Back in the old days, we’d been inseparable. Always sleeping over at each other’s houses. She had a sleepover once and we woke her mother up. She came into the room and called us all a bunch of horses’ asses. I remember we all laughed so hard.
We had so much fun together calling taxis to bring us junk food in the middle of the night while we gossiped about boys and love. She was the kind of best friend everyone needed, and I was glad she was mine.
I ate my salad and headed off to bed quietly. I didn’t want to wake Mike and risk that he’d be able to make his way to the bedroom. The only thing worse than smelling his alcohol-laden breath when I was awake was smelling it the entire time I was sleeping.
CHAPTER SEVEN
~Alexandria~
“Good morning, Alex,” Chance said when I walked into the station. “How are you feeling this morning?”
“Good,” I answered. “In fact, I feel great. How about you?”
“I’m okay,” he said as he stared at me. “You look like you slept better last night,” he said.
“I did. Thanks for noticing,” I said as I went to get a cup of coffee.
“That was some fire yesterday, huh?” Billings asked as he put his cup down.
“About that,” I said, “I’m really...”
“Listen, O’Neil, it could have happened to any of us. Don’t sweat it,” he said.
I put my head down. I couldn’t help but feel bad for what had happened, but he was right. It could have happened to anybody. I grabbed my cup and headed over to the table.
Chance, of course, followed me and sat down beside me. His thigh brushed against mine. At first I cringed and thought about pulling mine away, but then a heat rose within me.
No way. I can’t be attracted to him. No freaking way.
I sat up there thinking of all the reasons why I hated Chance and why I couldn’t fall for him, when I heard a familiar voice downstairs.
“Alex, Alex, come here. I need to talk to you,” the voice yelled through slurred words.
“What the hell is that?” Anderson asked.
“That would be my husband,” I answered as I started to get up from the table.
“Do you want me to come with you?” Chance asked as he grabbed my arm.
“No, I’ll be fine,” I said as I walked downstairs to deal with Mike.
For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why he’d come to my work to humiliate me. It was obvious from his voice that he was drunk already. As if I hadn’t already humiliated myself enough, now he had to bring his drunken ass down to make it worse.
“What are you doing here?” I asked as I folded my arms in front of me when I saw him standing there at the front entrance.
“I was worried about you. You didn’t come home last night,” he said as he swung his bottle of sambuca around.
“I did come home, and you were passed out on the couch. I went to bed, and this morning I got up and came to work.”
“You didn’t even say goodbye or tell me you loved me,” he said as he started to cry.
“Mike, you need to go home now,” I said, infuriated.
“But Alex, baby, I love you,” he said as he reached out to grab me and pull me closer.
“Go home,” I said, pushing him away as he lost his grip on his bottle of sambuca and it poured all down the front of me. “Now look what you’ve done. I’m serious, Mike, go home.”
I turned and walked back upstairs. Dealing with Mike was like dealing with a small child. He just wouldn’t listen. His drinking had gone too far. Now he was coming to my work all tanked up, and God only knew what would be next.
“Everything okay, O’Neil?” Billings asked when I walked back in.
“You could say that,” I replied, still trying to get used to the stench that now filled the air around me.
“What the hell happened to you?” Anderson asked, looking at the stain down the front of my shirt.
“My husband, that’s what happened,” I said, shaking my head. I looked at the stain, trying to figure out how I was going to make it through the day.
“I have an extra shirt in my car,” Carmella offered.
“Do you guys care if I use the shower?” I asked. “I’m meeting a friend for lunch and...”
“You stink,” Anderson said. “Go ahead and use the shower.”
Carmella brought me her extra shirt and helped me find towels. I couldn’t wait to get under the hot water and wash the stench of the sambuca off. Goddamned Mike. I couldn’t believe he did that. His drinking had been out of hand for some time, but not like this.
It had been a gradual buildup. At first he started drinking earlier in the day, then he was drunk all the time, and then his speech was constantly slurred. Now it had come to this; now I stunk because of him.
As the hot water eased my stress away, I let the shampoo and soap work their magic. When I felt confident that all traces of the offending alcohol were gone, I opened the shower door and reached for the fluffy yellow towel that Carmella had grabbed for me.
It was so soft against my skin, and I felt so relaxed, more than I had in days. Part of me just wanted to stay in there, but I knew I had to go back out, so I reached for my clothes. But they weren’t where I left them. My eyes darted around the room, trying to figure out if I had set them somewhere else and forgotten, but they were nowhere else to be seen.
Wrapping the towel tightly around myself, I got up and started searching the room, hoping to find them somewhere, anywhere. Good God, I thought. I can’t go out there in front of all of them like this.
No matter how hard I searched, I couldn’t find any of my clothes, not even a sock. I closed my eyes and pulled the towel tighter around myself. Goddamned jerks, I thought as I tilted my head to the side and gathered my confidence before walking back out to them.
“Where are my clothes?” I asked, quietly at first.
Every one of them turned and looked at me. I could feel their eyes giving me the once-over from my feet up to my face. There wasn’t an inch of my body that their eyes didn’t fondle. Thank God for the towel. I was surprised they at least left me that.
“I said, where are my clothes?” I was a little louder that time.
“Getting a little cold there, O’Neil,” Billings said as he chuckled.
“No, I just want my goddamned clothes,” I said, starting to get upset.
“You know, you’re cute when you’re angry,” Anderson said with a laugh.
“Guys, give her her clothes,” Chance said. “Enough is enough.”
Billings handed me my clothes and I turned and headed back to the shower to get dressed. Goddamned animals, I thought to myself. No wonder most of them aren’t married.
After I was dressed, I went back out there holding my head high. I wasn’t about to let them win the battle of the sexes. I was a confident woman, despite the fact that they’d just tried to humiliate me.
“You’re pretty quiet,” Billings said as I poured my coffee.
“Hmm,” I answered.
“Giving us the cold shoulder, are you?” Anderson asked.
“Leave her alone,” Carmella said. “Can’t you see that she’s having a bad day?”
“And the last thing I need is you guys trying to humiliate me,” I added.
“Humiliate you?” Billings asked. “We aren’t trying to humiliate you.”
“Then why the hell did you guys take my clothes and make me walk out here naked?” I asked.
“You didn’t walk out here naked, sweetie, but I wish you did,” Anderson laughed. “It happens to all of us when we come to work here. We never had a chance to do it to you before because you don’t live here with us. We were trying to make you feel like one of the guys, but I guess it backfired.”
All of a sudden I felt like an idiot. They weren’t harassing me or trying to humiliate me at all. They were trying to give me everything I’d been missing out on and I didn’t even realize it. I felt so bad for tearing into them.
“Aw, thanks, guys,” I said. “I had no idea.”
“Consider yourself initiated,” Billings laughed.
“So, who are you going to lunch with?” Anderson asked.
“An old friend. My best friend, actually. We went to high school together.”
“We’ll miss you here. It’s coleslaw day and it’s always a treat to see the strings hanging out from between your teeth,” Billings chuckled.
I choked on my coffee at his remark and it flew from my mouth onto Chance, who was sitting across the table from me for a change.
“Don’t say things like that when my mouth is full,” I laughed.
“Do you provide towels with your showers?” Chance asked.
“Sorry, no towels or clothes,” I said as I got up and grabbed my purse.
***
I sat at The Wooden Spoon waiting for Allison. It was a tiny little diner, but it had been our favorite lunch spot for years. Over time, many different people had owned it, but they never changed the name.
It wasn’t the greatest-looking place by any means. Many people would have called it a hole in the wall. But it was quaint and quiet, a place where we could talk. I loved going there for a bite to eat and great conversation.
When she walked in, heads turned at every table. She was beautiful with her red curls and ivory skin. Her emerald skirt suit set it all off. She worked as a legal secretary, but she was a fashion diva and had the slim build to go along with it.
I’d always envied her tiny body that made the men stare whenever she walked by. She, on the other hand, said she’d always envied my curves. She said more men stared at me than at her. I’d married my high school sweetheart right after graduation, so I’d never noticed.
“Alex, how are you?” she asked as she walked over to the table.
“Good, good. How are you?” I asked as I stood up and hugged her.
She sat down and the waitress brought our menus. I always found it odd that the menu never changed; we always ordered the same thing, and yet they still brought menus every time.
“So what’s new in the legal world?” I asked.
“Not a lot, but last night it sounded like you might have some things going on. Tell me about it.”
“I don’t know where to start,” I said, playing with my napkin and shaking my head. “The more I think about it, the more muddled up the whole mess seems. Mike’s getting worse, he wants me to quit my job, I think I have a crush on my jackass boss...”
“Can I take your order?” the waitress interrupted.
“I’ll have a plain bacon cheeseburger deluxe,” I said. “Make sure there’s nothing on that but bacon and cheese, and I’ll have gravy for the fries.”
“I’ll have chicken fingers with onion rings on the side,” Allison said.
“And can I get you ladies anything to drink?” the waitress asked as she took our menus from us.
“I’ll have a Pepsi,” I said.
“A Sprite for me,” Allison said. The waitress left with our orders. “Okay,” Allison said, turning back towards me. “Why don’t you start with Mike? What’s going on with him?”
“Oh God, Allison, it’s so bad. I can’t even stand to be around him anymore. He’s drunk all the time. I mean slurring-his-words drunk. When he breathes on me all I can smell is alcohol. He’s not attractive at all to me anymore. In fact, he disgusts me.”
“Have you talked to him about his drinking? Maybe if he went to AA...”
“I’ve tried. It doesn’t do any good. He doesn’t want to quit drinking. He’s perfectly happy with his life the way it is, but I’m not. He won’t work. The truth is he can’t. He’s unemployable. The way he drinks, he can’t get up in the morning and go to work. It’s impossible. I’m stuck paying all the bills while he sits home and drinks all day. I can’t take it anymore.”
“What about Emily?” she asked as she folded her napkin in her lap.
“Emily’s doing okay, but I don’t think it’s good for her to be around that. When she’s not in school, she’s with him.”
“He drinks around her?”
“Of course. There’s never a time when he doesn’t drink. Seriously, Allison, I can’t remember a time when I haven’t seen him without a bottle in his hand.”
“You can’t have that,” she said as she looked down at the table.
“It gets worse,” I said. “Lately he’s been bugging me to quit my job, but if I do then we won’t have any money coming in.”
“That’s ridiculous. Why does he want you to quit your job?”
“It’s a long story. You remember how I was acting chief for a while? Well, they hired out of the local station for the permanent position. He was mad and started focusing on the fact that I’m not home enough.”
“So he’s upset because you didn’t get a raise,” she said as the waitress brought our food.
“Yes,” I said. “Now he’s trying to convince me that every fire could kill me and leave Emily without a mother. He’s got my mind so messed up that I hesitated at a fire the other night and almost cost a couple of my teammates their lives.”
“Alex, you need to stop listening to Mike. Any time anyone leaves their house to go to work could be the last time, whether they’re a firefighter, a police officer, a teacher, a lawyer, or a waitress. You never know what each day is going to bring. You just have to hope for the best.”
“I know that, but I’m so lost. Then today he showed up at the station with a bottle of sambuca in his hand and dumped it all over me.”
“Okay, that’s going too far. You need to do something about him.”
“I know I do. I just don’t know if I’m ready.”
“OK, so what’s going on with your work? Do you want to quit your job?”
“Allison, I love my job and I love the guys I work with—most of the time. I did think about quitting when I didn’t get the promotion. I worked hard for it, and it was heartbreaking to see it go to someone else. But then today they stole my clothes when I was in the shower to make me feel like one of the guys, and I realized that the camaraderie there is unlike anything I’d find anywhere else.”
“It sounds like your mind is made up,” she said as she took a sip of her Sprite.
“It is. I could never leave my job.”
“Who did they hire to take the position?”
“That’s another problem,” I said as I put my burger back down on my plate. “Do you remember Chance Friedman from high school?”
“Ha ha, geek city. Of course I remember him. He loved torturing the hell out of you.”
“He’s the new chief.”
“No way,” she said as she put her fork back down and stared at me.
“And he’s not a geek anymore, unfortunately. He’s gorgeous, Allison. I want him with every fiber of my being, but at the same time I don’t want to find him attractive. I hate him. He’s such a jerk, and yet he makes me feel alive.”
“That’s quite the dilemma you have there,” she said, grinning.
“Don’t laugh,” I said. “It’s not funny. I can’t fall for him, Allison, I just can’t.”
“Why not?” she asked before she took another bite of her chicken fingers.
“Well, let’s see, the guy took the chief position out from under me, he’s acting like he owns the place…oh, and let’s not forget I have a husband.”
“Let’s put this in perspective, Alex. You don’t have a husband. You have a second child. Mike isn’t capable of carrying his own weight in your household. As for Chance, he was offered a job, he took it, and he gives orders because it’s part of his job. That makes him a bad guy why?”
I sat there for a few minutes unable to talk. Everything she said made perfect sense. Mike wasn’t capable of being a husband, and he hadn’t been for years. And Chance, well, he hadn’t done anything wrong. He’d taken a job that was offered to him. I had no right to be mad at him for that.
“I see your points,” I said. “But I still can’t fall for Chance whil
e I’m still married to Mike.”
“I thought we both agreed that you needed to do something about that,” she said while she chewed away on one of her onion rings.
“What can I do?” I asked. “I’d need to find a babysitter for after school hours. It’s all so complicated.”
“Why is it difficult?” she asked. “If things were really that bad you’d find a way to leave.”
“You don’t understand,” I said after I took another sip of my Pepsi. “I’m on a limited budget as it is, and then finding childcare for Emily, well, that’s going to be almost impossible.”
“She’s eight, Alex. She’s almost old enough to stay on her own.”
“She’s deaf, Allison. It’s a whole different ballgame. Someone could break into the house and she wouldn’t know it. She needs someone there with her.”
“What time does she get off school?” she asked as she put down her fork.
“Around three thirty, why?”
“I finish work at four, and could swing by your place and stay there with her until you get home.”
“I don’t know. I’ve never left her with anyone besides Mike or I before,” I said as I played with my fork.
“Alex, I’ve known her since she was a baby. I even know basic sign language. You won’t need to worry about the extra expenses because I won’t charge you any money. It’s a perfect situation and you know it.”
“I’m just not sure that I’m ready,” I said, staring down at the table.
“Not sure if you’re ready to leave Emily with someone else, or not sure if you’re ready to leave Mike?”
I shook my head and sighed. “Both,” I admitted. “Mike and I married fresh out of high school. I don’t know how to leave him, or even if I could. He used to be a good guy, you know. I’m sure he could get back to that again. It’ll just take time.”
“Alex, you can’t fix people. Get that out of your head right now. He’s not the same person you knew back then and he’s not the same person you married. It’s not good for Emily to be around his drinking. Do you want her to grow up thinking that’s normal?”
Pretty Young Thing: a new adult romance box set Page 10