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I shook my head and followed her into the bedroom.
***
“She’s got your balls in a jar by her bed,” Bobby joked.
The station was usually quiet during the nightshift. Mansfield wasn’t a town prone to sudden fires, last night being an exception to the rule. So, most of the work was slow, usually devoted to cleaning the trucks, inspecting the equipment and making sure everything was okay, and of course lazy card games while half the crew dozed off. Of course, on the nights when the Chief was around, we all brought our A game. Fortunately, this was not one of those nights.
“I resent that remark,” I said, closing the hood of the engine I was inspecting and cleaning my hands on a rag. “I’d like to think it’s pity. That’s why I put up with her. Pure pity.”
“Right,” Bobby winked. “I mean, I’d be devastated, too, if I had
to have sex with her every day to keep her calm. The amount of effort that goes into something like that, I mean, really. So much hard work and devotion.”
“Fuck you, Bobby,” I smiled.
Bobby laughed and slumped down on the couch we had propped against one wall of the station’s garage. It was a haggard, old thing, a save from an office fire a few months back. The only thing that hadn’t gone up in flames, and we decided to adopt it. It was a survivor, much like the men who worked in this station, and some of us saw ourselves in it.
“So, she had no idea about college girl?” Bobby asked.
I shrugged. “She guessed it, was pretty damn sure about it for a while.” I pulled up a chair and propped my legs up on the couch. “Besides, I think I rose to the occasion pretty well.”
“Took her down with your fire hose?”
“You need to remember that we’re not in junior high anymore,” I said.
“Speaking of which,” Bobby yawned. “What are you going to do about the reunion? Show up with Boobs McCrazy?”
“I’m thinking I might just pass on going altogether,” I admitted.
Unlike common belief, I had never been a popular guy back at school. Sure, I played football, might have been considered a jock by some, but I had mostly stayed to myself. Bobby was the only friend I had come out of school with, and I think the fact that we were both firemen kept that friendship going. A lot of the old class were still in Mansfield or around it, and I had lost touch with everyone. I wasn’t looking forward to seeing anyone again.
“Come on,” Bobby smiled. “Town hero that you are, I’m sure you’ll have crowds flocking to you.”
“Flex my muscles a bit and make the women swoon?”
“Precisely,” Bobby laughed. “And if worse comes to worst, I can always step in and make you look good.”
“Forever the devoted wingman.”
“I know my strengths,” Bobby shrugged. “Won’t try to hide it.”
“So, you’re actually going?”
Bobby shrugged and stretched. “Might be fun,” he said. “We’re completely different people now, man, you and me. Would be interesting to see how everybody else’s changed.”
“Let me make it easier for you,” I smiled. “The cheerleaders are probably married with kids and bored out of their minds, the jocks are definitely working their way up the blue-collar ladder, and the nerds will be driving in with Mustangs and Bentleys.” I leaned in. “You and me, we’re going to get lost in the crowd and probably go home early.”
Bobby winked. “Maybe hook up with some of the bored housewives.”
“Knowing you, you’d probably by them a drink and listen politely while they tell you about how their husbands ignore them.”
Bobby chuckled at that and was about to reply when his cellphone rang. He looked at it, frowned, and quickly got to his feet. “Gotta take this,” he said.
I watched him disappear behind the truck, just a little curious as to who was calling. Bobby rarely took a side when answering his phone, and I began to toy with the idea that maybe he had found a new love interest or something. He definitely deserved it, especially after the crap he had gone through with his parents’ death. Sometimes I worried about him, and I knew that living alone in that house was getting to him. There were times I’d catch him taking on extra night shifts, and I knew it was because of the company and not the job. I couldn’t remember the last time I called him and found him at home.
It’s not like you’re any better.
Which was true. I had learned to stay the hell away from any home a long time ago, back when my father was a drunken ass who could still piss standing up, and my mother was the mousey housewife who always forgave him. I used to listen to him hitting her from my room upstairs, balling my eyes out and hiding under the bed. When I was old enough to take a proper beating, but still too young to fight back, he came for me, too. It was junior high when I finally stood up to him.
