Don whistles. “The single life is all I need. No woman can keep up with me anyway,” he argues.
“You mean no woman can stand being around you for too long,” Eric interjects as he enters the garage.
Everyone in the garage gets a good laugh out of that, except for me. There’s a heaviness I’ve never known that’s settled around me ever since Janine walked out of my door almost a week ago. Since then, she’s refused to take my calls or answer her door. I only found out once when Janet answered the door that Janine had actually gone over to Angela and Eric’s place to stay for a couple of days.
My eyes narrow at the invite Janet gave me right after telling me her daughter wasn’t home.
“Whatever spat you and Janine had, I’m sure it’ll work itself out.” Don wraps his arms around my shoulders. “Either that or you’ll find someone else, right? There’s plenty of fish in the sea.”
“Get the hell off of me,” I growl, throwing his arm off me. “There are no other fucking fish. And don’t call her a goddamned fish. The hell is wrong with you?” I glare at Don.
His eyebrows slowly raise and he looks over my shoulder, his dark eye glinting with mischievousness. “I fucking told you. He’s gone.”
“We already knew that,” Eric asserts.
“Well you better win her back somehow,” Don says.
Just when I’m about to tell him to mind his damn business, Captain Waverly enters the garage.
“Allende! Upstairs. I need to speak with you.” And as is his habit, the captain doesn’t wait for a response before turning and disappearing back into the station house, presumably heading up the stairs, assuming I’ll be in right behind him.
“What’d you do this time?” Carter questions.
I shrug. “Not a damn thing.” Turning, I head in the direction of the captain, making my way through the station’s entryway and up the stairs to the captain’s office.
“Close the door,” he says without peering up from his desk.
How the man managed to get up the stairs to his office so quickly and sit down to read over whatever papers are in front of him, looking like he’s been in that position all morning, remains baffling to me. But Captain Waverly is one of the sharpest and quickest captains I’ve seen in all of my years with the Williamsport Fire Department.
“You wanted to see me, sir?”
Slowly, he lifts his head and pulls off his eye glasses. “I don’t like cops showing up at my station house.”
I move closer to his desk but don’t sit down. My shoulders pull downward. “I apologize for that happening. It was an honest mix up.”
“A mix up?” His thick, bushy eyebrows lift.
I nod. “Yes, sir. They had the wrong guy. Happens a lot apparently. You’d think in this day and age, cops would be more responsib—”
“Cut the shit, Allende.”
I close my mouth trying to hide the grin that wants to escape.
“You’re so full of shit. Like the rest of these clowns,” he grumbles, shaking his head. He’s trying hard to come off as pissed but I can hear the levity in his voice. “Anyway, make sure themix updoesn’t happen again.”
“Will do, Captain.”
“I’d hate to lose a great firefighter over some bullshit.”
“It wasn’t bullshit.”
“What was that?”
“Nothing, sir.”
“Good. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk about you and Don going to visit your old station.”
“I don’t kn—” I stop talking when he holds up his hand.
