That’s such a loaded question but I have some answers for him. “She was a teenager when she had me. She was already kind of in the party scene, then she met my stepdad who was a lot older and got her into worse things than drinking and getting stoned. She got sober a few times—mostly when she was pregnant with the girls—but he went to jail and she spiraled. Iasked her once why she couldn’t just stay sober for us. She never really had much of an answer except that she didn’t think she could do it on her own without him.” Just saying those words makes me sick to my stomach, but they came from her and they were honest.
“But she eventually got better…?” he starts.
Biting my lip, I nod. “I don’t know what finally changed, but yeah she stayed sober. My sisters were able to come home, but they were angry with her so they kind of clung to me. I started to feel, I don’t know, responsible for holding the family together, I guess.”
“So you regret working at the station.” He says it more like a question than a statement.
I snort and shake my head because even though I’m not content here anymore, I wouldn’t change a thing. “No. Everyone at the station is like family. I mean, some people can be dicks?—”
He side-eyes me. “Like Axel?”
I almost burst into laughter. Axel’s the EMT supervisor who’s been on vacation for the last two weeks, and he’s kind of a dickhead to everyone. I know four things about him. His parents came here from Ukraine when he was six, he got kicked out of four schools for getting into fights and he ended up getting his diploma online, he hates ketchup with such a strong passion that he tries to stop other people from eating it, and he always—and I mean always—finds a kitten on every single call.
He doesn’t keep all of them, but I know he has a few.
“Guys who literally collect kittens should not be assholes,” Rune says with a sniff. “I think he hates me because he thinks I’m weak.”
“Well, that’s fucking bullshit. You are not weak.”
He side-eyes me. “Axel tried to prevent me from getting hired into IT when I came back into town.”
I choke on a cough. Axel really can be a dick, but I’ve never seen him act like that before. “Why?”
Rune shrugs. “He knew why I left. He said it wasn’t a good enough reason to abandon an important job. He didn’t think I deserved to be here.” Rune falls quiet for a second, then says, “Easton fought for me.”
That’s…I’d say unexpected, but it isn’t. Easton doesn’t hate a lot of things. The guy is sunshine personified, but he detests injustice, and I know that no matter what kind of relationship he’s got with Rune, he’d fight for him like that.
“I’m glad he did. You deserve to be here.”
He grins at me. “You don’t have to be nice. I already like you.”
I flush a little. I know I’m not hated at the station, but it’s still kind of a novelty to be actively liked. “I mean it though. You do deserve it. You’re intimidating as fuck and a total badass. I think that’s why Easton’s so obsessed with you.”
His face goes stormy. “He’s obsessed with pissing me off and making my job both harder and more expensive.”
There are other reasons Easton seems to constantly seek his attention, but I don’t give away his secrets. Those are Easton’s business, and he still won’t admit how he feels anyway. His crush is visible from space, but he’s in his happy, ignorant bubble, and I’ll let him stay there until he’s ready to come out on his own.
“Anyway,” I say, not wanting to make Easton pissed at me, “until recently, I kind of thought I’d stay here forever.”
His eyes go wide. “Did you put in your notice?”
“No. Nothing that drastic. I just…I don’t know.” I bite my lip as I try to find the right words for how I’m feeling. “My mom’s doing better, my sisters are all grown up, and even the baby’s got her own job now. No one really needs me anymore.”
“Are you going to try the whole culinary school thing?”
I almost choke on my laughter. “Dude. It was expensive when I was eighteen and trying to apply. Now…” I trail off. I’ve looked into it. I haunt the local school’s website from time to time, but the tuition has gone up almost two hundred percent since I first looked into it, and I don’t want to spend the rest of my life paying off that debt.
Especially because culinary school doesn’t mean that you graduate and step into some high-paying, high-profile head chef position. You get kicked back onto the line and have to work your way up.
I’m notoldold, but I’m also not young anymore either. And I don’t know if I have it in me to start over.
Rune grimaces. “Sorry. Tender subject?”
“It’s fine.” It isn’t, but I’m not going to wallow in self-pity. I have other things to obsess over. Like the fact that I touched Leo’s dick and made him come. But I have no plans to tell Rune that, so I swallow back everything I want to say and turn my attention to the ducks.
They look ready to move on, so I reach into the bag and toss out the rest of the feed, then stand up and stretch my back. My knees are kind of aching from the time I spent on the floor between Leo’s legs, and fuck, I do not need to be thinking about that again.
Pushing my sleeves up toward my elbows, I shove my hands into my pockets and kick at a few bits of broken cement. “Want me to walk you back to work?”
