“Do you want me to go kick his ass?” Tony asked, not taking his eyes off Gavin.
That startled a laugh out of her, and she shook her head. “Trust me, if I wanted his ass kicked, I’m more than capable of doing it myself.”
“Okay. Do you want me to at least threaten to kick his ass? Wait, scratch that.CanI threaten to kick his ass? Please? I can be scary.”
“I’d rather we just avoid him altogether, to be honest.” She tried to sound like she didn’t care, but her heart was breaking and Tony must have heard it in her voice. His expression softened as he looked at her, and that just made Cait feel even worse. She didnotwant to cry in the ER, dammit. “Don’t say anything to him. I’ll be right back.”
Once she was alone, Cait filled her hands with cold water from the sink and lowered her face to it. It wasn’t cold enough to shock her out of her current emotional state, but she didn’t think even sticking her face in a bucket of ice water would do it. She just wanted to keep the threatening tears at bay and make her eyes look less puffy.
But she knew every minute she was in the bathroom was a minute she was leaving her partner outside with his anger on her behalf and no supervision, so she dried her face and hands and gave herself a hard look in the mirror. She could do this.
Sure enough, when she opened the door to leave the restroom, she could hear Tony’s voice, and he sounded pissed.
“What the fuck did you think you were doing? Do you know what she’s been through with her family? If you couldn’t handle it, you should have left her alone.”
“Pretty sure my personal relationships are none of your fucking business, pal.”
“If you two intend to do something stupid, take it out to the parking lot,” Karen Shea barked at them. “I don’t have time to deal with your mess.”
Great. Now they hadeverybody’sattention, she was sure. And even if they didn’t name her, bystanders would see an EMT and a firefighter in a verbal pissing match and then see the EMT’s partner was a woman. Two plus two.
“Look, I know you’re just watching out for your partner,” she heard Gavin say to Tony, “and I get that. But if there’s any chance at all that we can work things out, you and I having a beef won’t help that any.”
Cait’s heart skipped a beat.We can work things out.Hope burned through her, but it fizzled almost as quickly.
Nothing had changed. Their situations remained the same.
“No, it’s you being a self-centered asshole that won’t help any,” Tony responded, no less heated than before.
Cait winced and decided enough was enough. They weren’t going to get anywhere but written up and she wasn’t going to spend the rest of her life hiding from Gavin. Their paths crossed too often for that.
She stepped out and walked to Tony’s side. There was no way around looking at Gavin, so she forced herself to meet his gaze. “Hi, guys.”
“Hey, Cait,” Grant said, while Gavin said nothing.
He looked as bad as she felt, Cait thought. Tired and sad, with his mouth set in a grim line. She wanted to go to him and hold him, comforting him until he smiled again. Until they both smiled again.
Forcing herself to look away, she pointed at Grant’s head, because she couldn’t shut off friendships any more than she could shut off her feelings for his best friend. “What happened to you?”
“Oh, you know, on the job. Being a hero.” He shrugged. “Firefighter stuff.”
Gavin rolled his eyes. “MVA. He tripped on a line and hit his head on the edge of the open car door.”
“Was I or was I not on the job at the time?”
“I would have let it slide if you hadn’t added the hero part. The only heroic thing about it was how many curse words you were able to string together before repeating one when you were lying in the street.”
Cait found herself smiling at their familiar banter, but then her gaze locked with Gavin’s again and her amusement died before it became actual laughter. She couldn’t do this, but she couldn’t just walk away.
“What about your helmet?” she asked Grant when the silence stretched on between her and Gavin.
He shifted his weight from one foot to the other and, after looking at Gavin, rolled his eyes. “I had my helmet off because I thought there was a bug in it, and I was trying to check it quick. And that’s why I tripped in the first place.”
“Concussion?”
“Nope. Just hit my head and as long as I don’t develop any weird symptoms, I’m good to go.”
“Good.” None of them seemed to have anything more to say, so Cait mustered a fake smile. “We’ve gotta run. Take care.”
