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“You a ho,” she said, shaking her head.
Then she hopped in the shower, shaved her entire body, douched, and clipped her toenails. She put on yoga pants and a T-shirt. Sadie sat up in the doorway, watching her.
“Don’t worry, girl. I’m not on call.” Checking her watch, it was almost ten fifteen. He probably had a foot of snow to clean off his car before he could leave, so that would delay him a little.
At ten thirty, her phone beeped, startling her even though she was waiting for it. Why did that always happen?
“Hey, you’re home!”
“Home sweet home. Jim’s still away. He must have left something rotten in the trash, because the apartment stinks. I’ll be hunting for the source while we talk.”
“Oh no,” she commiserated, laughing. “I hate that, too.”
So she learned he was slightly obsessive, or maybe he just didn’t like bad smells. He talked easily, asking her about the weekend at work, if any interesting cases came through the trauma center, and she asked him about the weekend, trying to nudge him to tell her more about the breakup.
“I forgot to tell you something that happened,” he said, and then he related how Joanne and her new BF, Todd, just happened to be at Barnacle Ben’s on Wednesday night and that Todd was a nice guy.
“That must have been a relief,” she said. “Did it give you closure?”
“Truthfully, I had closure when she left Detroit after my injury, but I felt it was necessary to confront her. Evidently, she felt the same way. We could have saved ourselves a lot of misery by just ending it months ago.”
“Oh well, everything happens for a reason, they say. So what’s next in your life?”
“Well, I’m going to talk to the powers that be on Monday and find out what they have to offer, and if they can’t offer me something I can live with, I’ll leave. Then I need to decide what to do next.”
“What would youliketo do?”
“I guess after I accept that I’m never playing football again, I might go back to school.”
Relief ricocheted through her head. Maybe he wasn’t just all about football.
“For what?”
“I have a BA in education. Maybe a master’s inwildland fire mitigation and management.”
“Oh! What would you do with that?”
“Maybe fight fires. If I aspired to become a fire chief, a master’s is useful. There’s a lotta maybes.”
Her heart sank a little bit. “Would you do that here in Michigan?”
He heard the hesitation in her voice. It was now or never. They wouldn’t waste each other’s time if the truthful facts were put out on the table.
“Truthfully, I’m thinking about going back to California. Most of the men in my family and some of the women work for the fire service in San Diego county. My dad and brother, my uncle and my cousins, even some of their wives do. It’s something I grew up with, that I enjoy.”
She didn’t say anything right away. So that said a lot. He was going to move back to California. She had a life in Michigan. There was a conflict. And he’d never mentioned her.
“Wow, so you are thinking ahead.”
“I am. We’ll see what happens.”
“So Monday is the big day.”
“Monday’s the day. My rent’s up at the end of the year. I guess I have until then.”
“Wow,” she said again.
“Yeah, talking to you is helping me plan. You know, talking it out.”
