I stared at him, speechless, wondering why I hadn’t known this before. “Really?”
“Really.” He looked away again, but there was no sadness in his eyes, no regret; he said his words with pride, and I admired him more. “I was on this squad for three years before they finally started to accept me. I was treated differently, Hill, so badly because of the color of my skin. The other men didn’t want to share the bunkhouse or run calls with me. I was an outsider.”
“What happened?” I asked. “Because now you’re the chief, and I’ve never seen anyone respect a leader as much as this crew does.”
Chief Davis smiled, shrugging one shoulder. He got to his feet and reached out to squeeze my shoulder. “I didn’t quit. I didn’t back down. I forced my way in.”
“So, you’re telling me I have to force my way in to be accepted?”
“I’m not telling you to do anything,” he said gently. “I’m just telling you what I did. I pushed back.”
Before I could speak again, Chief Davis walked away and vanished back into the building, leaving me swimming in my own thoughts. I pulled my legs up to my chest and took a deep breath, squeezing my knees to my chin. I knew he was right; a man like Preston Davis was always right. If he had been able to fight his way onto the crew in the seventies, when a black man was considered less than equal, I could do this now. This wasn’t the seventies anymore, and it sure as hell wasn’t the fifties. I refused to be the housewife, the role of obedient stay-at-home soccer mom I’d grown to avoid and loathe.
My mother had been a stay-at-home mom, had cared for her children, cooked the meals, and cleaned up after my dad and us. And while she had been a fabulous mother, I’d seen something in her eyes on the bad days; a yearning for more, an underlying curiosity for a better life, quiet fantasies hidden behind a stiff, smiling façade. I didn’t want that, and I don’t think my mother did, either. The difference was that I was willing to change it; I didn’t give a shit who liked it. I took after my dad and my brothers, working men, guys who put their all into something and never looked back. What a shame; sweet little Paisley, such brains, some beauty, wanting to do a man’s job for no other reason than because she could.
“Fuck you all.” My declaration reverberated around the empty space. I took a deep breath and rubbed my hands over my face before standing up and hopping out of the back of the ambulance. I slammed the doors shut and turned around, almost colliding with Tanner Rey, who stood near his locker, rummaging through it in search of something. Korbin stood next to him, eyes on me as I made my way to the door, ignoring the both of them.
“Oh,” Tanner said, turning to look at me. “It’s you.”
A smirk rose to Korbin’s lips, eyes narrowing. “You tired of it yet, princess?” he asked. “Are you ready to resign and go home to your husband?”
“Like they say,” Tanner added. “A woman’s place is in the kitchen.”
“Of course, it is,” I said. “That’s where the knives are kept, right next to the peanuts you’re trying to pass off as testicles.”
A muscle jumped in Tanner’s jaw, and he turned away. Korbin met my gaze again, and an amused smirk played on my lips. I raised my middle finger and waved it at them with the cheeriest smile I could muster.
“Fuck you both,” I said. “Fuck you very much,bros, because I’m here to stay.”
Chapter14
Hansen
I was four beer bottles in by the time Julia got home from her shift, and I still wasn’t buzzed enough to wipe the memory of the kid’s blood-spattered face from my mind. Jules found me kicked back in our living-room recliner, a half-empty beer bottle in one hand and the near-empty six-pack on the coffee table. She tossed her keys onto the kitchen counter and grabbed one of the beers for herself.
“Rough day?” she asked. I scoffed and took a drink, swishing the lukewarm beer around in the bottle, unable to face her. I couldn’t even face myself.
“We lost one,” I said with a shake of my head. “It sucked.”
Jules popped the top off her drink and sat down on the couch, tucking her legs beneath her. “I’m sorry, baby.”
“A kid,” I continued. “A young boy.”
“What happened?”
I swallowed the rest of the beer and reached for the last one in the pack, popping it open to take a drink. I wasn’t a huge drinker, never really had been, but on occasions like this, it sometimes seemed to be the only thing that helped.
“DUI,” I said. “The driver hit the family’s car.” Another drink. On the coffee table, my cell phone sat silent, but I had been checking it all night long, hoping Paisley would reach out to talk. I didn’t know if she or I needed it more.
“Let me guess.” Julia nodded slowly, already knowing how this would go. Her years as a paramedic gave her more experience than even I. “The driver walked away without a scratch.”
“I wanted to kill him,” I said. “I was so angry, Jules.” My grip tightened around the bottle as rage boiled in my chest. A painful, suffocating irritation that made my head splinter with the threat of another oncoming migraine.
“I’m so sorry, baby.” Julia reached for my hand and squeezed it, but no comfort appeared.
“It’s all part of the game, right?” I said. “Russian roulette.”
The sensation of Julia’s soft lips against my temple helped, but only a little. I closed my eyes and took another sip of beer as Julia kissed my neck. I knew she was trying to help, but my mind was elsewhere, specifically on the little boy in the middle of the road.
