The chorus of voices is hard to discern, but my eyes are quick. They land on the loudest of everyone, a black-haired—holy shit. I blink. Then do it again. My eyes are deceiving me. There’s no way one of the women—no, two of the women, the redhead from the other night is sitting at another table with a blond man—are here.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” one of the guys at another table says. “Dude, I just commented on your video five minutes ago.”
My eyes dart in the direction of the voice, and my mouth falls open. On his feet is the man from the profile I was looking at when Nate surprised me.
“You’re the new firefighter?” the man asks. He’s shorter and stockier than both Nate and me but fit as hell. Dark hair, styled like he spent twenty minutes in the mirror with it this morning. Not a strand out of place.
KingLiam69.
The username reminds me of Tyson.
No. This man has a girlfriend. Jordan. Unless he’s one of those douchebags who cheats on his girlfriends. Firefighters all over the place have bad reps because of guys like that.
I give my head a subtle shake. Jumping to conclusions before I even know the guy. But the username is douchey.
“Someone care to fill me in?” Nate asks, leaning against the desk at the head of the room, while I’m still standing inside the doorway. “Is this going to be another Luke and Hailey situation?”
“Hey, that turned out great,” the redhead sitting with the blond says, leaning into the man with affection. Hailey and Luke, I’m guessing.
So they’re together. Good to know.
“It started rocky,” Nate responds dryly.
“If Savanna filled you in on Bryn’s story the other night, you already know most of it,” the dark-haired woman speaks up. Her eyes haven’t left me, her arms crossed over her chest, a smirk tugging up half her mouth as she sits on top of a table. “Meet the cowboy that got away.”
Nate, arms folded over his chest, glances in my direction. It’s obvious he heard the story, and I break into a grin, some of the shock finally wearing off.
Holding my hands palm up, I shrug good-naturedly. “I think it was more like Cinderella running away at the stroke of midnight, but I ‘spose the cowboy that got away works.”
I can’t believe my luck. What are the odds I’d be standing in a room full of people who know Bryn? That my new fire family would be friends with her. Apparently I didn’t need the power of social media, I only needed the power of time and fate.
That woman was meant to be in my life.
“It’s all my fault.” Hailey sits up from her spot against Luke, looking distressed. “They were feeding me shots all night, and we pre-gamed at Savanna and Nate’s—”
“And my girl isn’t great at holding her liquor,” the blond, Luke, interjects, but it’s more like she trails off and he picks up where she left off. He wraps an arm around her shoulder, placing a kiss to the side of her head.
“I don’t drink often,” she explains, seamlessly sliding back into the conversation. “I was pretty sick.”
“And once I was able to get her out of the bathroom for more than two minutes without her puking her guts up, we took the opportunity and got the fuck out of there,” the black-haired woman adds. “You know, you honestly picked the worst time to go find your friends. I could have used the man muscle.”
“You managed,” Luke grunts.
“If I’d known,” I say, putting my hands up, “Respectfully of course, I would have helped.”
I knew I didn’t miss them by much, given that I almost caught up to the cab outside, but I want to kick myself knowing what happened. My ninety-two percent thought is now at one hundred percent, easing any restriction in my chest that maybe they had left because Bryn didn’t want to deal with me. Then again, I picked ninety-two because I didn’t want to come across as an arrogant asshole on my socials. I was ninety-nine percent certain she hadn’t left because of me.
“Isn’t it one ofthosedays?” the black-haired woman asks, emphasizing “those” in a way that piques my curiosity.
The last man in the room, the one who hasn’t said a thing, sitting at a table all by himself and taking up most of the space there because he’s huge, is the one who answers with one word. “Yes.”
“What days?” I ask, my eyes lingering on the man who finallyspoke. Even though he’s sitting, I can tell he’s tall. Dark hair, quite long. I wouldn’t have thought the length of his hair would be in regulation, but I’m the new guy.
In my periphery, I see Hailey open her mouth to answer, but the dark-haired woman speaks first. “You’ll find out soon enough, cowboy.”
Sliding my hands into my pockets, it seems everyone in the room snickers at her answer, knowing whatever I might be in for. Another surprise, obviously. Though, given the context, I’m surmising it has to do with Bryn.
Or maybe that’s my hope.
