Chapter 5 Shane
Shane
I couldn't stop thinking about her.
It had been two weeks since the hospital, and I still didn't fully understand what had happened in that teacher's lounge.
I'd been dropping off fire safety materials. Routine stuff. Posters for the hallways, a smoke detector for the demonstration, and the usual packet of information for teachers. I wasn't even supposed to be inside that long. I just had to sign in at the front office, drop the box, and leave.
But then I'd heard the commotion from down the hall. Voices rising, someone shouting "Oh my god," the scrape of chairs being pushed back. The kind of sounds that make you move before you think.
By the time I got to the lounge, she was already on the floor. Dark hair spilling out of its bun. Eyes fluttering, unfocused. A bruise was already forming on her temple, angry and red.
When Maya opened her eyes and looked up at me, there was nothing in her expression except confusion. I ran through my concussion checks, asked her name, the date, and the president. She'd answered everything correctly, her voice hoarse but steady.
And then that other teacher had laughed.
‘That's probably the closest she's been to a man since her divorce.’
I'd watched Maya flinch. Shame flooded her face, and I felt her try to make herself smaller in my arms as the other teachers smirked and whispered, enjoying the show.
Something in me snapped.
I didn't plan what came out of my mouth, didn't think about consequences or how it would look or whether it was appropriate at all. I just saw a woman being kicked while she was down, literally, and I wanted to make it stop.
‘Are we still on for dinner tonight at seven, Ms. Cummins?’
The room went silent. The smirks froze. And Maya had looked up at me with those tired brown eyes.
‘Seven?’
I still didn't know why I'd done it. Or why I followed the ambulance to the hospital. Or why I'd stayed for six hours, pretending to be her boyfriend, making small talk, watching her hold her entire life together with one phone and sheer determination.
She wasn't my type. I had a pattern: beautiful women who wanted the calendar firefighter, who laughed too hard at my jokes and touched my arm at bars and didn't care who I actually was underneath the headlines. Women who spent hours on their appearance expected me to notice.
Maya wasn't like that.
Her hair had been falling out of its bun, dark strands escaping around her face. Her clothes were practical, forgettable. She hadn't been trying to impress anyone.
But there was something about her.
The brown eyes that held exhaustion and something fiercer underneath. The olive skin, warm even under the harsh fluorescent lights. The curve of her neck when she'd tilted her head back against the hospital pillow, trusting me enough to close her eyes.
The way she'd laughed at something I'd said in the car, surprised by her own amusement, and for just a second her whole face had transformed into something that made my chest tight.
She had the kind of beauty that sneaks up on you. The kind you miss at first glance because she's not demanding you see it. Not performing it. But once you notice, you can't stop noticing.
I couldn't stop wondering what she'd look like if she wasn't so tired. She was a woman I'd met two weeks ago. But she kept slipping into my thoughts.
And it wasn't just the way she looked.
It was the way she'd treated me. In the hospital, waiting for the CT results, she hadn't asked for a selfie.
Hadn't mentioned the calendar or the viral video or any of it.
She'd just talked to me. Asked me questions like she actually cared about the answers and rolled her eyes when I made a bad joke.
She'd talked to me like I was just a person. Not a hero. Not a headline. Just Shane.
I couldn't remember the last time that had happened.
Two weeks later, I was still thinking about it.
The texts had started as check-ins. How's the head? Standard stuff. The kind of follow-up I'd done a hundred times for people I'd helped on calls.
But then she'd texted back something funny, and I'd responded, and suddenly we were arguing about pizza toppings, and she was sending me a photo of her bruise with the caption warrior status confirmed, and I was smiling at my phone at two in the morning like I’d lost all sense.
Nothing heavy. Nothing that should have meant anything.
But I kept checking my phone between drills, smiling at messages when I should have been focused, and replaying the way she'd looked at me in that teacher's lounge.
"Briggs!" Brian's voice cut through my thoughts. "You planning to join us, or you got somewhere better to be?"
I looked up. The crew was already halfway through the hose drill, and I was standing there like an idiot doing nothing.
"Sorry. I'm here."
We ran the drill twice more, then broke for lunch.
I grabbed a sandwich from the kitchen, found a quiet corner in the common room, and pulled out my phone. I told myself I was just checking messages. Routine stuff.
But I ended up scrolling back through our conversation from last night. The pizza debate, her dry comebacks, the photo of her bruise with “warrior status confirmed.”
I was smiling before I realized it.
"What's her name?"
I nearly dropped my phone. Brian was leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed, watching me with the kind of grin that said I was never going to hear the end of this.
"What?"
"The woman you're texting." He nodded at my phone. "You've been staring at that screen for five minutes with the dopiest look on your face."
"I don't have a dopey look."
"You absolutely have a dopey look. It's the same face you made when they added that new espresso machine to the kitchen."
"I was excited about the espresso machine. It changed my life."
"And apparently so has whoever's on the other end of those texts." Brian pushed off the doorframe and dropped into the chair across from me. "So. Who is she?"
"No one."
"No one." He repeated it flatly. "Three months of ignoring every woman who throws herself at you. Three months of 'I'm focusing on myself' and 'I'm done with the meaningless stuff.' And now you're hiding in a corner rereading text messages like a teenager with his first crush."
"I'm not hiding. I'm eating lunch."
"You're literally facing the wall."
"The wall doesn't ask stupid questions."
"The wall also doesn't care about your emotional well-being." Brian clutched his chest in mock offense. "I, on the other hand, am deeply invested."
"You're deeply nosy, Torres."
"Nosy is just another word for caring." He leaned forward. "So talk."
I shoved my phone back in my pocket. "It's nothing. She's just someone I helped on a call."
Brian's eyebrows shot up. "You're texting someone from a call?"
"It's not like that."
"What's it like, then?"
"Like you minding your own business for once in your life."
"Ouch." Brian put a hand over his heart. "That would hurt if I had any intention of dropping this. Which I don't." He studied me for a moment, that teasing grin softening just a fraction. "You like her."
"I barely know her."
"Doesn't matter. You like her." He shook his head slowly. "Whoever she is, she's got you messed up, man. Haven't seen you like this in a long time. Maybe ever."
"You've known me for years. You've seen me like a lot of things."
"Yeah, and none of them involved smiling at your phone like it just told you that you won the lottery." He stood, clapping me on the shoulder as he passed. "Good luck, Briggs. You're gonna need it."
"Your faith in me is inspiring."
"That's what friends are for."
He left me alone with my sandwich and my phone and the uncomfortable realization that he wasn't wrong.
My shift ended at 8 AM Saturday. I went home, crashed for a few hours, then spent the afternoon running errands I'd been putting off for weeks. Laundry. Groceries. An oil change I was three thousand miles overdue for.
By the time I got home and showered, it was early evening. I stood in my kitchen, keys in hand, trying to talk myself out of what I was about to do.
This was ridiculous. I barely knew her. She had a life, a kid, a thousand things more important than some guy she'd met a week ago showing up at her door unannounced.
But I kept thinking about the texts. How easy it was. How I'd catch myself checking my phone, hoping for another message. How talking to her felt different from talking to anyone else.
I ordered Chinese food before I could change my mind and drove to her building. I convinced myself I was just checking in, making sure she was okay, doing the decent thing.
But standing outside her door with bags of lo mein and orange chicken, I knew that was a lie.
I knocked anyway.
Maya opened the door and froze.
She was in sweatpants and an oversized sweater that slipped off one shoulder, her hair pulled back in a messy ponytail. The bruise on her temple had faded from purple to a yellowish green. No makeup. No effort.
And still, my mouth went dry.
There was something about seeing her like this. Unguarded. Real. The soft fabric of her sweater hanging loose, the exposed collarbone, the way she looked up at me with those tired brown eyes. I had to consciously stop my gaze from lingering on the strip of bare skin at her shoulder.
"Shane?"
I held up the bags. "Hey! I wanted to check on you so I brought food."
Smooth, Briggs. Real smooth.
I couldn't remember the last time I'd been nervous around a woman. Nervous wasn't something that happened to me anymore. I'd spent three years being the guy who always knew what to say, always had the easy smile and the charming line ready to go.
But there I was, standing in her doorway with takeout getting cold in my hands, feeling like I was seventeen again, showing up to a first date with sweaty palms and no game.
She stared at me like I'd shown up with a live tiger instead of Chinese food.
"You didn't have to do that."
"Had to eat anyway." I shrugged, aiming for casual. Missing by a mile. "Figured you did too."