by J. E. Parker
Evan laughed again. “You and me both, bro. You and me both.”
“But why is she crying?” Shelby turned to face me. “Why are you crying?” Balling her hands into fists, she continued, “Did he hurt you? Because if he did, I’ll Taser him in the nuts.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but the words wouldn’t come.
“Jesus, lady. There’s no need to Taser anything, much less my fucking nuts.” He shifted his legs underneath me, closing the gap in his lap. “We grew up together and seeing me brought back bad memories. That’s all.”
Recognition dawned on Shelby’s face, and sympathy filled her eyes. Just like that, she understood. “I’m sorry, sugar.”
She didn’t dare say his name. She never would. Shelby and Hope were the only two people on the face of the planet who knew my secret.
They were the only ones who knew the loss I’d experienced.
The hell I’d been through.
The pain I’d suffered.
They were the only ones who knew it had been more than just a bad break. That I’d lost…
With tears spilling down my cheeks, I whispered, “It’s okay.” I let out a shaky breath as I held onto control by a fraying thread. “I’m okay.” Shelby’s chin wobbled in return. She was about to cry too. “Promise, I’m alright.”
“You sure?” I nodded once, and she clenched her eyes shut. For a moment, I was no longer alone in the hell I perpetually lived in. Shelby, bless her heart, was right there with me.
I reached out and touched her arm. “Swear I’m okay.”
Seconds passed before she blew out a relieved breath. “Okay.” She watched me, her eyes searching for any sign that I was going to fall apart. Not finding anything she looked away and stood. I could see her hands shaking, and I knew she was fighting back her own demons. “Do you want me to get you a bottle of water? Maybe something to eat?” She smiled down at me shakily and hooked a thumb over her shoulder. “There are a couple of Ethel’s cookies left. Want me to grab you a few?”
That’s a miracle.
I shook my head. “No.” My voice was hoarse. If I tried to eat or drink anything, I’d vomit all over Ty’s lap.
Speaking of Ty…
Leaning away from him, I pushed against his arms that were still locked tightly around me. “You can let go now. I promise I won’t throw any more office supplies at your head.”
He chuckled, low and deep. “You’ve got one hell of an arm on you. Not sure why you never played softball.”
“I don’t like getting dirty.”
“Yeah, I remember you spending every recess in the library or sitting on the bleachers watching H—”
I cut him off. “Please don’t.” Ty stopped rocking and gritted his teeth. The sound grated on my nerves, momentarily distracting me from the name he almost said. A name that would wreck me if I heard it spoken aloud. I reached up, covering my ears with my palms. “Ack! Don’t do that.”
His jaw went slack, and he smiled. Blue eyes the color of the ocean sparkled in my direction. “Sorry. It’s a habit.”
I shuddered. “It’s like nails on a chalkboard.”
Shelby, who I’d forgotten was still in the room, cleared her throat, pulling my eyes from Ty’s. “Well, since everything seems under control, I’m goin’ to drag Evan back to the kitchen with me. It seems we have a couple of cookies to polish off before Hope and the boys get the rest of ‘em.”
Glancing back at Ty one last time, I pushed myself to my knees. His hands, warm and calloused, landed on my hips. My head whipped around. “What are you doing?”
“Just making sure you don’t fall.”
Oh. “Thanks, I guess.” Placing my hands on the side of my desk for support, I pushed myself the rest of the way up. Ty dropped his hands. Once standing, I straightened my spine.
“Well, alrighty then,” Shelby looked over her shoulder at Evan before meeting my eyes again. “We’re just gonna… uh…we’re just gonna go.” Turning around she walked to the office door and tugged at the front of Evan’s shirt. “If you need anything use the radio or call me. My cells in my pocket.” She patted the back of her jean shorts with her free hand.
Plopping down in my desk chair, I replied, “I will.”
Shelby walked out of the room, tugging Evan behind her. “See you later, boss lady.”
“Bye, guys.”
Ty got up off the floor and retook his seat in the plastic chair across my desk. “You sure you’re alright?”
I rubbed the palm of my hands down my puffy cheeks. “Yeah.” I needed to apologize. “I’m sorry for throwing a hissy fit and well…”
“Don’t apologize to me, Mad—” Please don’t say it. He cleared his throat. “No apology needed, Madelyn.”
Picking up my pen from the desk, I once again started working on the O’Bannon’s intake sheet while trying my best to forget what had just happened.
Across from me, the chair squeaked beneath Ty as he shifted his weight. “Can I ask you something?”
No.
“Go ahead.”
“What in the hell did he do to you, baby doll?”
He. It didn’t take a genius to figure out who he was talking about. Dropping my pen, I leaned back in my chair. What did I tell him? I mean, as much as I hated to admit it, after throwing a stapler and a coffee mug at his head, I felt like I owed him an explanation. Something, at least.
But how much of an explanation?
Screw it. Just tell him the truth.
Parting my lips, I let the brutally honest words roll off my tongue. “He broke his promise.”
“What promise?”
“The one where he swore to love me forever.”
At that moment, my heart once again shattered into a million pieces.
Hendrix
“Hendrix,” Sadie Leigh’s whiney ass voice came through the speaker of my phone.
Just hang up on her, I thought. You know you don’t want to talk to her.
I didn’t, but I couldn’t hang up on her either. If I did, she’d show up at the fire station, and show her ass. If that happened, everyone in town would bear witness to how far I’d fallen.
It was the last thing I wanted anyone to see.
“I’m not doing this with you, Sadie. I’ve already said all I’m going to say on the subject.”
Knowing Sadie, I should have known ending the friendship we’d developed over the last few years wouldn’t be easy. The chick thrived on drama. If I’d only known then what I know now, I wouldn’t have come within a hundred feet of her.
“Why won’t you listen, Hendrix? We’ve been together for over a year. A year! Being friends may have been okay before, but it isn’t enough now. I want more. I deserve more.”
Did the woman not realize how stupid she sounded? First, she says we’d been together for a year, and then in the next breath, she says that only being friends wasn’t enough anymore.
Stupid!
I squeezed the phone in my hand, surprised the screen didn’t shatter into a million pieces. “Sadie—” I blew out a breath “—we’ve never been together like you’re talking. We don’t date. We don’t kiss. And we damn sure don’t fuck. Last time I checked, having a few simple conversations with somebody over a bottle of Rum doesn’t constitute a relationship.”
I pulled the phone away from my ear to prepare for the screech I knew was coming. “You bastard!” There it was. “How could you say that?”
Stopped at the only red light in downtown Kissler, I leaned my head against the truck’s driver’s side window. “Easy. It’s the truth.”
“So, you’ve been using me?”
Using her? What planet was she living on? “You knew the score from the beginning. You know—you knew—that nothing would ever happen between us and that it wouldn’t go any further than having a conversation over a bottle of liquor at the bar.”
“You son of a—”
“I made it very clear for you, Sadie. I told you we’d never be in a relation
ship.” I paused as I hit the gas, turned left and pulled into the fire station. Hitting the speaker button on my phone, I sat it on the seat beside me. If Captain saw me on the phone while behind the wheel, he’d put me on boot duty for the next month. “You remember telling me you understood? Remember telling me you didn’t want a relationship either?”
“That was before—”
“Before what? What’s happened that would make you think I wanted something more with you?” I asked, even though I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear the answer. I could only imagine the horse shit that was about to spew from her mouth.
She was hysterical as she screamed, “I can’t believe you’re doing this to me! You’re throwing it all away!”
Crazy. Delusional. Certifiably insane. I wasn’t sure which term described her better. “Throwing what away?” I shifted the truck into park and killed the engine. “Your friendship? I think I’ll survive fine without it.”
Sadie sniffled, changing tactics. Guess she realized hollering like a crazed banshee wouldn't get her anywhere with me. Not that crying would either. Didn’t matter what games she played, she wouldn't get what she wanted.
Me.
“We could be so good together, Hendrix.” I rolled my eyes. I could kick my own ass for not seeing this drama coming from a mile away. “Just think about all the good times we spent together. How good—
“Sadie, I swear to God I’m not trying to be a dick here. I’m really not. But I need you to understand a few things. One, I will never be with you. I will never take you on a date, hold your hand, or kiss your lips. I won’t fuck you, and I won’t marry you. There is nothing between us. No real connection. No emotion. All we’ve ever had in common is a love for cheap booze and loud music.”
She screamed in my ear, her tears seeming to have magically evaporated.
Huh. Imagine that.
“I told you from the beginning I didn’t want, nor would I ever want, a relationship with you. You agreed. You knew what you were getting into the moment you sat down on the bar stool next to mine and fluttered your eyelashes at me.”
“Am I not good enough for you?” More crying. Again.
I ignored her question and her tears. “Not to mention, the moment your drunk ass grabbed my dick in the middle of the bar and said, ‘I’ll let you do anything you want to me. You don’t even need to use a condom,’ followed by, ‘I want to feel you bare inside of me,’ my cock shriveled up, and it hasn’t come back out to play since.”
Something broke in the background on her end. It sounded like glass shattering. “That’s what this is about? Seriously? I didn’t say that for a reason you think, Hendrix. I wouldn’t do that!”
I didn't bother mentioning the wedding gowns she’d shown me on her phone or the engagement ring pictures she’d tagged me in on Facebook. I mean, Jesus Christ. The bitch was crazy!
“Bullshit, Sadie. Play that game with somebody stupid enough to fall for it. You’ve been trying to get your claws in me for years, and when you saw it wasn’t happening, you tried to lure me in with the promise of pussy. If you think I’m too stupid to realize you were trying to trap my ass by getting pregnant, you’ve got another thing coming. I may be dumb, but I’m not that dumb.”
Silence.
She wasn’t even going to bother trying to deny it.
“So, this is it then?”
Definitely.
I opened the truck door and climbed out, pulling my duffle bag out behind me. “Yeah, this is it. Our friendship, if you could even call it that, is over.”
“You’re gonna let me go? Just like that?”
“I never had you, Sadie.” I leaned against the truck. “You were never mine to keep.”
She sniffled again. “Can I ask you something before you go?”
I pulled my sunglasses down, covering my eyes. “Make it quick.” Walking to the front of the station, I spotted Kyle sitting out front, smoking. “Shit’s gonna kill you, man,” I said, walking past him.
He grunted. “That’s the plan.”
I stopped, turned around, and smacked him upside the head. “Cut that out. You’re one of three people on earth I like. You can’t die. Not to mention, if you croak, who the hell will drag my drunk ass home from the bar?”
A man of few words, he only grunted in response.
I walked away shaking my head.
When Sadie spoke again, her words hit me like a sucker punch to the gut.
When I was sober, I could guard myself against the memories, or at least keep them pushed back far enough that they didn’t bring me to my knees. But sometimes, like right then, the past came barreling straight out of left field and hit me right where it hurt the most.
My heart.
She asked a simple question. “What made her so special?”
I gave her a simple answer. “Everything.”
My chest tightened.
I didn’t want to think about her. Not now. If I did, I’d lose it. And since I was about to start a twenty-four-hour shift, I didn’t have the option of drowning myself in a bottle of cheap liquor.
My heart hammered in my chest.
Ever since I was a kid, I’d never been able to keep myself in check when it came to my pretty girl. But I always had her close by to keep me grounded. Now though? Now I didn’t have her anymore. I’d messed up, broke her heart into a million pieces, and lost her.
Never again would I have that kind of love. Wouldn’t even try to look for it either.
What was the point? I’d already given away the only heart I had.
To this day, Maddie Davis still owned that shit. Lock, stock, and barrel.
“Goodbye, Sadie.”
I hung up without waiting for a reply.
The minute I stepped through the front door of the fire station someone called out my name. “Hendrix!”
I swung my head to the right. “What could you possibly want? I just walked in the door!” I hollered back, my nerves wrecked from the torrent of memories Sadie had lobbed my way.
Seth flipped me off. “Captain wants to see you.”
Great. Just what I need. “Thanks, man.”
Undoubtedly, I was about to get my ass chewed for something. Didn’t matter though. I had unfinished business to settle with Keith anyway.
The stuff he’d said the night before… about her… he was gonna explain that.
Veering to the right, I climbed the stairs to the bunk room and tossed my duffle on the foot of my bed before heading back downstairs. I glared at the nameplate on the office door as I approached.
Captain Keith Davis.
Should read, Captain Dickhead Davis.
I tapped on the metal frame twice before leaning against the door. “You wanted to see me.”
He didn’t even look up. “Got off the phone with station 24 in Toluca about an hour ago.”
“And?”
“And,” he hissed, “Part of the counties new partnership agreement with both them and Garrison counties states we can transfer men between stations when somebodies short on manpower.” He picked up a bottle of whiteout, cracked open the lid and slid the small brush across the paper he was staring at. “They need a couple of bodies. Got too many guys down with injuries and out on leave.” Oh, hell no. Station 24 was Pop’s station. “Get your stuff. As of right now, you and Kyle both are on temporary transfer.”
I widened my stance, dug in my heels, and crossed my arms over my chest. “Cap, send somebody else.” I wasn’t stepping foot in the same station as Pop.
I could count on one hand how many times I’d seen my old man in the last six years, and none of those times had been on purpose. I’d be damned if I went anywhere near him. Far as I was concerned, he was dead.
“You’re going, Hendrix, whether you like or not. Now get back upstairs, grab your bag, and get out of my station. And just so we’re clear,” he paused and clenched his jaw tight, “I don’t want to see your face around here until your transfer is over.”
“I won’t
work with my Pop, Captain. Send. Somebody. Else!”
For the first time since I stepped foot into his office, he looked up. Dropping the whiteout, he stood from his chair and sneered. “You are under my command, and you will do as I say. Understand?”
My fingers twitched at my sides and the urge to punch something nipped at my nerves. “I won’t fucking do it. You can put me on boot duty, whatever the hell you like, but I will not, under any circumstance, step foot in the same room as that son of a bitch!”
Keith pushed back his chair before stomping around his desk and heading straight for me. “You’ll do as I say. If not, then pack your shit and leave, because Mr. Cole,” the fucker smirked, “you’re done.”
Done? He wouldn’t fire me. I was one of his best—if not his best—guy. “You threatening to can me?”
Lips thinned in a straight line, he raised his chin in the air. “No. I’m telling you how it’s going to be. You either follow my orders and get your sorry ass over to Station 24 within the next thirty minutes, or you can sign your dismissal papers.”
With that, he returned to his desk and sat down.
This mother fuc—
“Oh, and Hendrix…” Chest heaving, nostrils flaring, I glared at him. “The next time I have to pick you up at a bar because you’re too drunk to drive yourself home, I’m putting you on leave until you go through a treatment program. Understand?”
“I don’t need treatment. I’m not a damn drunk!” Deep down, I knew it was a lie. Didn’t mean I wanted to face it though. “And you can’t send me there. Send Eli, send Tank, send anybody else, because I’m telling you, Cap, I can’t be in the same room as that mother fucker. Swear to Christ, I’m liable to kill him if I see him again.” Heat flushed through my body and beads of sweat coated my skin. Hands shaking, I pounded both of my fists down on his desk. The particle board groaned under the impact, and I thought it would split in half, but it didn’t. “You don't understand what he’s done!” I slammed my fists down again. “What he’s cost me!”
Keith blinked before shrugging his shoulders. “Don’t really care, Hendrix. I quit giving a shit the day you singlehandedly destroyed my daughter.”