Chapter 27
“ I take it things with Jenna have sorted themselves out?”
“Yeah.” I nodded at Rambo, swallowing the bite of burger I was chewing on.
“We worked it all out.”
“Looks like you did more than that. You practically floated into work this morning.”
I raised my eyes to him, the burger stalled midair. “Floated?”
“Yeah, dude. You fuckin’ floated. Was the bird song louder this morning? The sun brighter? Tell me; did you break into a joyful rendition of?—”
I flicked his cap off. “Enough. I’m happy. We’re good. That’s all you’re getting.”
He grinned. “Good. ’Bout time you pulled your head out your ass.”
His phone dinged and he pulled it out of his back pocket. His grin stretched to a full-on smile at whatever was on his screen, while I washed my food down with some soda.
“Callie’s made a handprint painting and left a space for mine on the sheet. Look.”
He lifted his phone for me to see and sure enough, there were two splodgy purple handprints on a not-so-crisp white piece of card.
“How’s she doing?”
A shadow crossed his gaze. “Mrs. Peterson said she thinks her speech is coming on, and I think so too. This past year was just so crucial you know? She’ll catch up fast, she’s so smart but . . .” He shook his head. “She told me that she loved me after I’d said it to her last night.”
“That’s got to have felt good.”
“It does. But that shit never shoulda happened. I shoulda known something wasn’t right.”
I stood to chuck my wrappers and empty Diet Coke cup in the trash.
“None of that is on you, brother,” I said, squeezing his shoulder.
Rambo just shook his head again, and a zing of doubt ran through me. He’d been thrown into single-parentdom at a force that would’ve given anyone whiplash and I worried Blake wouldn’t trust another human again for as long as he lived.
I could see the guilt slowly eating away at him and wished there was something I could do for him. For Callie.
He kept his circle small. Myself, the crew, his mom, and the retired teacher who was for all intents and purposes Callie’s nanny. And even though I was always trying to get him to bring Callie along to whatever my family was doing, he had yet to take me up on the offer.
I’d bring him around to the idea, that or sic Jenna on him.
It had been a week since she’d learned the truth and I had loved every second of it. Somehow we were even closer than we were before. We’d found another way to connect, and connect we did.
Jenna was wearing me out, and I felt like a king.
Or a god.
She was insatiable, and I was happy to accommodate her every need. I wanted her with every fiber of my being, so it was no hardship. And frankly, I wanted to kick my own ass for everything I’d forced myself to miss out on all these years.
She was passionate and vivacious, and I was loving every second of uncovering this side of her.
Even now, everything in me buzzed. I wouldn’t ever let a single soul know, but I was honestly high on life.
It was like since the moment I met her I’d been wearing shades and now that we’d officially become a couple, now that I’d set the lie free, I was getting her in high definition.
Her voice weaved its way through my body. Her laugh reached the very depths of my heart, and the way she looked at me, man, she saw through to my soul. I had my Jenna, but she was more.
I still had ghosts I needed to put to rest though. Conversations still needed to be had. I was merely a mortal, even if Jenna choosing to be with me made me feel like a demigod.
I was gonna have to dig deep if I truly wanted to heal and find peace in the choices I’d made.
The choice to be with the woman I loved more than anything in this world and the job I felt called to do.
And that all started with the meeting I’d rushed my burger to get to.
Father Neil was making his way across the apparatus floor as I rounded the corner where I was going to wait for him.
“Scott, how are you, son?”
“I’m doing okay. how are you?”
“All good, nothing to complain about. Shall we go into the office?”
“Yeah, can I get you a drink?”
“No, thank you,” he said, holding up a bottle of water. “No caffeine after 2 p.m.”
“Gotcha.”
I led the way deeper into the house and propped the door open for him to enter the office. It was worn out and had a funky smell, but where didn’t in this place?
I opened the window a little as he let the door close behind him. I leaned up against the sill, not quite sure what to do with myself.
“Take a seat, son, I don’t bite.”
“I know that,” I said with a chuckle, conceding and sitting down opposite the man.
I studied him for a minute as he took off his jacket. Salt and pepper hair, a neat mustache, and glasses rimmed his blue eyes.
“How about we just jump right into it?” he said without any preamble. “You don’t seem one for small talk.”
I shook my head. “I’m not, but I don’t even know where to start.”
“How about you just let what’s bothering you out to breathe and we’ll see if we can tackle it together.”
I was both anxious and relieved that he was getting straight to it.
“Okay,” I said, blowing out a breath. “I just told my best friend, the girl I’ve been in love with my whole life, that I want us to be together. Luckily for me, she’s felt the same way and so we’re gonna give a relationship a real shot.”
“Well, that sounds grand.”
“It is,” I agreed. “It’s good. Really good.”
“What’s eating at you?”
“The reason I held off for so long was the fear of something happening to me and leaving her alone. My mind will take me to these really dark places where she’s left to raise two young kids by herself.”
His eyes flicked to my name embroidered on my shirt.
“Tommy Madden.”
My brows shot to my hairline. “You knew him.”
He wobbled his head in a so-so gesture.
“Kinda. Spoke to him a few times when the department used to have these big cookouts, met his boys there once. Saw him around the station every now and again. I liked him. He was always quick with a joke, talked about his wife a whole lot. Showed me pictures of the boys every time I saw him.” He canted his head. “That wasn’t you, though, was it. I know both of them are stationed together at his old house. I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say he was your uncle.”
I nodded. “One of the best men I ever knew.”
“He sure was. You must only have been, what, eight or nine in 2001?”
Straight to the point this man was. “I was six.”
“I went to his funeral. Think I met your dad.”
I nodded, there was no way if he was at my uncle’s funeral my dad wouldn’t have sought him out to thank him for coming and all the work he was doing for the families.
“I reckon you did. He came to help out my aunt and cousins in the weeks after.”
Father Neil nodded.
“Why do you do this job, Scott?”
I sat back in my seat. The question surprised me.
I shrugged, feeling on the spot and searching for the right answer.
“You weren’t raised in this city. Your pops was military if I remember correctly. So why join FDNY?”
I looked away and then I just told the truth.
“A few reasons. I felt the call to serve. It was always a toss-up between a career in the Air Force, hockey, or becoming a firefighter. Tommy lived for it, and I felt like I wanted a piece of the action. My cousin had been selected during the previous round of intakes and”—I let out a sigh—“I wanted to look out for him. Be close in case he needed one of us.”
Father Neil looked off as if he were mulling something over in his head.
“So, your uncle gives his life, your cousin joins up, and then you, and then your younger cousin gets in on the intake after you. Is that right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“But then you don’t want your girl to go through anything as near as tragic, so you hold off from making both of you happy in some need to protect her, yourself, and your family from having to relive anything like your six-year-old-self witnessed and lived through when the very worst happened. And the guilt over all of that eats its way from the inside out.”
My eyes widened. “I guess that pretty much sums it all up.”
“Tell me, have you always felt this need to shield everyone the way you so clearly do?”
I swallowed hard but didn’t say anything in reply.
“Okay. Scott, I think I’d like for us to meet frequently. What would you say if I came to visit you here a couple of times a month? See if we can’t put a little of this rest. See if the good Lord can’t help us find a way to muddle through it all?”
I smiled. He thought he could help me, and I liked his brand of no bullshit. “I think I’d like that a lot if you had the time to spare.”
“I have all the time for you, Lieutenant Madden.”
Something settled in me then. I knew I still had a long way to go in healing from what happened and reigning in my fear to a more manageable worry, but maybe the ferocity in which it tore me up was due to me never telling her how I felt. The thought of leaving this earth without her knowing I loved her was enough to bring me to my knees, and that was the debilitating part.
Now that I wasn’t keeping it all a secret, I’d rest just that little bit easier.
I suppose, though, only time would tell.
We shook hands and I led him out, taking the communal area this time. Someone offered him a brew and he sent a wink my way.
“Sure, if you’re telling me it’s decaf.” I barked out a laugh as Tate made it to his liking and the old man gave us a few laughs, drumming up stories from over the forty years he’d been in the FDNY, until the tones went down, and we threw out quick goodbyes.