“Then what’s up?” He started another set himself, and I appreciated his willingness to multitask with me. It was uncomfortable enough bringing any of this up in conversation, let alone having to stare into his eyes the entire time we had it.
Aside from being the happiest firefighter you’d ever meet, Ryan was also the most trustworthy and honest guy I knew. He’d take whatever I told him to his grave, which is what gave me the confidence to tell him the truth.
“Chief wants to promote me to lieutenant, but he’s not doing it because he doesn’t think I have anything going for me outside of this place.”
“Congratulations, man! That’s huge!” He slapped me on the shoulder.
“You can’t tell anyone. Besides, like I said, it hasn’t happened yet. I need to prove I have attachments first.”
“Well, do you?” His tone wasn’t judgemental, but the way he stared at me said that he suspected he already knew the answer.
“Not really, no.”
Ryan nodded thoughtfully. “Listen, I trust you with my life, and I think you’re a great guy, but I get what Abrams is saying. What we do . . . sure, it’s a passion, but it’s also only a job. And when you can no longer fight fires, who is Archer Mack?”
Well that level of profoundness was not what I was expecting out of our class clown. I nodded, already sinking deep in thought. He shoved his earbud back in, and resumed his workout without another word, which left me to do exactly what I’d come in here to do.
Without music of my own, and with the only clock in the room having run out of batteries months ago, I had no way of knowing how much time had passed between Ryan’s words of wisdom, and him collecting his things to leave. He clapped me on the shoulder on his way out, and I nodded in return.
Not long after, I re-racked my weights and left the gym too. The last thing I needed was to tire myself out too much, or strain myself to the point where I’d be rendered useless if a call came in.
The rest of my shift that day, and the next, went by too fast—we were busy. A house caught fire from a frayed, exposed wire on a Crock Pot, and the whole kitchen was damn near unrecognizable once we managed to get it out. Everyone had made it out okay, but the kitchen and parts of the living room were destroyed. Our department made GoFundMe pages for the victims of home fires as a way to lessen the burden while families waited for insurance to come through, and like always, once we got back to the station, I snuck away and made a private donation to them. Insurance covered some things, but it never covered enough.
The rest of our calls were relatively minor. A backyard fire that got a little out of hand, two car crashes because tourists visiting this town were both incredibly direction challenged, and drove far too fast, and a false alarm from a smoke detector at a local business.
With the exception of the kitchen fire, because those were a lot rarer than people would believe, it wasn’t anything too crazy orabnormal for us. It was just busy, evenly spaced throughout my forty-eight hours so that I never really got to get any sleep.
By the time my shift was over, I was almost too happy to follow Chief Abram’s orders and go home. I grabbed my bag from the bunk room, and left out the back door so I didn’t have to walk past the guys, not sure I was capable of anything other than unpleasant grunts.
My conversation with the chief had been on constant repeat in my head since I’d spoken with him, but the realization of what he was asking me to do was fully setting in. I strode across the parking lot, my teeth clenched, and my hands balled into fists.
Because merely finding something that gave me life apart from the station wasn’t going to be enough for the chief. Simply picking up a hobby like axe throwing or wood carving, probably wasn’t going to cut it. I was going to have to find a life,somethingto fight for, and I wanted to do that about as badly as I wanted to roll across a bed of flaming glass shards butt naked.
Actually, the bed of flaming glass didn’t sound half bad once the wind chill gusted over my skin on the ride back to my house.
TEN
DARCY
The lady at the register gave me an odd look as I threw the last of my groceries on the conveyor belt. Whether it was from the sheer amount of items I had, and the fact that I was one individual, or because of the bizarre array of items I was purchasing, I couldn’t tell. At this point, my cravings were all over the place and they came and went just as fast. Yesterday, I wanted brownies and pineapple. Not separately—together. I wanted the pineapple to be baked into the brownie and served with more of it on top, and while my brain registered that as a disgusting combination, my stomach thought otherwise.
I didn’t do it, but that was largely because I didn’t have any brownie mix and my baking-from-scratch skills were subpar. Safe to say that there were three boxes of brownie mix and two cans of pineapple currently being rung up. Just in case.
There were also pickles, tater-tots, purple Skittles, a spiral ham, peanut butter, Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, Oreos, spray cheese, and more ice cream. As the cashier rang that particular grouping of items up, I wished I had spaced them out amongst my regular groceries. But it was too late now, and she could think what she wanted. There was nothing worse than having a craving and not being able to satisfy it.
On the drive home, the jar of pickles sat open in-between my legs. I’d wanted to put it in the cupholder like a civilized person, but I’d opted for the larger jar, and it wouldn’t fit.
By the time I got home and had the groceries put away, all I wanted to do was take a nap. This experience had given me a newfound respect for pregnant women. How did anyone have more than one? More importantly, how did anyone have more than one and stillfunction? I knew the answer was that women were superheroes, but even Superman had his weakness. Turns out that my weakness was a doctor-recommended cutback on caffeine.
The pull of my bed was immense as I walked past it to my home office and gym. I had several clients send in their weekly check-ins, and I needed to review them so I could make adjustments to their diets for the upcoming week, depending on their specific goals. There simply wasn’t time for napping.
I sat down at my desk and got to work. Most of my clients reported back feeling good about their current plan—the results they were getting aligned with their goals—but a few needed tweaking. Everyone’s workouts got modified to prevent plateauing and maintain progress. Surprisingly, this was the part that got the most pushback from clients. It was hard for some to wrap their heads around why they would need to switch up their workout routines when they’d finally gotten in a rhythm. You would think being told no fast food would be the deal breaker, but no. The breaking point was instructing themto do planks instead of crunches, or lateral raises instead of shoulder presses.
When I finished sending back my clients’ new regimens, I decided to squeeze in a workout of my own. It wasn’t anything crazy—I didn’t want to push myself too far given I was already tired—but a good workout always energized me more than a nap ever did.
Wrapping up my last set, I lowered the barbell back to the floor. It always felt weird not to let it drop like I did at the gym, but I wasn’t trying to put a hole in the floor—not when I was going to be needing this room very soon. And, I wasn’t an expert, but I’m sure a hole wasn’t considered “baby-proofed.”
I started the shower and stripped the sweat-soaked clothes from my body. Stepping under the hot spray of the shower, I couldn’t help the moan that escaped me, and I spent the next several minutes using my lemon-rosemary body wash to massage the knots out of my muscles.
