Chapter 13 Remington
Remington
Everyone at FGFD loved Lainey. How could they not?
She is kind, sweet, and has the perfect amount of sass to keep me on my toes.
She’s also incredibly thoughtful. I had no idea what would happen when she pulled up to the station, but when she stepped out of the car looking like a damn snack, I knew I needed to get my hands on her.
Needed to remedy the epic fumble from the ending of our first date and show her just how much I wanted her.
And then when she gave me the green light, told me I could mess up her sexy new haircut?
I could have died right there before our lips ever touched, but thank fuck that didn’t happen, because that was the hottest kiss of my life.
It didn’t feel like a first kiss. It felt like the kiss I have been waiting my entire life for.
It’s not just because Lainey is a great kisser, and I’m getting hard just remembering the feel of her lips on mine and the little moans she made.
No, kissing her cracked open that closed-off place inside of myself.
She fully shattered the illusion I built up years ago when I told myself that I didn’t really need this—a connection that is so real there is no point denying it or trying to run from it.
Wanting something and having it are two totally different realities.
I thought that I had “it” with Cora. We had so many plans for our future, and she ruined everything.
I thought I knew who she was, after all we grew up together, and she was Sutton’s best friend.
They loved the idea of being “sisters” and would talk about how the day Cora and I got married would make it official.
Cora and I never even really talked about marriage explicitly, it was just kind of assumed that it was going to eventually happen.
I felt a numb contentedness in our relationship, happy with where my life was headed . . . until I wasn’t.
My unsettled feelings didn’t even have anything to do with Cora at first, they came with my chosen career path.
I started college as a finance major. Being good with numbers and thinking about comfortable jobs, it felt like a solid, safe plan.
The coursework was not overly challenging for me, but still interesting.
Cora was going to school for a hospitality degree, minoring in business.
She wanted to pursue being some kind of wedding or event planner.
She informed me that I was going to help her with the business and money side of things because my degree would snap right in place with her plan.
She had it all mapped out, spreadsheets to match.
I told her I was happy to help her figure things out, but I didn’t want to be full-time in wedding and event planning when I graduated.
My parents wanted Sutton and myself to follow our passions, and mine did not march down aisles next to bridezillas or manage finances for overpriced parties. Cora just laughed.
The more I thought about it, the less appealing any kind of finance position felt.
I went to a job fair put on through the different college departments trying to see what was out there and hated all the options.
I felt sick, like I was wasting time and money not knowing what I really wanted to do.
There was only one table that day that stirred any kind of excitement in me that I saw when I was about to give up.
It was one that had a display about earning a degree in fire science.
I talked to the guys at the table for over an hour.
I had some previous knowledge of the degree because of Eli, but I didn’t know the full ins and outs.
A lot of entry level firefighting jobs don’t require something like that, but it would open up different opportunities for the future.
I could be a fire investigator, fire safety inspector, teach different aspects of fire safety and preparedness.
There were a lot of things that were interesting, and I had always felt a pull toward doing some kind of service, but I didn’t know what I was called to pursue until that moment.
Walking away from that job fair, I knew exactly what I wanted.
I switched my major for a degree in fire science with a minor in finance so I wouldn’t lose all the credits and time I had already put in.
I worked my ass off to take extra classes for the fire science degree so I could still graduate on time, which meant going to school year-round.
I was so excited and motivated. I didn’t care that I had little time for anything else.
This was going to secure the future that I could be proud of.
One that wasn’t dull, dreary, and constantly about punching a clock.
I would be helping my community in a meaningful way, and the best part was Eli was also going to be a firefighter.
Eli knew from the time he was little that was his passion, and it never changed.
He dressed up as a firefighter for Halloween every single year from the time he was in third grade.
Eli was happy to share his dream with me, encouraging me every step of the way, just like I should have expected him to.
He was already in the program when I changed my plans, and he helped me catch up.
I was worried he would be upset or feel like I was stepping on his toes.
When I told him that, he told me I was an idiot, and then dragged me to the gym for a hard workout so he could kick my ass in the boxing ring.
He’s my brother in every variation of the word, that will never change.
Cora was not thrilled with my choice. She was tepidly supportive, and it was wearing on our relationship, but we stayed together through graduation.
As soon as caps were tossed, and gowns were taken off—Cora looked at me expectantly.
She had on a short white dress, and her dark hair barely had a dent from the cardboard hats we were just sweating in.
Our families were all there, ready to celebrate and then move us back home.
As the day went on, Cora became colder and angry.
Turns out, she told everyone that I was going to propose after the ceremony.
I absolutely was not. That wasn’t on my mind at all.
There was no ring. Even if our relationship was in a good place, which it wasn’t, I would never want to do something like that publicly.
I think that moment should be special, thoughtful, and personal .
. . not rushed and showy. Surrounded by our family, maybe—but not thousands of other strangers.
That night at my apartment, as I was packing up my last few belongings, she dropped bombs that broke apart the pieces that were left of our struggling relationship, leaving nothing but shrapnel behind.
“Now that graduation is over we can finally really get the business going,” Cora had stated as she sifted through my things in the half-packed box on the dresser.
I looked over at her, confused. “Yeah, you can set everything up how you planned and make the event business what you want. You have been dreaming about this for a long time, it will be great.”
“It is our dream, silly goose! Don’t you remember all of our plans?
You promised me you would run the business and finances.
I need all my focus to be on the creative side and the clients.
Now that school is done we can really get cracking.
I already have two potential brides lined up in Fox Grove, and one big party in Norfolk.
” She spun to me, flipping her long hair over one shoulder, and smiling in a weird way that didn’t sit well, like she was convincing me that this was my idea all along.
What the fuck? Cora knew this was not happening. I told her when I changed majors years ago that my dream was being a firefighter, and she supported me. Albeit, reluctantly, but we had been together the entire time I had gone to school for this.
“Cora, I’m a firefighter. I already interviewed and I have a full-time job lined up at Fox Grove Fire Department. My dream is that. Not to run a finance department for your business.” She glared at me. Jesus, if looks could kill. “Or any business,” I emphasized.
“Firefighting? Really, Rem? That is seriously what you want to do with your life?!” Cora shrieked, her face reddening with anger that was unfair and misplaced. “I thought this was a stupid, childish phase, and I was letting you live out your little GI Joe, macho fantasy while we were in college.”
“What did you just say to me? This IS my life, Cora. I am a dedicated, highly trained, highly qualified firefighter. I am going to serve my community, save lives. There’s nothing fucking childish about it.
There is no fantasy or romanticizing the danger or the sacrifice of this commitment.
How fucking dare you.” I looked at her, and it was like I was seeing her for the first time. And I hated it.
Being with Cora was easy until it wasn’t.
I should have ended things with her a long time ago, but our lives were so tangled and twisted together.
Breaking up with her was not like ending things with a typical college girlfriend.
Cora had been my girlfriend since high school.
She was ingrained in every part of my life.
Our little town looked at us like we were the prize couple and put pressure on our relationship—I despised that, but Cora loved it.
Standing there with her arms crossed, Cora said indignantly, “So you’re not going to do this with me?
What’s going to happen?” Her phone beeped with an incoming call on the bed before she could fire off more stupid questions.
I picked up the phone and looked at the screen, blinking at a familiar, unwelcome name.
“Why is Jared calling you?” I asked in a hushed voice, knowing I was not going to like her answer.
There was no reason this dick should be contacting my girlfriend.
He was a TA for one of her previous classes, and they had an inappropriate relationship.
She promised it didn’t go past the extremely flirty banter and him asking her out a few times.
She chalked it up to her being inexperienced and unable to see it for what it was since we started dating so young.
That was a year earlier. I told her I would forgive her and forget about the whole thing as long as she never spoke to him again.
So his name flashing on her phone signaled nothing but doom for our relationship.
Cora’s entire haughty, angry demeanor shifted on a dime.
Tears welling in her brown eyes, she said, “Please, Rem, I-I-I can, let me explain. It, you, I mean, you were always so busy, and so many classes, and working . . .” She was stammering, scrambling to put a coherent sentence together, but I cut her off.
“So all this time I have been killing myself to finish my degree on time, so we can graduate, move home. Home. Where I thought we could finally have some more time, hopefully get our relationship back on track, and have time to work things out. Because you and I both know it hasn’t been great.
I was willing to at least try . . . But you have been fucking around behind my back?
How long, Cora?” Not one of her pretend tears had fallen onto her cheeks yet.
I just stared at her, waiting for an answer.
“The whole time,” she whispered.
I ripped my hands across my hair. Rage ran through my veins.
I was furious, more with myself for not seeing what a selfish, manipulative, opportunist Cora was—had apparently always been.
The red flags had been waving right in my face, and I decided they didn’t matter because I prided myself on being a man that could be relied on and stuck to his commitments.
And look what that got me? A cheating girlfriend that shit on my dreams.
“Get the fuck out.” I shoved the ringing phone into her hands and pointed to the door.
“What about the things I have here?” Cora had the nerve to pout at me.
“I’ll fucking burn them,” I roared at her and she scrambled out the door, seeing that I was not going to listen to her bullshit for one more second.
Snapping out of that long-buried memory, I am actually smirking thinking of that last thing I told Cora. That I would burn all her shit.
I didn’t, but I really wanted to.
Never in a million years did I think I could ever remember that night and not be stabbed with the deep shame I experienced, pain twisting my heart where I thought love for a girl I knew my whole life was housed.
But today, I feel grateful that my life with Cora ended the way it did—forcing me to let go of something I had been holding on to for too long, assuming it was love because everyone around us expected it to be.
We have a lot more in common than Lainey realizes.
I guess she was the only one that got to live out the “burning your ex’s shit fantasy” between the two of us, and honestly thank fuck for it because that night brought me to my dream girl.
Spending time with Lainey is proving just how much of my life I wasted with Cora, because that wasn’t living, and it certainly wasn’t love.