Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
NICK
W hat’s this fuckwad doing here?
“How are you?” Kyle asks Rachel, his gaze roaming over her.
“Fine,” she answers in a monotone voice, radiating tension.
Shit. She was just opening up a little, and now this.
“Here,” I say, handing him a plate. I glare daggers at him, hoping he’ll take the hint and leave, but he lingers. Unfortunately, no one else joins the line to force him to move on.
“Actually, I need two plates.”
He looks behind him toward the table where Autumn sits, the girl he cheated on Rachel with. She smooths a hand over her pregnant belly as she speaks to the couple next to her.
What a fucking dick. Now he’s rubbing his affair partner in Rachel’s face?
I hand him a second plate, but he ignores me, still watching Rachel.
“Haven’t seen you in a while.”
She’s staring down at the griddle, concentrating hard on the batter, and makes a noncommittal noise.
“Come on,” Kyle says, “we can be friendly, right?”
I can’t help the snort of derision that escapes me. I never liked him, even before he and Rachel started dating. He’s always been a shitty person.
He gives me a side-long glance, but dismisses me. “What are you doing here?” he asks Rachel. “Is the bakery selling the pancakes?”
She flips over the first of the bubbling pancakes. “No, I’m volunteering.”
He chuckles. “You always complained you never had time to do anything. Now you’re volunteering?”
She finally looks at him, her nostrils flaring. “Well, I have a lot more free time now that you’re not around.”
The background chatter of the crowd seems to fade as I listen intently for Kyle’s response. Should I leave and give them privacy for this conversation? Yeah, probably. Am I going to? Hell, no.
I don’t know what kind of answer she’s expecting, but he only gives her a bland smile. “Glad you’re getting out of the house, at least. Even if you’re stuck with the arsonist.”
He motions to me and my hackles rise. Who the hell does he—
Rachel’s spatula bangs down on the griddle. “At least Nick learned from his mistake. He’s dedicated his life to making sure it never happens again. Which is more than I can say for you.”
I stare at Rachel, flames rising in her eyes. Note to self—don’t piss her off.
Does she really think that about me? Or am I a convenient prop to get back at her ex? Either way, I’ll take it.
His jaw tightens. “Don’t pretend like you’re happy to be stuck with him.”
I open my mouth to defend myself, not sure what’ll come out, but Rachel beats me to it.
“I’m not stuck with him. I’m choosing to volunteer here. I’m even helping him with the next fundraiser.”
She is? This is news to me. Then again, I didn’t know she was coming today, either.
“If anyone’s stuck with someone,” she continues, “it’s you.” She jabs her spatula in the direction of Autumn.
The vein in Kyle’s temple pulses. Okay, time to break these two apart. We don’t need an altercation at the charity pancake breakfast.
“How about you move it along?” I say to him, subtly moving in front of Rachel. I don’t like the way he’s looking at her.
“I’m talking to Rachel, not you,” he grits out, trying to look past me.
“Well, I think it’s time for you to leave.”
He finally faces me. “I don’t care what you think.”
“And it’s my fire station, so you should. Now, respectfully, you can fuck off.”
His nostrils flare. “What’d you say to me?”
What, he didn’t hear? “I said fuck off.”
“You can’t speak to me like that.”
“Says who?”
He looks around, as if searching for someone he can tattle to. But this is the fire station. My turf. And every one of these guys has my back, no questions asked.
Upon seeing no one coming to his rescue, he makes a faint scoffing sound, looking at me as if I’m not worth the effort, and returns to his table. From the crowd, Autumn is watching us, but she’s too far away for me to make out her expression.
“You okay?” I murmur to Rachel.
Her face is paler than it was before, and she turns so her back is to the breakfasters. “Yeah, fine. Just caught off guard. I…” She clears her throat, looking down at her shoes. “I haven’t seen him in a while. Haven’t seen the two of them together, actually.”
I cross my arms over my chest, ignoring the urge to comfort her in some way. A squeeze of her shoulder. A pat on her back. She doesn’t want those things from me.
“I can kick them out of the pancake breakfast, if you want,” I offer. It’s about the only thing I can do.
Her lips tug up the tiniest bit at the corners. “A part of me wants you to. But no, that’d be petty.”
“Hey, I can get on board with petty. Someone takes up two spots in a parking lot? I’ll park right next to their door so they can’t get in.”
Her smile widens a little more. Maybe all isn’t lost in the getting her to open up department. “No, you don’t. Half the people in that line were singing your praises.”
Ah, she noticed that? “Okay, well, I think about doing it. That counts for something, right?”
Her gaze meets mine, and a laugh escapes her before she stifles it with her hand. “I can’t believe you told him to fuck off.”
I’ll go over and do it again if it gets her to laugh like that.
“You don’t think he deserved it?”
“He did.”
I nod in agreement. “He’s an idiot.”
“You think?”
I can’t tell if she’s asking it rhetorically, but I answer anyway. “Yeah. I mean, he had you and he fumbled it.”
Her gaze holds mine for a moment before cutting away. I blow out a breath, hoping I didn’t make her uncomfortable.
“I’m sorry I put you in the middle like that,” she says, still not looking at me. “I don’t know what came over me.”
“To be fair, he took the first shot.”
She turns, gesturing toward the crowd. “Clearly, no one still sees you that way.”
She must mean him calling me an arsonist. I hope she’s including herself in that statement.
“Oh.”
I glance in the direction she’s looking. Chief is talking to Kyle and Autumn.
Rachel turns to me, dropping her voice. “Are you going to get in trouble?”
“Nah.”
She looks at me skeptically. “Really? If I told someone in the bakery to fuck off… Well, I would never say that.”
I shrug. “Chief has my back.”
He leaves Kyle and heads toward us, hands in pockets, a genial smile on his face.
Rachel watches him like she’s expecting him to reprimand her, her eyes widening when he instead approaches and says, “I heard the good news. You’re going to help Nick with our next fundraiser.”
She blinks a few times. “Kyle told you that?”
He nods. “And a few other things about some stuff Nick said.” He waves a hand in dismissal. “I’m sure you had your reasons,” he says to me, then turns back to Rachel. “But what I’m interested in is your idea.”
“My idea?” she repeats, face slack.
“Yeah. Because this one has got nothing.” He jabs his thumb in my direction.
Not that I enjoy being called out, but it’s true. And he knew it when he assigned me the job.
“I, um… I’ll have to think about it.”
“Good. To be honest, Henry half-assed this one. There’s not even any meat. If I’d known, I would have picked up some bacon or sausage. Something.” He shakes his head, as if he’s embarrassed at what we served. “I know you’ll come up with something better.”
He pats her shoulder before strolling away, and she turns to me with panic on her face.
“Listen,” I tell her before she can say anything. “You said you’d help in a heat of the moment kind of thing. I won’t hold you to it.”
I obviously want her help and would love to hang out with her more. Even if…
I internally sigh. I didn’t get the sense she really wanted to be here today. And she clearly didn’t expect to be partnered up with me. I don’t want her feeling forced to do it because of something stupid she said.
She studies me, but I have no clue what she sees on my face. “What would you have done today if I hadn’t shown up?”
I rub at the back of my neck, chuckling awkwardly. “We would have had some real shitty pancakes, wouldn’t we?”
Her lips quirk up in a faint smile.
“You saved the day, though. And I’ll be honest—I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do about this next fundraiser.
But the fire station needs more money than we get from government funding to do the things we want to do.
” I shrug a shoulder. “I guess I’ll figure it out. There isn’t really an alternative.”
She nods, as if she understands. What had she said the other week when finding out she had to make all those cookies? That she always makes it work.
“I could try to help out some,” she says. “It would be good for the community,” she adds, as if she needs a reason.
The knot in my chest loosens.
I could tell her I’ll talk to Chief and explain it was a misunderstanding. But I don’t. When it comes down to it, I’m selfish. Not only because it means we’ll put on a significantly better fundraiser, but so I’ll have an excuse to keep seeing her.
Maybe… It’s a long shot, but maybe I could earn her forgiveness for what happened all those years ago.
“Great, thank you. And the community thanks you. I’m sure what we come up with together will be infinitely better than me winging it on my own.”
“None of the other guys will help?”
I rub my jaw. “Well, Henry’s leaving soon, so he’s already mentally checked out.
Jamal’s pretty new and Miguel has too many kids to do a lot of extra stuff.
Mark honestly doesn’t care that much and Daniel…
” I chuckle, thinking about him. He’s the most accident-prone man I’ve ever met in my life.
He somehow manages to trip getting off the fire truck every time, no matter how many calls we’ve been on.
“Trust me when I say he’d be no good. And Chief’s got more to do than hours in the day. So that leaves me.”
Her brow furrows. “That doesn’t seem fair.”
I shrug. “I’m Lieutenant, so it makes sense it’d fall to me. I guess I should’ve seen it coming.”
“Lieutenant? That sounds fancy.”
I chuckle. “There are only so many of us. Someone has to be it.”
She makes a noncommittal sound. “Wait. Did the Chief say something earlier about other guys being on duty? Are you not working right now?”
I shake my head. “I’m okay with doing extra stuff like this on my days off.”
She looks like she wants to argue for a moment, then decides against it.
“I think of it like this,” I tell her. “I’m incredibly lucky that I get paid to do my dream job, especially when Aurora has so few full-time positions.
So I don’t mind adding on a few hours here and there if it means I get to keep doing it.
And even if they cut our funding and I had to work somewhere else, I’d still volunteer here. This place means a lot to me.”
Her head tilts ever so slightly to the side as she listens to me. “I get it. I have to help out at work sometimes on my day off. Case in point, the other week when you had to put out the fire.”
“Aw, that was your day off?”
She nods. “It’s fine. I’m used to it.”
There’s a beat of silence, and I look out at the crowd, realizing most of the breakfasters are finished. Guess it’s time to clean up.
“So, can I get your number?” Her eyes widen and I rub my palms on my jeans, getting rid of the sudden dampness. “To talk about the fundraiser we’re planning,” I clarify.
She nods and I hold out my phone for her to put her contact info in, mentally doing a victory dance. If fourteen-year-old Nick could see me getting Rachel’s number now, he’d be in awe.
Not that she’s giving it because she’s interested in me, I remind myself. She’s interested in volunteering. Still, I’ll take it.
Her friend stops by and grabs one of the extra plates of pancakes at our station and lingers, eyeing me cautiously.
“How’s it going over here?”
Rachel seems to relax more with her here. “We’re good.”
“We didn’t formally meet the other week at the bakery.” She sticks her hand out toward me. “I’m Jae.”
“Nick,” I respond, shaking her hand.
Her grip is stronger than her slight frame implies. Paired with the intense way she’s studying me, it feels like she’s giving me some kind of test.
Only, I can’t tell if I’m passing it or not.
“I saw you-know-who showed up,” Jae says to Rachel, rolling her eyes. She must mean Kyle. He’s the only one I can think of who’s on par with Voldemort. “He give you a hard time?”
“Of course. But Nick here,” Rachel says, gesturing to me, “told him to fuck off. It was glorious.”
Jae’s demeanor does a one-eighty as she beams at me.
“He even offered to kick him out of the whole pancake breakfast, but I stopped him before he did that.”
“No, you should have let him. It would serve Kyle right for being a slimy, pencil-dick bastard who—”
“Okay, okay.” Rachel stops her before she can spew more creative insults. I kind of wanted to hear them, though. “Anyway, I think we’re about finished, right?”
There are only a few stragglers left out at the tables. Kyle and Autumn must have slipped out without us noticing.
“Yeah, thank you both for your help. You made a huge difference.”
Rachel gathers the bowls and utensils we used. “I’ll go clean these up inside.”
Jae doesn’t follow her, instead waiting till she leaves to say, “So, you’re anti-Kyle?”
“The original. Never could stand the guy.”
She gives me a broad smile. “You and I are going to get along just fine.”
She saunters off and I brace myself against the edge of the table, blowing out a breath.
All in all, today was… amazing, especially considering I didn’t even know if I’d see Rachel again and now we’re working on a fundraiser together.
Definitely a win. If I can keep up this good luck streak, maybe…
No, I don’t want to jinx it. Wishing for anything more when it comes to her is sure to lead to disappointment.
Because there’s no way in hell she’ll ever feel the same way about me.