34. Mack
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
mack
The reservation is Tyler’s idea. The follow-through is mine.
I made it Tuesday afternoon, standing in the station kitchen between calls while Tyler kept Coop occupied arguing about whether tomato soup is just hot ketchup. I spent twenty minutes comparing rooftop restaurants, as if ambiance were suddenly something I had opinions about.
I put the reservation in my calendar before either of us had the chance to talk ourselves out of it.
We never mentioned it again.
Tyler made sure neither of us picked up an overtime shift Saturday night, which is already more planning than we’ve ever put into taking somebody to dinner.
Together or otherwise.
I ironed a shirt after last night’s shift, which is probably the first sign I’ve completely lost perspective because I haven’t ironed a shirt for dinner since… honestly, I couldn’t tell you.
By the time Saturday gets here, Tyler’s upstairs changing for the third time.
“She’s gonna think we’re trying too hard.”
I glance down at the sleeves I’d ironed before eight o’clock this morning.
“We probably are.”
He laughs.
“We’re in it now.”
Neither of us changes.
I lean against the hallway wall outside our apartment, deliberately trying not to think about what exactly we’re doing here. Because that’s the problem—I honestly don’t know.
Three months ago she was our tenant. A month ago she became all I could think about. Now I’ve got a reservation under my last name, my brother’s upstairs deciding between two nearly identical blue shirts, and I’m standing in the hallway waiting to take the same woman out with both of us.
My mother would have a fucking field day.
She hugged Darcy after the St. Patrick’s Day parade like she’d known her for years. Then she’d looked at me and Tyler with that look mothers somehow perfect before their kids are old enough to lie to them.
I’d spent the whole walk to the Bell telling myself I imagined it.
Standing here now, I’m starting to think I owe Ma an apology.
A second later, Darcy’s making her way down the hallway stairs and everything else falls away.
Dark red with tiny white flowers scattered across the fabric. Thin straps. A slit that flashes one bare thigh every couple of steps. The dress skims her waist before falling loose again, and somehow she paired it with those beat-up white sneakers she wears everywhere instead of heels.
Her hair falls in loose waves over her shoulders, and she’s carrying one of those tiny purses that couldn’t possibly fit anything useful.
I catch myself smiling before she even looks up.
Christ.
Tyler comes around the corner, stops beside me without saying a word at first, and I don’t have to look at him to know he’s wearing the exact same expression I am.
“Damn.”
I still don’t take my eyes off her.
“No kidding.”
Darcy looks up, adjusting one of the thin straps on her shoulder.
“What?”
Tyler answers before I can.
“You look…incredible.”
“I know.”
She says it with that easy little smile of hers and keeps walking toward us like she didn’t just knock the air out of both our lungs.
Her eyes find me next.
“You clean up pretty good, too.”
I tilt my chin toward her.
“Pretty good?”
“You already know,” she teases, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear as she passes.
The corner of my mouth betrays me, and I push off the wall before I do something stupid like drag her inside and skip dinner altogether.
“You ready?”
She nods once and slips naturally into the space between us as we head toward the front door.
I don’t think she even realizes she does that now.
The first couple of weeks she lived here, she’d leave enough room between herself and whichever one of us happened to be walking beside her that a fourth person probably could’ve fit.
Every accidental brush of an elbow came with an apology, like she’d somehow wandered into somebody else’s conversation.
Now she gravitates to the middle without a second thought.
Tyler asks about the bakery before we’ve even reached the corner, apparently remembering the picture she’d texted us last week of some croissant she claimed changed her life. I’d forgotten the croissant entirely. Ty hadn’t, which doesn’t surprise me.
He remembers little things like that—stories people think they’ve tossed into the wind—and Darcy lights up immediately, launching into an explanation about why Boston bagels are an insult, and anybody charging eight dollars for laminated pastry should probably be arrested.
Tyler argues back just to keep her going.
Tyler does this thing where he’ll throw one sentence into a conversation just to get her talking, then sit back and let her prove him wrong for the next five minutes.
He barely says another word after that. Doesn’t need to.
She’ll roll her eyes, start talking with her hands, and forget she’s the one carrying the conversation.
I noticed all of that weeks ago.
Now I catch myself waiting for it.
I spend the next two blocks listening to them debate carbs like it’s congressional testimony.
A guy staring at his phone drifts across the sidewalk in front of us, and before I even think to move Tyler’s already stepped toward the curb.
Darcy doesn’t stop talking. She doesn’t even look up.
She just shifts the other direction until she’s brushing my arm instead, still explaining sourdough starters like her life depends on it.
Neither of them pauses or even notices.
Funny how fast people can start making room for each other without ever talking about it.
It’s such a small thing I probably shouldn’t read into it, except I can’t seem to stop.
If somebody walked past us right now, what would they see? Three friends?
Maybe.
If Tyler reached over and took her hand right now, I don’t think either of us would think twice about it. If I stopped her halfway down the block and kissed her, people would probably look. A month ago that might’ve been enough to stop me.
Tonight, all I can think is that I don’t give a shit.
Before I can pick that thought apart any further, the hotel comes into view at the end of the block.
The restaurant sits on the rooftop, and by the time the elevator doors slide open, I’m a hell of a lot more interested in whether Darcy likes the place than I am in whatever existential crisis I was having three minutes ago.
She steps out first, wandering a few paces onto the terrace before stopping at the railing.
Heat lamps cast warm pools of light between the tables while the skyline stretches out beyond them, the breeze lifting loose strands of hair across her bare shoulders as she slowly turns, taking everything in.
“This is…”
Somehow, that’s enough to loosen the knot that’s been sitting in my chest since Tuesday.
Tyler catches my eye for half a second.
He heard it too.
Darcy turns back toward us with a smile.
“You picked this?”
“We picked it.”
One eyebrow lifts.
“I found the place,” Tyler says. “Mack eliminated the other nineteen.”
“I spent ten minutes on Google.”
She laughs under her breath as the hostess leads us toward our table.
Worth it.
The table’s tucked near the corner far enough from everybody else that conversation doesn’t bleed together. Darcy slides into the booth across from us and pulls the cocktail menu closer.
The drinks come fast, Darcy taking one sip of the floral thing she’ll later trade for a beer and points at her glass.
“This tastes like you’re carrying me home.”
Tyler leans over.
“Let me try.”
She narrows her eyes but slides it toward him anyway.
“…Yeah. That’ll ruin your life.”
“I knew it.”
I watch her fingers curl back around the stem when he slides the drink toward her again. Thin gold rings. Pale pink nails. The bracelet she wore in the pictures she sent us from the waterfront a few weeks ago.
I remember that too.
Appetizers show up just as Tyler starts telling Darcy about our first month at the academy.
“I almost got Mack kicked out.”
Darcy looks up immediately.
“How?”
“They weren’t gonna kick me out.”
“You almost punched an instructor.”
“He almost punched me first.”
Tyler snorts.
“Because you corrected him in front of the whole class.”
Darcy’s already smiling.
“Guy spends twenty minutes demonstrating a forcible-entry technique,” Tyler says. “Whole class is standing there taking notes while I can feel Mack getting more annoyed by the second.”
“He was teaching it wrong.”
Tyler glances at Darcy.
“He made it about three minutes before he couldn’t help himself.”
“I asked a question.”
“You challenged the instructor.”
“I asked if he’d actually used that technique on a real call.”
“And what’d he say?”
“Said he had.”
“So I asked how many doors.”
Tyler laughs into his beer.
“The captain tells him, ’That’s enough.’”
I shrug.
“It was a valid question.”
Tyler shakes his head.
“So then Mack looks this captain dead in the eye and says, ’Respectfully, I don’t think that’s why it worked.’”
Darcy drops her head, giggling.
“Oh my God.”
“The room went dead quiet,” Tyler says. “I’m standing next to him thinking, well, it was a good run.”
“I wasn’t trying to embarrass him.”
“What happened?” Darcy asks.
“The captain didn’t say anything,” Tyler says. “Just walked over, handed Mack the halligan and told him to show the class.”
I can still remember how quiet the room got.
“I did.”
Tyler nods.
“One hit.”
“He watched for a second,” I say. “Then told everyone to do it that way instead.”
Darcy looks back and forth between us.
“So, you were right?”
Tyler sighs like he’s carried this burden his entire life.
“Unfortunately.”
“You’re welcome.”
Before I can answer, Darcy reaches for her drink without looking and takes a sip of my beer instead.
She doesn’t realize it until she’s already swallowed.
Her eyes flick down to the bottle, then back to me, and instead of apologizing, she sets it back in front of me exactly where she’d found it, like that had been the plan all along.
Tyler catches the whole thing.
“You just steal whatever you want now, Trouble?”
“I grabbed the wrong drink.”
“Don’t pretend you wouldn’t have taken it anyway.”