickly pulled her work shirt over her head and swapped it for the T-shirt. No way she was going outside half in her workout gear and the other half a nice shirt.
Her feet were bare, thankfully, so she slipped them into a pair of slides in her room, ran to get her purse and phone and went out the door toward the stairs.
It was the third alarm in seven days, and she was getting fed up with this. Someone had to learn to cook.
She got to the stairwell and was running down it faster than other tenants. Sorry, it was probably a false alarm, but she played by the rules and passed a few who were just chatting and bitching about this happening again.
“I hear you, sister,” she mumbled, but passed the woman just the same.
Once she was outside, she just found a spot in the parking lot and stood there. She hoped it was something quick like last time because it looked as if it was going to rain.
She could go into her garage if she had to. Few purchased them on the property, but she liked parking her car and then having access through a closed-in walkway to the building.
Sirens blared, yet people wandered out like it was a Sunday stroll to church. Maybe it was nothing, but she wasn’t about to stick around and find out if the building was going to explode.
Dramatic, sure, but her mind always detoured down paths it didn’t need to travel.
The firetrucks turned into the lot, the building manager going out to meet them. No one was rushing and that told her there was no fire. Again.
“I’m going to complain if this happens again,” Mary said. Mary lived on her floor and walked over to stand next to her.
“It’s frustrating. Something or someone has to be setting them off.”
“I heard that there has been smoke both times. The eighth-floor sprinklers went off in the hallway.”
“I heard that too,” she said. “At least it wasn’t our floor.”
She didn’t want to deal with that pain. The risk of water getting into her place or just tracking the wet and dirt in.
“I don’t know how the water from that floor didn’t make it to our floor,” Mary said.
They were on the fifth floor.
“There is drainage for it to go down the side of the building and not through the ceilings and ruin other floors,” she said.
“How do you know that?” Mary asked. “Even Tom worried the other night when it happened.”
Tom was Mary’s boyfriend. He wasn’t around much. At least not that she ever saw. But she didn’t socialize with many in the building either, preferring to keep to herself.
“Because McCarthy’s built this structure,” she said.
The building was ten years old. She’d been working at the firm when this place was under construction.
Mary looked at her shirt. “Oh. Where you work.”
She rolled her eyes. She was positive Mary knew her last name, but maybe not and she wouldn’t volunteer it.
“Yep,” she said.
“I thought you did accounting or something,” Mary said.
“I do. That doesn’t mean I’m unaware of building construction details.”
She’d always said she didn’t need to know those facts, but her parents proved her wrong. She had to have a basic understanding to own the business. It was best not to rely on Gabe to do it all.
So she sucked it up, sat with her father and brother, and studied the blueprints and floor plans, taking it all in, even if most of it went over her head.
“You know, I don’t care for the bathroom tile in my place. It was like that when I bought it. How come I wasn’t given the option to change that out?”
She sighed. “That’s not part of what we do,” she said. “Our firm builds the structure, roof, windows et cetera. Puts all the steel in place, the floors, elevators. Once that’s done, it’s turned over to another company to do the inside finishing work.”
“Oh,” Mary said. “Who did this, do you know?”
“Sorry,” she said. “I don’t.”
Jocelyn turned her attention back to the firemen and the building manager. Two firemen stayed out, looked like five went in, but no hoses and no hurry either.
Her arms were crossed, foot tapping impatiently. This was cutting into her workout time. She wanted to finish, grab something to eat, and settle in to try that new series. Watching just one episode wasn’t her style. If she liked it, she needed at least a few to dive in.
Now her schedule was going to be off.
What did her mother tell her? Live a little and don’t be so rigid?
Yeah, right. Some habits were hard to break.
She looked at her watch, saw that twenty minutes had gone by.
How could she not be rigid when she had a plan that wasn’t going her way?
“I hope they aren’t much longer,” Mary said. “Tom just texted me he’s bringing dinner home and it’s going to get cold if we have to stand around here.”
“Just eat it out here,” she said.
Her stomach was rumbling now too.
“It’s not burgers,” Mary said indignantly. “He’s bringing home seafood casserole and linguine.”
“Lucky you.”
Wish she had someone to bring her dinner home now and again.
“Looks like maybe they are wrapping things up,” another woman said who came over. She didn’t know the older woman’s name and didn’t care all that much. Seemed like it was someone Mary knew.
“I hope so,” Jocelyn said. Her plan of going to the gym was changing. Yoga in her apartment, then a quick dinner and shower sounded better. And faster.
See, she could pivot just fine.
“I heard that someone started the fire the other day in a garbage can. They are still trying to figure out who did it.”
There was more talking around her. She’d seen the one fireman come out with the can in his hand days ago and give it to the building manager. Probably had some truth to it, but she wouldn’t believe anything unless it came from the source.
“I hope they figure it out,” she said. “Because this is irritating. It’s always around this time too. Maybe they should narrow it down that way.”
The last two alarms came when she was coming home from work and barely got out of her car. She’d been late those two days. Today she’d gotten out earlier than normal.
“That’s a good point, Jocelyn. You should bring it up with the manager.”
How did this woman know her name? Probably Mary.
She shrugged. “We’ll see.”
More firemen came out, the captain going to talk to the manager again. She was watching the men while they worked to see if there was any sense of urgency and there hadn’t been once they’d exited the truck.
One fireman lifted the shield on his helmet, another did it too. The one who was looking toward her.
He wore a sexy smirk, and her jaw dropped in response. Then, with maddening ease, he lifted a hand in a lazy salute.
Only one man had ever made that move in her life.
Holy shit, that was Chance Drummond. What was he doing dressed like a fireman?
Not dressed like one in costume, but actually in uniform.
Yes, please!
Didn’t he own a bar?
She lifted her hand in a half-hearted wave, clearly stunned, and him throwing his head back in laughter didn’t help.
With all the noise around her, it was as if the sound pressed right into her ear, intimate and undeniable.
Her chest warmed, tingles swept through her limbs, and her heart pounded so loudly it drowned everything else out.
The world blurred, leaving only the rush of feeling she hadn’t expected but couldn’t ignore.
Her mother told her not to plan it all out.
Mom was right this time!
She brushed past the women beside her and made her way toward Chance. There was something about him that pulled her in instead of pushing her away. Other girls turned their heads away from Chance in school.
Not her. Not then. Not now!
Nothing about him turned her off. Nothing about him scared her…except the way he made her feel.
Which was magnified tenfold as an adult.
Too bad he just climbed in the truck and took off.