Page 6 of What Hurts Us

“Grabbing it to-go. Gotta get to the station.” She shrugged. “Shane sent out a text that they were gonna be here when they clocked out. Figured I’d swing by and see how the rest of your shift went.”

I blew out a breath. “Good. It, uh… It was good. Just getting into the swing of things, you know?”

She nodded and took a seat beside Shane. “Yeah. I graduated from the police academy six months ago. Every day still feels like the first.”

Shane raised his mug in a toast to her. “No two days are the same.”

“I’ll drink to that,” AB said, plopping down beside them and pulling a chair out for me. “Take a load off, Dubs.”

I raised an eyebrow but slid into the seat. “Dubs?”

“Yep,” John said. “Wonder Woman. WW. Dubs for short.”

I closed my eyes, rubbing the tiredness away. “At least it’s not Frodo.”

The crowd burst into peals of laughter.

“Had to be a fuckin’ superhero to have Fletch cracking jokes and calling you pretty,” AB said. “I didn’t know there was a human in there. Always assumed he was a robot programmed to police the town.”

I snickered. “That was just the morphine talking.”

“I like her,” a guy in a Falls Creek Fire Department t-shirt said. “Elijah Fisher.”

I shook his hand. “Layla Mousavi.”

“Welcome to the team, Dubs,” Elijah said.

The waitress bopped around to me and took my breakfast order. Before she zipped off to the next hungry customer, Shane looked at me and asked, “Do you drink?”

I shrugged. “Sometimes.”

The waitress assessed my flight suit and cracked a smile. “Let me guess. Your first shift with AirCare?”

I nodded. “How could you tell?”

She laughed. “I serve these animals nearly every day. You’re the only one I haven’t seen before. Don’t worry, we’ll treat you right.” And with a wink, she was off.

“So, what’s your story?” Missy—an EMT asked.

“My story?”

“Yeah,” Elijah chimed in. “How’d you end up here?”

“Ended upback hereis more like it,” I said. “I was born in Iran, but I grew up in Jersey. I had some aunts and uncles down here, so my family moved down when I was in high school. Pretty much everyone I’m related to still lives around here. My aunt actually lives in town, though. She owns the bed-and-breakfast off Highway86.”

“Where were you before this?” Shane asked.

“I did travel nursing. Worked in Georgia, a longer assignment in Florida, did some in Hawaii, Colorado, New Jersey, Missouri, Ohio, a hellish stint in Tennessee with Vandy, then I took an assignment in Beaufort—a little town on the coast.” I paused and realized I had been mangling my straw wrapper.

“Nice,” Shane said, looking over his shoulder at the returning waitress.

Her tray was piled high with every kind of breakfast food imaginable and the biggest Bloody Mary I’d ever seen. The waitress set it in front of me and plopped a party hat on my head.

I was too tired to be embarrassed and laughed instead. The Bloody Mary was served in a quart mason jar with garnishes piled four inches high and secured with skewers. It wasn’t just a celery stick. Nope. The monstrosity came with a celerystalk, a whole pickle, a fried mozzarella stick, olives and cocktail onions, a piece of shrimp, and a jalapeño popper.

“Cheers,” I said, picking up the overgrown cocktail and toasting the rest of them.

The crew clinked coffee mugs, screwdrivers, and Bloody Marys before digging into their plates.

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