“You don’t think I have enough of a personal life.”
He raised a skeptical brow at me. “Do you? You were back here twenty-four hours into your ninety-six off. Why is that?”
I felt small, and I hated feeling small. I also hated explaining myself, but for this, for a potential promotion, I’d do it. “I got some news the other night, and I needed to not be home.”
His expression morphed to something more sympathetic. “Anything I can help with?”
I shook my head. “Afraid not.”
The corner of his mouth twitched to the side. “I’m sorry.” He let out a sigh and wheeled his chair closer to the desk separatingus, his elbows resting on two piles of precariously stacked papers. “Listen, I want this promotion to be yours, I really do. It doesn’t need to be filled ASAP, but I want it filled soon. Prove to me that you’ve got something to fight for other than fires, and it’s yours.”
I nodded, swallowing around a lump in my throat. “Yes, sir.”
He nodded back, picking up a pen and shuffling papers around. “I’ll check back in with you in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, after your forty-eight hours are up, I want you to go home, Mack. Go be with whatever or whoever makes you happy.”
Standing without another word, I left his office and closed the door behind me.
The joke was on Abrams because the thing that made me happy was fighting fires. But this promotion was all I wanted, and if he wanted me to find something else that “made me happy,” I’d sure as shit find something. The problem was, I knew that whatever it was I found to prove myself to the chief, it couldn’t be small. It most likely couldn’t even be anit.
I headed straight for the gym, needing the monotonous task of lifting weights to provide some order to my scrambling thoughts.
Ryan was the only other guy in the tiny room we used for a gym when I walked in. Originally, I’d been hoping it would be empty so that I could lose myself in thought, but this was better. He’d be the perfect distraction.
Ryan was our department’s cheerleader. At least, that’s what we joked around and called him. He was a walking ray of positivity and happiness always. I couldn’t remember ever seeing him remotely sad or angry—it was kind of weird. And I got the feeling that if he ever were to get mad, I wouldn’t want to be around for the aftermath. It was always the happiest people that exploded the worst when they’d eventually been throughenough shit that they snapped. If he had taken the tests to qualify for lieutenant, he had the personality to be a shoo-in. Lucky for me, he wasn’t in the running.
When he saw me, he pulled his earbuds out, a smile already on his face. “Hey, Mack. Back again for another lift?”
I shrugged, pulling my T-shirt over my head. “What else is there to do?”
He laughed. “I don’t know, maybe watch a show? Play cards? Read? Anything other than do a second workout in a singular morning.”
Grabbing two dumbbells, I walked to the bench next to his, and sat down, resting the weights on my knees. The equipment here wasn’t the best, as was evidenced by the wobbly bench beneath me that teetered if I shifted my weight marginally, but it did the trick.
“Why would I watchRockyfor the billionth time when I can be in here becoming him?” I leaned against the back of the bench and raised the dumbbells slowly over my head.
“I think you’ve surpassed Rocky, man, but you do you!” Ryan shook his head, and continued with his next set.
When I finished my first set, I rested the weights back on my knees and looked over at him. “Hey, can I ask you something?”
He blew out his exhale through puffed up cheeks. “Of course you can.”
Glancing down at my feet, I nudged a tear in the rubber matting with the toe of my boot. “Do you trust me?”
Ryan stopped lifting and looked at me. “Completely.”
“Out in the field?”
“Anywhere. With anything. If I had a sister, I’d let you date her.”
I laughed then because, if he had a sister, I absolutely wouldn’t date her. Dating wasn’t my thing, but apparently, that was my problem. Or at least, it was one of them.
When I didn’t answer, he asked, “Why?”
Ignoring him, I asked another question. “Do you think I’m likeable?”
Confusion was etched into his features, but he played along, and I loved that about him. “It’s unlike you to fish for compliments, but yeah, Archer, I think you’re a likeable guy. I don’t actually have a sister if that’s why you’re asking—”
“That’s not why I’m asking.” I lifted my weights again, letting his answers dance around in my head with everything the chief said.
