I look at Jack as I stand from my chair, and he does the same. When we were sitting at the bar, we faced each other, just a few inches between our knees, but Evee was also between us. All of a sudden, I feel like I’m on complete display without my daughter in my arms. I didn’t realize how much I relied on her comforting weight against me until it was gone.
Feeling exposed, I cross my arms across my chest, and Jack puts his hands in his pockets. There’s an awkwardness between us that wasn’t there before, as if neither of us knows where to go from here.
“Well, I, uh,” he starts, rocking up on his toes and back on his heels, at the same time I say, “That was—” not knowing how the hell I was going to finish that sentence.
We both let out a little laugh, some of the awkwardness lifting from the air around us. He tries again. “I better go grab my sister and say goodbye to Luke.” But he doesn’t move.
“Yeah, same,” I say before quickly adding, “I mean, say goodbye to everyone. Not grab your sister. That would be weird considering I don’t know her.”
He gives me a smile and seeing it is the only thing that stops me from smacking my hand against my forehead.
“I’ll see you around, Rumi,” he says, giving me a small nod, before heading past me to the group of everyone saying goodbye.
I turn and watch him put an arm around his sister’s shoulder, and she turns around to see where he came from, finding me staring at them like an idiot.
Before I can look away, she gives me a small smile and a nod, the same way her brother just did, and elbows him in the side.
I can’t help but smile at the antics, watching the two, and then how everyone around them laughs before exchanging hugs and plans for the coming days.
And as I say goodbye to everyone, following Ava and Evee through the front door of Lenny’s, I can’t help but feel like I accomplished what I set out to do tonight.
I made a friend.
CHAPTER 11
JACK
I’mtwo hours into my first shift back at the fire station, and it’s not as bad as I thought it would be.
My body is only running on about two hours of sleep, but there’s an anxious energy buzzing under my skin that has been keeping me wide awake and aware.
Contrary to popular belief or what is portrayed in mainstream media, a firefighter’s job is only 10% of actually fighting fires, if not less. It’s a fact I keep reminding myself of—one that I learned in my first week at the fire academy—on my way into my shift today.
One that I had to keep repeating in my mind as I threw on my station wear this morning.
The T-shirt with my department’s logo and one of the dozen pairs of cargo pants that Emerson had packed up and stored in my mom’s basement gave me such an odd sense of deja vu, as if I had gone back in time.
A time when Bennett would’ve been doing the same before we headed to the station together.
The thoughts of my best friend—and how weird it was to be going into my first shift without him—were harder to push to the back of my mind. Even after a 8-mile run and an hour of liftingweights before the sun was even up, I couldn’t think of anything else on my way to the station this morning,
The only thing that helped was telling myself that going back to work was part of putting everything behind me and moving forward—what I promised myself I was going to do when I came home.
When I got here, willing myself out of my truck and focusing on putting one foot in front of the other, the crew at the station offered a couple quick “welcome backs”, but, for the most part, they acted as if I was gone for the weekend rather than eighteen months. It made being here much more tolerable—not having to deal with the “how are you?” conversations, or hearing them tell me they’re sorry about what happened to Bennett.
While the crew here knew Bennett as one of their own, the loss wasn’t the same for them as it was for me, but that doesn’t make me feel any less guilty for not being here with the rest of the crew after we him.
After the offgoing firefighters gave us the pass down briefing report about how their shift went, the incoming crew had our briefing about today—discussing the weather forecast, road closures and construction currently in the works, and our schedule.
My luck seemed to be continuing with a light load of inspections and training for the next 24 hours while we’re on call, and some of that anxious energy began to dissipate.
After we were briefed, the crew did our daily equipment checks for the vehicles, tools, and other items before we moved to checking inventory and stocking necessary medical supplies for any upcoming calls we’ll get. The familiarity of the different duties settled even more nerves I had—the recurring theme of the last two days that I can’t seem to escape.
Muscle memory began taking over for me, allowing my mind to settle into the tasks in front of me to a point where I found mythoughts drifting to a certain brunette who I already know will be occupying my mind in the coming days more than she should be.
And now, with some down time between daily chores and a lull in calls, that certain brunette is at the forefront of my mind and not going anywhere. Not when I recall our conversation from last night, cringing at the way I asked her to be my friend as if we were in Kindergarten—or like I hadThis is my first time out after a year and a half of self-inflicted solitude, and I now don’t know what to do with myselftattooed on my forehead.
And to make matters worse, deepening my residual embarrassment from the night, I said goodbye to her in a way that made it look like I forgot how to properly use my hands.
