Page 22 of IOU

“You’ll stay here tonight. You’ll take my room,” he says, sounding all hero-y.

“You have a room?” Do all firehouses have rooms?

“Yes. The others share sleeping quarters.”

I feel a grin slide onto my face as I cut Luke a look that clearly shows my amusement with this whole firemen hierarchy.

“But, where will you sleep?”

Boss nods to Luke. “In one of the other beds.”

Luke looks like he tasted something gross. Guess nothing sucks worse than sleeping with your boss. I make myself laugh, thinking of the two huge dudes tucked into their twin-sized beds while one probably nods off promptly at 9:00 p.m. while the other probably has ample amounts of phone sex until he passes out from exhaustion.

“One night,” says Luke, draining the noodles and giving me the side-eye. “One night is all you get. The captain snores.”

I’m sure that’s the issue, but nevertheless, their kindness is unnecessary. “Look, you guys are so sweet with feeding me and not reporting me to the authorities, but really, my car is quite comfortable.”

“No.”

“You didn’t let me finish,” I say to the angry-looking man. “All I need is possibly a pillow, and the floodlight left on. Simple.” I dust my hands off like my solution is done. “No one needs to give up their bed. Besides, I bet you’d be breaking like a ton of rules.”

Bostic grunts. “You’ll stay here. End of discussion.”

“Come on, Boss H—”

His chair scrapes along the floor as his big body folds out. “I’m going to take a shower.”

He walks off, leaving me with my mouth hanging open. “Did he just cut me off?”

Luke grins, mixing the noodles with the sauce. “You don’t argue with Cap. His word is law around here.”

“I wasn’t arguing.” Okay, I was, but really, they don’t need to break any more rules for me. “I was just suggesting you be like a Motel 6 and leave the light on for me.”

Luke snorts. “I think that slogan means they will leave the interior lights on for you. Not toss you a pillow and flip on the bug light.”

“The floodlights, not the bug light. I wouldn’t be able to sleep if that thing was zapping poor little bugs all night.”

Luke and I both laugh.

“Fine,” I say after a minute. “But I want to slide down the fire pole before bed.”

The thing about sleeping in a firehouse is that you don’t really sleep. It’s more like that movieGroundhog Day, where you repeat the same day over and over. Except instead of repeating the same day, you repeat the same fifteen minutes of sleep before the fire alarm thingy goes off. It was worse than sleeping in my car. I assured Boss that I would find somewhere to crash from here on out. I appreciate their kindness, but there is no way I will make it another night in the firehouse. Sliding down the pole was cool, though.

“I don’t know, Mom,” I mumble into the phone, scanning the corkboard outside of Westminster Hall. “Maybe he was removing the stick up her vagina and fell in.”

My mom, who had been ready to drive up here and cut a bitch when I finally told her about Tucker and Taylor, laughs on the phone. The sound is soothing and almost convinces me to take her offer of coming home this weekend. I could use a hug and someone stuffing me full of food and doing all my laundry.

“I just don’t know what happened to that boy. He’s always adored you.”

He adored me all right. He loved me and the spare key to my apartment so he could fuck my roommate. I know, I know. Jesus take the wheel and all that. But it burns, right down to my little heartbroken soul. These couple of days have not lessened the burn. Tucker and I had plans. Legit plans of being a family and traveling the country. How am I just supposed to move on from those plans?

Hell, I don’t even know if those were my plans or his plans. Is that still what I want? Why is all of this so confusing?

“Well, baby, think of it this way, you have your whole life ahead of you with a clear and unobstructed path. It’s a fresh start. Now you can figure out what you want and do it. Tucker won’t be there to weigh in with his opinions.”

She’s right. I know she is. And honestly, I’ve told myself that, but I still want to nut punch him a few times.

“I know, Mama. And I will. I think I just need a little time to grieve the loss of us, you know?”

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