Page 11 of Marked By my Boss
Does this qualify me as some mid-morning trash TV guest? If it does, I’m not sure I’m against it. I could use the two-hundred-dollar appearance fee.
“I’m sorry.” I glance out at the rising sun. “I, ugh…”
“No worries.” He stands and returns to the recliner. “Don’t be embarrassed. You had a rough night. Bad dreams seem on par.”
Not really bad… exactly. The dream about how you were about to punish me for not turning in my report on time with your dick… seemed reasonable.
“Thanks,” I murmur as I lower the blanket. “Did you sleep in that chair all night? You must be exhausted.”
“Nah. I did forty-eight-hour shifts back in the military. It doesn’t take much to keep me rested.”
My brows narrow and I lean in. “I didn’t know you were in the military. What did you do?”
“Army medivac unit. We’d get called out in the middle of the night to the middle of nowhere. Sometimes we didn’t even know what we were flying into, just that someone needed help.”
I don’t interrupt. His tone is calm, but there’s weight behind it and I want to know more.
“There was this one time,” he says, exhaling loudly, “we landed in a field that was still hot from mortar fire. Smoke was everywhere. I had to crawl through it to get to this twenty-year-old kid who was bleeding out from a chest wound. I remember thinking that if I stopped moving, he dies.”
I swallow hard, the blanket forgotten now. “Did he make it?”
He nods slowly. “Barely. But yeah, he did. I did the medic thing here for a while, but,” he reaches back and massages his shoulder, “I fucked my shoulder joint up pretty bad a few years back. Nothing major, but… age. Anyway, they offered me this job, and then I met you. Not sure we ever talked about what brought you to the dispatch center.”
“Money.” I laugh and swallow hard as I stare at the flickering flames set behind the pretty, stone fireplace. The entire cabin looks hand-built, and I wonder how much of ithe’s done himself. “Money and a sense of purpose. I’ve always wanted to be a paramedic but the timing for school was always off. I’m hoping after the baby is born I can find time to get my training, but—”
“I know a lot of guys over at the training center. I can help get you set up. They offer a lot of lectures online. You’d meet up for the clinical portion once or twice a week. I think it’s a twelve-month program.”
How did I go from fucking this man in my dreams to talking about the twelve-month paramedic program? Oh yeah, he’s my boss!
I’m such a mess!
The sun rises over the horizon and sends rays of light into the room, highlighting the knotted wood floors and the empty fireplace mantel. I’ve known this man for two years and I still don’t understand how he’s not married. I mean, I’ve really only known him in the context of work, but he’s so sweet, so down to earth, so… hot. Up here, in the middle of nowhere, a man like that is usually snatched up and married before the sun sets on his eighteenth birthday. Then again, maybe he wants to be alone. Maybe he likes the minimalism of an empty fireplace mantel.
“Do you ever think about getting married and having kids?” I regret the question the second it slips out.
Why did I do that? It’s none of my business! Apparently, when a man drinks your breastmilk in Dreamland, it gives you liberties you’d never have taken before.
Have I said I’m a mess?
He pauses, the silence stretching just long enough to make my pulse quicken. Then he shifts in the chair, the leather creaking beneath him as he leans back, one arm draped casually over the side.
“Sometimes,” he says, voice low and thoughtful. His gaze drifts toward the ceiling, as if the answer lives somewhere upthere, tucked between the shadows and the quiet hum of the early morning light. “It comes in swells, like when I see a dad teaching his kid how to ride a bike, or when I see a happy couple holding hands by the lake or something. I guess I figure it’d be nice to know someone like that, share secrets… and miseries,” he laughs, “but I’m pretty sure that part of life has passed me by.”
“Why?”
“I’m forty-nine this year. At this point, I think I’ve aged out of the family thing.”
Forty-nine.Okay, there’s a solid twenty plus years between us.That’sa lot.
The thought flickers through my mind like a warning light, that I ignore in favor of the rough handed fantasy I was having earlier. “Age is just a number. You can still have those things.”
He brushes his hand over his beard. “Easy for a… twenty something?”
“Twenty-four. I’m twenty-four.”
“Twenty-four,” he repeats, almost like he’s tasting the number for the first time. “God, you’re just a kid.”
His words are heavy, like they’ve landed with more force than he expected. His hand drifts to his beard again, absently.
