Page 3 of Unexpected Love
“How’s retirement treating you? Pretty good, from thelooks of that beard you’ve got started.” I’m trying for light and friendly, even as I shove my empty wallet back into my pocket.
His eyes twinkle with his smile.
Mac Collins’s eyes fuckingtwinkle. Never thought I’d see the day.
“I told Liv I was going to grow it long enough to braid it.” He runs a hand over his facial hair, gathering it below his chin. “Rosie threatens to trim it every day.” His new fiancée and their daughter are a class act, but I can totally see them giving him shit about it.
“How is Chief Hawkins? When’s the wedding?” His fiancée is the fire chief at NFD and the reason he retired.
“She’s great. Threatening me about finding a job or a different hobby. Apparently, I’m a lot to handle when I’m bored and run out of home-improvement projects. We haven’t set a date. She’s stressing too damn much about it. I think I’m gonna steal her away one day and surprise her.”
Behind Mac, the door opens, and two other men I had the pleasure to work with at NFD come striding through it.
“What’s this, homecoming day at the coffee shop?” I greet Nate and Thoren with handshakes and bro hugs.
“Hey, man,” Thoren says, clapping me on the back. “How’s the shoulder? And things at the county? Heard y’all had a rough night. Were you on that house fire?”
I lean a hip against the counter and cross my arms over my chest, trying to fight back the nausea that rolls through my belly at the mention of the fire. “Shoulder’s good, a little stiff.” Not a total lie. It’s the mental part of the call when I got shot that’s hanging around.
I swallow thickly and speak in a low voice to not disturb any eavesdroppers. “I recovered her.” The words tremble as I force them out, and I have to clear my throat.
Winces contort the faces of the men staring back at me, accompanied by a chorus of “That sucks.”
They get it. They know.
There’s a distinct difference between “rescue” and “recovery.”
Mac grips my good shoulder. “Not sure how things run at the county, if you’ll have a debrief or not, but remember what I’ve always told you.”
Working in the fire service and seeing some of the shit that comes with it means we sometimes struggle with processing scenes. Mac had always reminded us that we weren’t the cause for whatever happened. We tried to help as much as we could, but sometimes, we lost people in this line of work.
I’ve seen a lot in my years of fire service. But this time, it hits differently. That mother isn’t my first dead body and won’t be my last. But knowing she’d been alive when I’d first arrived on scene, and I just wasn’t fast enough to get to her, feels like the ultimate failure.
Yeah, I’ll be processing this one for a while.
“Excuse me, did you still want the Americano, sir?” A sweet voice with the slightest hint of irritation stops my spiraling thoughts.
In another reality, another time, I’d be able to turn this around. Flirt a little, maybe get her number. But I’m not the man I was before the last shift, and right now, I don’t think I can handle one more rejection, one more instance of failure.
I glance at the growing line behind us, realizing I’ve been holding everyone up.
Before I can decline, Mac steps up to the counter, whipping out his wallet. “You can make that two. Why don’t you join us, Cal?”
I want to. Damn, how I want to hang out and catch upwith the guys I haven’t seen in months. After spending years with them, I hadn’t known what a good thing I’d had when I bailed from NFD for more money.
“That’d be good.”
Nate and Thoren place their orders, and we make our way to one of the open tables.
“So, catch us up,” Thoren starts, and the weight of their gazes lands on me.
“It’s been a whole bunch of me working. Trying to get settled in a new department. Moved to a new apartment.”
“That’s a lot of new,” Mac states.
“Yeah, but it was time for a change. I’ve been hoping to convince my sister to move up here for a while, and I think she’s finally given in. Plus, let’s face it, if I want to make a career out of the fire service and don’t want to be running calls until I’m fifty, then I needed to move to a department where I could move up the ladder.” I glance at Captain Collins and realize my mistake. “Sorry, no offense.”
Grunts all around come back at me, and Mac waves off my unintended jab. One of the reasons he retired was because he’d gone as far up as he could go and still hadn’t made it to the level where he wasn’t running calls.
