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“I’m serious, man.” I shook my head again. “Sometimes it’s exhausting. I go to the gym, I eat right. I mean, I know I look good, and I like sex, like the rest of them. But sometimes I wonder what it’d be like to be with someone, I don’t know ... Normal.”
Maybe someone who gave a shit aboutme.
Connor tipped his head at me in a smirk. “You mean normal like Little Orphan Annie?”
I straightened to my full height. “Don’t fucking call her that.”
Connor lifted both hands. “Dude, I’m kidding. You know I love Annie. Besides, if you haven’t hit it by now, you’re never going to. It amazes me you two are even friends. Poor girl can’t even get groceries without running into one of your conquests.”
I cleared my throat and snatched the coffeepot to fill my cup with hot, black sludge. I let out a breath, ignoring the matter-of-fact way he’d categorized my relationship with Annie.As if he had any fucking clue.“I’m sorry. I’m just edgy and tired. Hoping for a slow day around here.”
Working at OFD as a firefighter and EMT meant most of our calls were either medically related or the occasional fender bender. Actual fires were rare, but they happened, and we were all trained and ready to go at a moment’s notice.
Whenever the alarm sounded, it never ceased to make my shoulders bunch and dread pool in my stomach. I hadn’t felt normal since that awful call that changed everything. Before that, my military training in the Army meant I was unshakable. Now every time the alarm sounded, flashes ofherface went through my mind.
Most times I had to swallow back the bile and remind myself that it was over.
Margo was gone.
Determined to change the subject, I scanned the room and called out: “Hey, Brooklyn, are you on dinner duty tonight?”
She turned and smiled, both palms facing upward. “Dude, it’s Taco Tuesday, of course I’m cooking.”
Brooklyn had been on the fire department with me for the past few years. She was tough and reliable. Someone I could count on when things got messy. She also made the best tacos in Remington County. I was about to bust her balls about her rice being dry last time—it wasn’t—when Whip King came into the fire station day room.
His real name was William, but like many of the townies, he had acquired a nickname and was known solely as Whip around Outtatowner. The Kings and Sullivans had a long-standing tradition of fucking with each other, and the rivalry wasn’t just a series of silly pranks. It meant something, and I took my role seriously.
Whip was an arrogant prick like the rest of the Kings, but thankfully, when it came to the job, we were able to put our feelings aside and just be firefighters.
In the break room, however, anything goes.
I nodded in his direction. “Bill.” I strode past Whip, enjoying the scowl that marred his pretty-boy face as I shouldered past him. His thick arms crossed, showing off the tattoos that covered both forearms. His brother Royal owned the local tattoo shop, so it wasn’t uncommon for him to be sporting fresh ink. Annie had once noted it was a funny juxtaposition from the sharp angles and clean lines of his face. She said he looked like aGQmodel with hot biker tattoos.
Fucking guy ...
After my phone pinged with a text message, I slipped it from my pocket.
Catfish Kate
Annie picked up after you and apologized to Ms. Tiny for the sock that hit her in the face. YOU BETTER THANK HER.
I scoffed at the image of poor little Ms. Tiny getting a sweaty sock to the face and fired off a reply in the form of a salute emoji to my little sister. Kate had been back in Outtatowner for only a year, but things felt more complete with my little sister home.
She had even found her groove with a wildly successful Instagram page after renovating our family’s one-hundred-year-old farmhouse. Aunt Tootie lived there now, but it would always be our family home. For the renovation, my brothers, Duke and Wyatt, and I hired Duke’s best friend to do the contract work. Everyone was surprised when Beckett fell head over heels in love with our little sister.
Well ... everyone but me. Kate was the best.
I frowned down at her message.
Annie cleaned up my mess again.
A low throb formed at the base of my skull.
Fantastic. Yet another check mark in theLee Did Stupid Shit and Annie Cleaned Up His Messcolumn.
I checked my watch and noted I still had eighteen hours left on this shift, so I sighed and settled into the worn recliner in the TV room. It wasn’t nearly as comfortable as the green recliner in the apartment above the barn at my family’s Highfield House, but it would do for a few rounds of some mindless video game to pass the time.
* * *
