I miss the camaraderie.
I miss being surrounded by a bunch of suit-clad hunks, so, yeah, I’ll own that part of it, I suppose.
By the time I’ve been medically cleared to return to work eleven months after the plane crash, it’s already clear tomethat I’m not going to make it back onto The Shift.
That’s even before I fly to DC from my parents’ house in California, where I’ve been living since being discharged from the hospital to work on my PT, and Chris Bruunt puts me through a physical evaluation.
I can still shoot just as well as I ever could.
My reaction times are spot on.
Yet I struggle to come in at the minimum time for my run and I feel like I’ll drop dead in the process from the pain spiking through my body. In fact, while Chris doesn’t tell me then, I know I haven’t made the minimum just from the look on his face.
When we sit down in his office to discuss this after I grab a shower and change clothes I know his verdict even before he speaks.
“I can put you on a desk job and we can re-evaluate you in a few months after you reapply to the unit, if there are any openings. Or we can arrange a transfer to a different division. You could always go into the uniform division. Or, I can talk to the director about transferring you out of PPD. There’s no shame in working out of a field office, you know. We all started in one. With your seniority, you’d be a senior officer, not a desk grunt.”
“You want to work out of a field office after working The Shift? I’m not working uni, either.” Yes, that’s partially an ego thing but my ego’s taken enough of a hit lately.
I’m no masochist.
I’m also not a good enough sniper to transfer over to the Emergency Response Team, which wouldn’t be a downgrade, in my opinion. But, again, there’s the whole being able to run and handle a physically grueling training regimen problem being a part of ERT would require.
He sighs. “You would easily make the cut over at the FBI.”
I snort. I’m not even going to dignify that with a further response. I know it’s common for guys who need to drop out for various reasons to transfer over there, but I won’t.
For starters, the ration of shit I’d catch from my family wouldn’t be worth it. I wouldn’t be able to lie to them about the risk, and I’d likely be more at risk in the FBI than I was in the USSS. I’d probably make less money, too. Even if I went to work in their criminal profiling division.
Secondly, if I can’t be in the PPD, I’d rather work making money than be stuck in a government job. There’s a lot of green to be earned in my area of expertise, with my level of training and experience, and guys like me are always in high demand.
“I can also give you a list of names and numbers to call,” Chris offers. “Private sector. Lucrative, and active assignments. Some of them probably far hairier than you faced here.”
I guess I already knew that was the path I’d been forced onto, but I didn’t want to admit it until Chris said it out loud.
I nod. “I appreciate that, boss,” I quietly say. “I’ve had a couple of private offers, but I was…hoping.”
“I know. I hate like hell to do it. I can handle paperwork to extend your medical leave and we could do a six-month re-eval. But, honestly? You’d be better off financially taking the medical retirement and going private-sector. It’s nothing personal.”
I wave away those sentiments. “I know it’s not. I’m not mad at you.”
I know my physical condition won’t improve much over where I am now. I’ve been in training, and if I push myself any harder, I’ll injure myself. Will my pain improve, and maybe my run times as well? Sure, but it’ll be a slow process, and age will start to work against me.
It’s not just my pain levels—it’s overall stamina. Even if I could build myself back to easily making the times, I honestly don’t know if I can work the crazy hours with little to no sleep for days or even weeks at a time like I used to and not become a liability to the team. There are days I’m falling asleep on the couch in front of the TV after dinner, when several eighteen- and twenty-hour days in a row used to be nothing for me to plow through with little more than thirty-minute naps here and there.
The plateau I’ve hit is my best-case before age and the long-term toll from my injuries comes into play.
Which is how, three weeks after that, I find myself babysitting a twenty-one-year-old woman in Amsterdam. She’s the daughter of a movie star, and an Instagram “influencer.” While she’s not as stupid as some celebrity kids, it turns out she’s…
Well, let’s just say she’s not very discriminating when it comes to selecting partners to take to bed.
Not that I’m slut-shaming, because come on, that’s a dick move. My job is to make sure none of the assholes she sleeps with does anything other than fuck her brains out before I evict them the next morning.
Keep her from getting kidnapped, scare the assholes she sleeps with into making sure they use the condoms I keep her supplied with, and ensuring she doesn’t get date-raped. That’s my job.
I’m a babysitter, bodyguard, chauffer, and condom distributer.
I’m also making more for this four-week gig than I did in an entireyearin the PPD.
