He might feel differently if he knew how good you are at your job.
Easy, Cap.
I doubt it.
I don’t.
He doesn’t like me working around all of you guys. He’s jealous.
Shit. At this point, I couldn’t exactly reassure her that there was no reason for him to think that, could I? After all, my girlfriend was still at work, and I was texting the department’s only female firefighter about her shitty relationship. I was no better than Jeremy when it came down to it.
Maybe you should have a conversation with him about it.
I can’t. He took off.
I cleared my throat and stared at the screen. I wanted desperately to push further, gather more information, and comfort her in her time of need. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. The boundaries were already being pushed as it was.
I typed,hope to see you at work on Monday,then hit send before powering down my phone. I didn’t like this new sensation brimming inside. The feeling I could talk to Paisley all night long about anything and everything. But I couldn’t. I wouldn’t because I wasn’t that guy. I never wanted to be that guy.
* * *
When Paisley arrived back to work on Monday, I’d already decided that there would be no more playing; I would treat her exactly as I treated any of my other men, whether I liked it or not.
“Hill, can I see you in my office?” I said when she walked through the front doors. The truth was, I hadn’t been sure she’d come back to work, not after her complaints about her fiancé and his utter dislike for her choice in career. But here she was, walking into the station as she had every day before, jacket slung over her arm and boots clunking against the floor.
“Sure,” she said and followed me into my office. I couldn’t pretend as though nothing had happened back at the fire scene. She’d still disobeyed me, and any other staff would have been written up for it.
“I need to discuss the call we had the other day.” I kept my tone clipped as Paisley took a seat across from my desk. “I didn’t say anything until now because I wasn’t sure you’d be back. But what you did is unacceptable. It’s grounds for dismissal. You know that, Paisley.”
She stared at me for a moment. I’d completely caught her off guard, and my reprimand was unexpected. I hadn’t said anything about it until this point, and she probably thought it was water under the bridge.
“I know I made a mistake,” she met my eyes with her words. “And I’m sorry.”
“That’s not good enough.” I shook my head and folded my arms, anger boiling in my chest. I could see her in my mind again, as it had been for days, being pulled out from under that rubble, undoubtedly dead, her and Korbin both. “If it was any of my other rookies who’d gone in against my orders, they’d be on suspension.”
“So, suspend me.” She said it firmly, her tone all business and no bullshit. “I wanted you to treat me like everyone else, and this is part of it. Suspend me.”
“You don’t get it, do you?” The rage boiled over as she stared at me. “You could have been killed. You could have gotten Korbin killed!” I slammed my fist on the table in front of Paisley. She continued to stare at me, her eyes unwavering, face void of any emotion that could give her away. She didn’t even flinch.
“But I didn’t,” she said. “And I saved a life that day.”
“You disobeyed a direct order.”
“Ihelpedhim. Isn’t that what we should do for each other, Cap? Aren’t wefamily?”
Her question threw me for a loop, mostly because I could hear the seriousness in her voice, the respect she now had for her fellow firefighters.
But it didn’t matter. Emotions are what got people killed.
“You did that against the rules of this station, Paisley!” Fury was building inside me, an anger so deep it was a feeling I didn’t recognize. Something I’d never felt in my entire life. She still wasn’t backing down, refusing to cower under my gaze. She didn’t waver, didn’t take her eyes off mine.
“I don’t regret doing what I did, Hansen,” she said. “If I hadn’t gone in there, one of your men would have died. No, one ofourmen would have died, and that would have been on me.”
“That would have been the nature of the job, Hill.” I sat across from her, my anger and frustration simmering from a boil to a simmer. The thought of losing my good friends and best men made me sick to my stomach. Even now, after all the years in the department, it has never gone away. We were family here, and I’d almost lost too many of them . . . all because I hadn’t been there. “You say you want to fit in here, but you’ve already ignored a direct order?” I asked. It was a low blow even for me, and I regretted saying it as soon as it was out of my mouth.
Paisley stood, taking me by surprise, and gathered up her jacket to shrug it on. “So, what now, Cap?”
“I’m writing you up.”
