“I met a guy.” Erin set out plates.
“Damn. Lucky. No one at our place was getting laid,” he said pointedly to Aiden.
Aiden had been cutting up fruit with Vanessa. “I didn’t call Charlie.”
“What?” Vanessa asked. “I was going to let one of you call her.”
“I told Aiden to call her,” Kevin said.
“Crap. My firehouse is a bunch of assholes. All three of us got her number, and none of us called her,” Vanessa said.
Luna came in. “What’s going on?”
“Only Theo and Erin got laid this weekend,” Kevin said.
Vanessa started coughing. “Wrong. A friendly police officer had coffee with me this morning after he wore someone else out.”
“Thanks for that.” Luna glanced at Aiden.
“Don’t mention it,” Vanessa smirked.
“Give it a rest. We’re all grownups. I’m a grownup,” Aiden retorted.
“If you repeat the word ‘grownup’ too many times, you’re not a grownup,” Vanessa said.
“Don’t bitch at me about it.,” Aiden responded, crankier than they’d anticipated since this wasn’t exactly new ground.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. I think we’re missing the point here. Luna and Kormos doing the nasty isn’t new. I want to know who Erin was with. Did you ride a police officer home?” Kevin asked with avid interest.
“No,” Erin said quickly, “I did not go home with a police officer.”
Luna said, “I saw four different guys try to chat you up. Elias was sure you’d go for one of them.”
It was time to think fast. In this group, nothing stayed secret for long. While she couldn’t own up to the truth, she needed an explanation. “Nope. I met a guy named Han. We had coffee and hit it off. Boy, did he hit it.”
Most of that was completely true. Fire Chief Noah Baker had agreed to meet her for coffee. Said coffee ended up being inside her rowhouse, and it took about twenty-four hours to remember to have any coffee. They didn’t need to know that part.
She’d have to think about more fake information to fill in later. It was a good time to not get interrogated by her team.
Hard stop.
Carver had said nothing at this point, not even a single reference to MetroGen. Erin asked, “What’s going on with you?”
“Nothing.” He was studiously painting cream cheese on bagels.
Everyone turned to Carver. They waited expectantly, all eyes on him.
He sighed, and his face turned red. “Our IVF failed. We got the results this weekend. Negative again.”
For a few seconds, no one said anything. As the rookie, he put up with a lot of shit from them. He ran in different circles and had never revealed his personal business the same way everyone else did. It was a big moment for him to tell them this.
“I’m sorry, dude,” Kevin said. He reached out and gave Carver a hug.
The team waited to see how Carver responded. His shoulders bent slightly, allowing himself to accept comfort.
“Come on everybody, group hug,” Kevin ordered. Everyone piled on as instructed. Though not everyone could actually reach Carver, the sentiment was there.
Thirty seconds passed, then a minute. No one made a move to stop.
