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I grab the keys to my truck and slip my phone into my back pocket. No missed calls. No text messages with Hannah’s name on them.
“This isn’t something I intend to discuss with you, Ruiz.” I head to my front door, but turn back to catch sight of my houseguest, still in the kitchen doorway. “I hope you’re gone when I get back.”
“Don’t hold your breath,” he sniggers. “I’d feel bad when you inevitably fall unconscious and smack your thin skull against the concrete. You say sorry to that pretty girl yet for the bullshit you considered chivalry?”
Yes. And then I got to taste her, only for a moment.
“Fuck you.”
“So you’re not done with your pity party?” he taunts instead. “It’s called martyrdom, and it ends with you old and alone, and her, bitter but with someone who has a bigger cock.”
“Don’t talk about her.” I swing my front door open and step onto the porch outside. “Don’t talk about her and other cocks. In fact, don’t talk. Your voice annoys me.”
I tug my door shut so it slams and echoes along the quiet street, then I start down the steps and make my way to the truck I saved up for years to buy.
It was once my pride and joy. My bragging piece, and the vehicle I used to drive Hannah all over town.
Not because she asked for it. Not because she needed a ride.
But because I wanted that for us.
My arm on the back of the bench seat. My fingers playing with her long hair. Music. Wind blowing her perfume through the cab so when I drove alone, I still got to smell her.
I wanted space for us. Luxury. Privacy.
A tiny slice of the world where I could pretend we were a couple and not worry about the consequences of such a wish.
I got that for a while, at least.
And then I went and fucked it all up.
Swinging the door wide and sliding into the driver’s side, I pull it shut again and start the engine so the sound rumbles along the street.
What am I doing with my life now that I’m back in town? What do Iwantwith my life, now that I’ve spent a summer with the smoke jumpers and feel no particular desire to go back?
I like the crew. They’re decent. And the work was fun. Jumping out of a plane was an experience I’m thankful for having. But is it enough for me? To work without a care for my survival. To work with a guy who cares even less than I do?
Still in park, I reach across and open the glove compartment, take out a dark ballcap, and drop it over my head. Keep the sun out of my eyes. Keep nosey onlookers out of my business.
Inhaling a deep breath until my chest expands and my lungs fill, I exhale again and shake my head when Ruiz stops on my front porch, buck-ass naked but for his towel and a coffee mug.
“There’s something seriously wrong with that asshole,” I mumble.
Reversing out of my driveway and onto the street, I push the car into drive and head toward the firehouse. My old home away from home. The place I spent most of my teens. It’s where I went when I didn’t want to be home alone and I wasn’t welcome at my sister’s.
Every single time that happened, my prick ex-brother-in-law wasin a mood. Nicole wasn’t yet ready to leave her abusive situation, so she isolated herself from the rest of us to shield him. To protect us, and keep from having to explain why her husband was an asshole.
Almost every abused woman goes through the same phase. They can’t leave yet, so to protect their space, they protect their abuser.
That shit happened a lot, especially after June came into the picture and he wanted them all for himself.
I was there for her first steps, witnessing that beautiful baby girl toddle around and drop to her butt. And when he found out, Nicole was punished. She was abused, like it was somehow her master plan to orchestrate a major milestone for another human being purely based on Noah’s work schedule.
But that’s how he was.
He didn’t want toparentJune. He didn’t want to do the actual work of being a father. But he sure as fuck wanted the title and bragging rights.
So when June lost her first tooth, and I was there but Noah wasn’t, I was sworn to secrecy and told to act like I had no clue it had happened.
