Page 86 of Jump

I don’t jump out of planes these days.

I don’t sleep in the woods.

Fuck, but I had no clue I’d someday miss living rough.

“Lieutenant?” Axel jogs to keep up as, hours after we returned from the call on Lookout Hill, I cross the driveway out front of the firehouse and head toward my truck.

“Hey! Ruiz?!” He grabs my shoulder when I don’t stop, and pulls me around until we’re eye to eye. Toe to toe. He’s younger than me by a long shot; just a kid. But hell if he doesn’t meet me on my level. “Where are you going?”

“Hospital.” My skin feels too tight, wrapped around my bones. My hair, itchy. My hands fuss for something to do, and adrenaline still skips through my veins. The latter is a helpful rocket fuel when I’m stepping off the cliff above a hundred-foot drop, or jumping out of a plane and intentionally landing in the middle of an inferno. But when I’m trying to relax, it’s a special kind of torture. “I’m gonna check on the vic from this morning.”

“Oh, cool.” He casts a fast glance back to the firehouse, then turning back my way, he holds the suspenders of his turnouts. “I’ll come with you. Just let me get my jacket, and I’m all set.”

“No. I’m going alone.” I take out my keys and beep my truck open. “Stay put. The chief is still in-house, so if you’re called out before I’m back, he can run the crew. But I’ll only be an hour.”

Suspicious, Axel follows me to my truck and sets his fists on the hood. His eyes beat hard against the side of my face, and his brows knit tight in frustration. “I know this version of you. This bottle shit up and hate everyone crap. So where are you really going?”

“To the hospital.” I climb into my seat and turn the engine over, but I roll down my passenger window, and lean across until he hunches and peers inside. “She was scared as hell, and chances are, she’s been in for surgery already. So I just wanna check in.”

“Okay. So why can’t I come?”

“Because I don’t want to hang out with you?” My words come out like a question, when I mean them as a statement of fact. “You seem to forget I don’t actually like you.”

“I call bullshit.” He sets his hands on the doorframe and sneers. “You love me like a brother, Matt. You fucking wish we were family for real. You act like no one touches you and you wouldn’t care if I up and died. But you do care. You do give a shit. So I’m gonna ask one last time, then I’m climbing into this truck and belting sense into you. Why are you going alone?”

“Because I want time alone!” I turn my heater up and inhale Vivian’s perfume as it wafts through the vents. “Because I like to be alone sometimes.”

“Is it because Rory needed to be rescued, and Ivy got hurt?” he challenges. “You’re having a meltdown because damsels are your kink, and you got two of them today?”

“Damsels are the last thing I want! Damsels stress me the fuck out. So I’m gonna go check on the first, and when I get back, I’m starting relocation paperwork for the second.”

His breath comes to a dead standstill. “Lieutenant—”

“I’ll be damned if I’m the reason Patrick dies on the job, kid. And she’s incapable of listening to me. So she has to go. We’re not a good fit.”

“She does the job! She does it every fucking time.”

“She doesn’t listen!”

“She follows your orders when they’re fair and correct,” he growls. “But when you’re trying to stuff her in a tower and save her before she’s even in danger? Damn right, she’s not gonna listen. I wouldn’t either. And if it was me who got a scratch on the forehead today and bled a little, you wouldn’t give it a second thought. But because it’s her, you’re losing your shit.”

“I can’t keep her on my squad and expect her to still be alive in a year. Or even six months.”

“Ruiz—”

“Or even one month! Think of it less as her being transferred out as punishment, and more as an attempt to save her life. If you had to choose between burying her, or sending her to a new house where she and her lieutenant would be a better fit, I know damn well you’d make the same choice I am.”

“It’s not fair!” he barks out. “This is her home, Matt. This is her firehouse. We’re not Chicago or New York, where you can just send her to the next house ten minutes down the road. If you transfer Ivy, she’s leaving town. She’s selling her home, moving her shit, and hoping to find a new family somewhere else.”

“Still better than dying on the job because she won’t follow my orders. She’s got a point to prove, kid. A fucking bug in her ass, demanding she shows she can outshine the big boys. But that’s not—”

“Because you make her feel like she has to shine! She’s a solid firefighter. She’s smart, she’s strong. She keeps up when we’re running drills. She’s one of us… but you make her feel like she doesn’t belong.”

“She doesn’t be—”

“Yes she does! And if she dies on the job, it’ll be because you made her feel like she had to go to those lengths to prove herself. Because you made her feel like she couldn’t measure up.”

“Which is why we’re not a good fit.” I tap the power window button for the passenger side, and send Axel shooting back off the doorframe as the glass slowly slides upward.

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