8. Mack
CHAPTER EIGHT
mack
I’m halfway through the truck check when I realize I’ve opened the same side compartment twice.
I shut it harder than necessary.
She’s been living in that apartment for all of a month now and has already become the kind of distraction that has me standing like an idiot staring at a piece of equipment like it took a swing at me.
The inconvenient kind. The kind that has you wondering what her soft skin would feel like pressed against yours, or what those bright eyes look like when they’re rolling into the back of her head instead of arguing with you. The kind that almost has you forgetting it’s a lawsuit waiting to happen.
Almost.
She’d been annoyed at me the whole time I was up there, mouth sharp, chin up, holding that wooden spoon like she meant it.
The sweater didn’t help. Cream-colored cotton sweater pulling tight across her chest every time she crossed her arms, outlining curves and dipping down just enough to show off her perfectly round tits. The sight was impossible to ignore and makes my cock twitch even now.
That part, at least, made sense.
Attraction’s easy. Attraction follows rules.
What I can’t seem to stop thinking about is the argument.
Finding a stranger under your sink should’ve been the memorable part of that conversation.
Instead, she spent twenty minutes acting like the real issue was the fact that I hadn’t called first. Every answer I gave her somehow became another question, and every time the argument should’ve died, she’d find a way to keep it going.
Most people would’ve laughed, rolled their eyes, and let it go.
Darcy Reed doubled down.
And god help me, I liked it.
Nobody gives me shit anymore. Not really.
The guys try, but that’s different. Family is different, too.
Most people either trust me, listen to me, or get out of the way.
Darcy looked at me like I was the problem she was trying to solve and fought with me for twenty straight minutes armed with a wooden spoon and pure stubbornness.
I should’ve found it exhausting.
Instead, I keep thinking about the fire in her and how much I wanted to stoke it.
I swear under my breath and reached for my clipboard.
Cold March air slips through the open bay doors, carrying the damp smell of wet pavement and melting snow. Outside, Huntington is waking up slow and gray, traffic already stacking toward Fenway while winter and spring continue their annual argument over whose turn it is.
The bay floor still gleams from the overnight wash-down, polished concrete catching the overhead lights in long silver strips beneath the rigs. I’ve always liked it best before the shift settles into itself. Before all the noise.
Marco’s already at the workbench with a stack of RIT training paperwork spread out in front of him, making notes between sips of coffee. Tyler’s practical evaluation isn’t for a few weeks, but that hasn’t stopped Marco from treating the whole thing like it’s his responsibility too.
I grab my clipboard just as Marco glances up, then down at the clipboard before back at me.
“Interesting priorities.”
I follow his gaze to THIRD FLOOR WINDOW LATCH sitting at the top of the maintenance list.
“It’s broken.”
“Okay.”
A few minutes later the bay doors swing open and Tyler comes through carrying a breakfast sandwich and nods at Coop.
“If you touch my breakfast again, I’m calling the union rep.”
Coop looks up from lacing his boot with the concentration of a guy trying to defuse a bomb.
“You left it in the fridge overnight. That’s abandonment!”
“That’s theft,” Tyler points at him.
“That’s breakfast.”
Marco doesn’t even look up from the paperwork as Tyler steps over to the workbench.
“Saturday. Eight.”
Tyler stops walking.
“Don’t tell me. More stairmaster burnouts? You’ve had me carrying that damn vest for an hour almost every day the past two weeks.”
“You’re lucky I don’t make you do it in gear.”
Tyler groans.
“You want the qualification or not?”
Tyler shakes his head, already losing the argument.
“Saturday. Eight.”
“Saturday. Eight,” Marco repeats.
Tyler sighs before finally looking in my direction.
“Morning, sunshine.”
“Ty…”
He takes another bite of his sandwich.
“You tell ’em yet?”
“Tell them what?”
Tyler crosses his arms and smirks.
“About the drain incident.”
The entire bay seems to perk up at once.
The irritation on my face must answer half their questions.
“There was no incident. I fixed the drain.”
“Bullshit,” Tyler says.
“Wait—you finally went up there?” Coop asks at the same time.
“About time,” Trick mutters.
“And?” Tyler asks.
“And nothing. P-trap. Twenty minutes. Done.”
“Was she home?” Trick asks.
“She wasn’t home…at first.”
I know I’ve made a mistake before the words are fully out.
“Ooooh—” they all say in unison like a bunch of middle schoolers.
“No way.” Coop pushes up from the bench. “She caught you?”
“She was annoyed,” I say. “Thought I was breaking in.”
“Wait, you didn’t tell her you were coming?” Tyler stares at me in disbelief.
“I knocked.”
“Mack.”
“After I was already under the sink.”
A few faces stare back at me.
I drag a hand down my jaw.
“She wasn’t home yet.”
Tyler’s eyebrows lift.
“Convenient.”
“It wasn’t a guess.”
The second the words leave my mouth, I know I’ve made things worse.
“Meaning?” Tyler asks.
I should’ve left it alone.
Instead I say, “I saw her leave that morning.”
I’d seen her leave that morning with her laptop bag over her shoulder and headphones already on. She spends most workdays out of the house for hours and doesn’t usually make it back until early evening.
The silence stretches long enough for me to realize I’ve somehow learned Darcy Reed’s schedule.
“Wow,” Coop says.
“So she found you in her apartment,” Trick announces slowly, “crawling out from under her sink.”
“Fixing a drain she’d been fighting for three weeks,” I growl.
“She didn’t know that,” Ty unhelpfully adds.
“She knows now,” I say matter-of-factly.
Tyler looks at me the way he does when he’s trying not to laugh and losing.
“Did she say anything?”
I think about the way she’d planted herself in front of the bathroom like she was six inches taller and fifty pounds heavier than she actually was. About the fact she genuinely seemed prepared to defend herself with a wooden spoon.
“She had a spoon,” I raise a brow.
Coop folds in half.
“What?”
“A wooden spoon.”
The wheeze that comes out of him is almost concerning.
Tyler and Trick just stare.
“She threatened you with a spoon?”
“She didn’t threaten me.”
“Then why’d she have a spoon?”
“I don’t know Ty, I guess she planned on attacking me with it when she thought I was an intruder.”
Coop is fully crying now, and even Trick’s mouth twitches.
I’m aware I’ve earned this.
Tyler leans against the rig and smiles.
“So. Verdict? Was I right?”
“The drain’s fixed.”
“That’s not the verdict I’m asking for.”
His voice drops just enough that I know exactly what he’s asking.
“She’s our tenant,” I answer too quickly.
Tyler nods once, like that was a complete sentence and also like it wasn’t.
“Yep.”
Coop looks between us.
“Sooo… what’s the move?”
“There is no move.”
The answer comes out faster than I mean it to.
Fast enough that Tyler notices.
His eyebrow shifts almost imperceptibly.
“That’s—”
“That’s reality.” I set the clipboard down. “She lives in our house.”
It comes out rougher than I mean for it, settling over the bay. Tyler’s grin dials back as he shoves his hands in his pockets.
“Yeah,” he said. “She does.”
I meet his eyes. Eight years of calls, two years of sharing a mortgage, and over 30 years of sharing everything else that mattered. He knows exactly what I’m not saying. That she’s upstairs.
That I’ve spent more time thinking about her in the last twelve hours than I’ve spent thinking about most women in the last twelve months.
There can’t be a move.
And if I’m being honest, that’s starting to piss me off.
Tyler holds my gaze for another second then just nods.
Trick wanders over, towel slung over one shoulder, looking between me and Tyler.
“So you fixed her pipes…and you bought her food.”
“I brought her chowder—” Ty says.
“You guys usually don’t buy women anything until after you’ve slept with them,” Trick says. “And even then it’s usually just an Uber.”
The bay erupts.
“That’s not—” Tyler starts.
“That’s exactly what that is,” Coop says, folding in half.
“That chowder was a neighborly gesture.”
“Wicked domestic,” Coop wheezes.
I drag a hand down my face.
“This is pathetic.”
“This is the best shift we’ve had in months.”
Marco pushes off of the engine.
“You checked the same compartment twice.”
The laughter dies immediately.
“You never miss anything,” he continues.
He’s right—I don’t usually miss things. Not on calls or at the station or in my own home. It’s part of the job. You learn to notice details before they become problems, learn to trust the part of your brain that catches what everybody else walks past.
Apparently that now includes Darcy Reed.
Women have never been complicated before.
Tyler and I worked that out years ago—honest, straightforward, no mixed signals, no bullshit.
The Vegas weekend, the Newport wedding, the MGH physician’s assistant who’d shown up at shift change with three coffees and a grin—all of it simple.
Clean. The line always held because nothing ever gave me much reason to step over it.
Darcy Reed is starting to feel like a reason.
I’m choosing to believe that’s because she lives in my building. The alternative is significantly less convenient.
The fact that she looked at me like she wanted me too is not relevant information.
The tones drop and I thank Christ I don’t have to continue this conversation. Every head snaps toward the speakers while Dispatch crackles overhead.
Engine 37, Ladder 26 — structure fire, Huntington and Parker. Multiple callers. Smoke showing from the third floor. Possible entrapment.
Coop’s already moving. Trick is gone before dispatch finishes repeating the address. Marco heads for Rescue without breaking stride.
Tyler grabs his turnout coat and glances my way once.