Page 75 of Love Unavoidable
Chapter 20
ethan
I don’t have plans tonight. Unless you consider offering to cover for one of the guys at the station as plans. Yeah, I could have just told Sadie I was working. Especially after I saw the look on her face when I told her I may not come home. But this is what she wanted. Not to start something with me, and instead to play the field. Well, I’m not going to sit at home while she dates other guys.
No, you’re going to sit at work while she dates other guys.
I decide to head out to the beach while Sadie is in the shower. I don’t need to be thinking about her naked and wet with just a closed door between us. Besides, surfing always clears my head. And I can use that right about now.
* * *
I hose off my board when I get home and hang my wet suit up to dry before going in the house. Sadie is in the living room reading on her tablet when I get inside.
“Did you go to the beach?” she asks.
“I did. Caught some waves for a while. Good exercise and great relaxation.”
“Oh! You went surfing?”
I nod.
“I’ve always wanted to surf,” she says. “It looks so wild and fun.”
“It’s both of those things,” I say. “There are a ton of places that give lessons around the beach area. You should check them out.”
You could give her lessons.
Yes, but then I’d have to see her in a bathing suit. And a wet suit.
“Sure, yeah, I’ll check them out. Thanks.”
“No problem.” I head back to my room to do a quick rinse off before work.
* * *
She’s still in the living room when I’ve changed to leave for work. “You got any plans for tonight?” I ask.
“No, I think I’m just going to stay in and read.”
“Okay, have a good night,” I say and leave without looking back.
The drive to the station doesn’t take long. I get settled in and before I know it, we are out on our first call of the night. It’s weird working with someone who isn’t Brad. Not impossible, just different. He and I have partnered for so long we work as one. He goes left, I go right. He checks this, I check that. It’s automatic, we don’t even have to say anything.
But with someone new, I have to call everything out that I’m doing, and make sure I’m not duplicating something that’s already been done, just not in the order I would have done it. Tonight, I’m with one of the guys that brought Sadie in from Lexie’s wedding, Spencer Allen. So, we sort of know one another, but not really.
“Hey, how’s your girl doing?” he says, making conversation as we pack up after the call.
“She’s not my girl. But she’s doing good.”
“Oh.” He frowns. “I thought you guys were together that night.”
“We might have been, but we aren’t now.”
“Good to know,” he says running his fingers along either side of his jaw and nodding. I want to say more. For instance, ask him what “good to know” means. But I refrain. It’s none of my business. It doesn’t matter what he is saying or his intentions and it doesn’t matter what Sadie did or is doing or will do. He says nothing more after that.
We get back to the station a short-time later. The call was quick and easy. A car that had gone off the road and was stuck in a small ditch. No injuries, all they needed was a tow truck. But it was nice that someone had called it in when they saw the car go off the road. Often other drivers just ignore accidents, not wanting to get involved.
I head to the lounge area to hang out for a while. Some other guys are there watching a football game. I half-heartedly watch with them. It was the same with surfing today. I couldn’t get into it, and I fucking love surfing. If this is what life is like without Sadie, I want no part of it. Obviously, I’m not going to be getting life with Sadie either, so I need to figure out a way to go back in time a couple weeks. To my life pre-Sadie. I was happy then. I didn’t think about things like relationships or getting to know someone, or whether they should date other people, or what my future looks like with them.
