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Isaac showed them out and thanked them for coming in, waiting with them for the elevator. It was a silent ride down and out through the marble lobby. When they broke through to the street, Archer started hightailing it to the car.
“Arch, what the fuck?” Dragan rushed to keep up with him.
Archer swung around, toe-to-toe with Dragan. Dragan was much taller, but Archer had a presence that would cause any sane person to stand down.
“No, D. What the fuck is up with you? I know that question pissed you off, and goddamn am I sorry he was such a fucking asshat, but the way you snapped at the other guy?” Archer spun back around, seething across the street to the garage. He handed in his ticket and faced Dragan, pushing his words quietly through clenched teeth. “I get it, man. I do. But you got to get your shit under control. It’s not just you out there, in there. Ruin your own shit, but don’t ruin mine.”
The valet pulled up the car, and Archer got in with a slam of his door. Sheepishly, Dragan slid into the passenger seat.
His friend was right. He looked at himself in the side mirror and gently fingered the bruise, the makeup dissipating from the heat in the conference room. He was becoming the man he always hated, and he didn’t know how to stop. But until he got a hold on himself, he couldn’t keep putting those he loved at risk.
26
Archer pulled into his buddy’s driveway, clapping him on the shoulder before he exited the car. He watched Dragan walk into the building, shoulders slumped in a jacket that was too small and pants too short. He sighed, putting the car in gear and heading home.
He knew what a rough lot Dragan had gotten, and how hard he worked to not feed that part of him he hated. Archer felt bad for losing his temper even though he knew he wasn’t in the wrong. It was a part of his dad’s military upbringing, and then his own military training. Getting those around you to shape up or ship out.
Not that he’d ever cut Dragan out of his life, but some boundaries never hurt. He pulled into his driveway, never getting over how much he loved the tree-lined path. It was an old dirt road, the trees obfuscating the large old farmhouse and newer garage the Dougherty’s had built when he was fifteen. It had been hard for his parents to weather the New York winters, and he did everything he could to make them easier. He pulled into the garage, shooting off a text to Colton to check on Dragan before going into the house.
The breezeway from the garage to the farmhouse was a luxury, essentially a second covered porch. Archer took a deep breath of the air, March deciding it wanted to be a little warmer today. He was foolish to think they were starting spring, but he couldn’t help it. He was an optimist. Until he realized he had work tonight at the station, and it’d been awhile since Molly O’Hara had set off her smoke detectors.
He wasn’t optimistic about getting out of that tonight.
Archer groaned, throwing his keys in the catch-all before feeding Chief, who was lazily wagging his big tail and looking up at him with desperation.
“I know, I know. I was away all day and couldn’t give you pets,” he cooed to his best friend, wrapping him in a hug and kissing his forehead. He took him outside for the bathroom before heading to the shower. He stripped as he went, and got out just as quick as he got in. He slid into worn jeans and one of the many uniform blue tees the department gave before taking leaving a big bone for Chief and getting back in his car to drive across town to the station.
The firefighter schedule changed every year, and this year they were doing 24 hours on, 48 hours off. When his PTSD and depression got too bad, one of the guys at the VFW suggested joining up. The schedule, the camaraderie, was something Archer had been missing.
Joining the department had saved his life.
He pulled into the parking lot, seeing the cars and trucks of the seven men he was stationed with. The garage doors were open, the Captain overseeing the guys washing the two trucks.
“Nice of you to show, Jarhead,” Captain John Howard — or Alpha — called out. He was stern, but the smile playing at his lips gave him away.
“Sorry, Cap, I was busy with your sister!” Archer called out while he ran to the lockers for his station-wear pants. The laughter of the guys followed him, and the tension in his shoulder s eased.
Archer helped finish with the trucks, and they filed into the kitchen. Located off a central corridor that ran between the garage and every other room they needed, the kitchen was outfitted with plenty of counter space, large folding tables and chairs, and connected to the living room that was outfitted with a TV, a video game console, and plenty of seating. It was Big Mike’s turn to make dinner — Archer’s favorite of the crew — and he got to work preheating the pans of beef enchiladas he made at home with the help of his wife, Marisol.
Just as they sat down to dig in, the alarm went off. The room emptied out in record time, Alpha calling out a 10-35 Code 3.
Unnecessary alarm caused by ordinary household activities.
Archer groaned as he finished pulling on his turnout coat.
Turns out he would be seeing Molly O’Hara after all, and of course she had to interrupt his dinner on top of it.
The crew piled into one of the trucks and took off, flashing their flights but not the sirens. The sooner they got where they were going, the sooner they could eat. Thankfully, Molly’s apartment was a couple streets down, and Archer cursed that he knew the route to her place like the back of his hand. Sure enough, they pulled up against the curb.
“Jarhead, you can take this one,” Theo Peterson snickered.
“Do you hear that everybody? Ghost is trying to off-load some work,” Archer scoffed, shaking his head. “You do it.”
Theo laughed. “Nah, man. It’s funnier when she gets under your skin.”
The rest of the crew laughed, taking their sweet-ass time. Exasperated, Archer stomped up the building stairs, rapping harder than necessary on the door.
It flung open, Molly O’Hare standing in some gray and pink floral pajama shorts and a matching tank-top, her curls unruly around her round, angelic face.
