Page 80 of Love Undecided
Chapter 35
Kat
We go out on the balcony to watch the sunrise with hot coffee and cold Chinese. The people watching was always good at sunrise and sunset. And by people, I mean guys jogging in shorts and hopefully little else. I turn to Remi. “Did I ever tell you that Brad’s company frequently runs this stretch of the beach?”
“Really?!” She tilts her sunglasses down and peruses the beach more carefully.
I laugh. “They usually run later in the morning.”
“Do you know this because you see him or because you know his schedule?” she asks, grinning.
“Both,” I tell her, ducking my head. “But whenever I see him, I hide behind the patio set so he doesn’t see me, but he always looks up.”
“Does he see you hiding?”
“Probably, I know it’s lame. I don’t know why I do it.”
She laughs at me. “Hey, speaking of guys... “ she points up the beach toward a group of guys, all in navy blue shorts and shirts, running down the beach. My heart starts beating faster. I'm fairly certain it’s guys from Brad’s station, it’s the only one close enough that they’d be running at this beach. And I have no idea if he’s with them.
“I gotta go to the bathroom,” I mumble to Remi and run inside the house.
“Chicken!” she calls back at me.
I take my time in the restroom, then stop to grab us some orange juice and acetaminophen. I can hear that she’s talking to someone when I return a few minutes later.
“Okay,” she’s yelling at the group. “But tell him that Kat and Remi say hello and we miss him!”
I rush to the balcony only to see the backs of the guys jogging farther up the beach, back toward the station house.
“What the hell, Remi?!?” I smack her on the upper arm. “What did you say?”
“Oh, settle down. I just asked if they were from A-Shift, but they were from C-Shift. They said B-shift was out helping another city with a big fire somewhere else and that A-Shift was paged in to cover the other city’s firehouse until they got back. I didn’t know they did that, that’s kind of cool. Anyway, so I asked if they knew Brad and they said yes, so I told them to tell him that Kat and Remi said hi.”
“And that we missed him,” I fume.
“Well, we do,” she said.
“No, we don't! We just saw him last night. That was dumb!"
"Kat, you miss him in the global sense of the word, as a fixture in your life, not because you haven't seen him in a long time."
"Well, I certainly don’t need him knowing that.”
“Why not?”
“Ohmigod, Remi, really?”
“Come on, Kat,” she says. “You know that you want to be with him. You made that pretty obvious last night. And, he wants to be with you. Tell him to ditch Stacy and make you both happy.”
“Stacy makes him happy.”
“Bullshit. You’re good for him. And he’s good for you. And I’ve told you plenty of times that your head is up your ass where he’s concerned. And so has Lexie and so has your mom. So everyone who loves you the most knows that he’s good for you and that being with him is the right thing, and yet you still sit here acting like a fucking martyr.”
“I am not acting like a martyr. Take it back!”
“No way! And I’m being serious here, Kat. If you don’t give him another chance, I’m going to tell him that you’ve been secretly pining for him all this time and that you’ve never stopped loving him and that he should keep trying to get you back with any means possible. And then I’m going to tell him that you have a shrine built to him on the inside of the door to your medicine cabinet.”
“It’s not a shrine!”
