“I’m feeling fine, thanks, Amanda.” I said with a smile.
“That’s good.” For a long, awkward moment she stared at me, piercing eyes tearing apart my soul from the inside out. The whole rest of the crew watched our interaction, but nobody spoke.
“I heard your Susan’s new nurse,” I said, and Amanda nodded her head with a small smile.
“I am. Susan is great.”
“Well thank you for being there. I know it takes a lot of pressure off Peyton.”
“It’s my job,” Amanda kept on smiling, but it didn’t seem convincing. Didn’t seem real.
“Thanks for the cookies,” I said finally, hoping she’d take it as a job well done and leave. “They look delicious. And thanks for checking in on me.”
“You’re welcome,” Amanda said with a giggle, reaching one hand out to touch my arm. I almost flinched away, but I managed to hold it together. I desperately wanted to know about her visit to the PT clinic to see Peyton, but I didn’t want to embarrass her by bringing it up in front of the whole room. Besides, I wasn’t sure it was relevant anymore—or even if it ever had been.
“Thanks for stopping by, Amanda,” Paisley said finally, after the smothering silence in the room began to press down on all of us. “We should probably get back to work though, right, Korbin?”
“Right,” I said, and Amanda nodded understandingly.
“Of course. Don’t let me keep you,” she said quickly, and before I could turn her down she stepped up again and threw her arms around me, squeezing me like we’d been best friends for so many years. As we watched her go, half of us still trying to figure out what in the hell had just happened, I looked at Hansen, who looked at Paisley.
“That was weird,” Paisley said. “Does she know that you’re kind of—involvedwith someone?”
“I don’t know,” I told her honestly. “But I haven’t exactly embraced her interest in me with open arms.”
“Be nice to the girl,” Chief Davis said, picking up the newspaper from the table to finish reading it in his office. “She’s harmless.”
“That’s what they all say,” muttered Nick under his breath, and a few of us laughed.
“It’s just a crush, I think,” I told them. “No big deal. She’ll get bored eventually, right?”
“You can certainly hope so,” Paisley said, cocking one eyebrow. “She really seems to have the hots for you, though.”
Pushing any and all thoughts of Amanda aside, I spent the rest of the morning hanging out with my crew, lounging around the firehouse like the good old days before I busted up my knee. My mom texted me at noon to see if I needed a ride back home, so I texted Peyton to see when her lunch break was.
Right now. Are you home?
I’m at the firehouse visiting. Can you give me a ride before you have to be back from lunch?
I figured she would deny me, especially after all the heartache my career had caused us, but she didn’t.
Be there soon.
Grinning, I shoved the phone back into my pocket and limped over to the side window to join Hansen, who was watching his crew run drills outside.
“We can’t wait to have you back, man,” he said, reaching out to pat me on the back. “It hasn’t been the same here without you.”
“Maybe, but at least I’m still alive, right?” I joked, leaning my crutch up against the wall. Every day the pain was getting better, only allowing a painful ache when I overworked it or didn’t use the crutch as often as I should. I still had to visit the doc, but I hoped that within the next month or so I could return to work.
“I heard you talking to Paisley earlier,” Hansen said, his eyes still focused on the window. We were the only two standing in the lounge room, but his voice got quieter anyway. “I understand your fear, you know?”
“Could have fooled me,” I told him. “You just pointed out earlier that you and Paisley make it work.”
“I said that to put her mind at ease,” Hansen admitted. Finally, he looked at me, and for the first time in all the years I’d known him, I saw fear in his eyes. “But I’m terrified, Butler. I’m afraid every day that something will happen to me, or her, or both of us.”
“You’re both great firefighters,” I said firmly. “That won’t happen.”
“If it can happen to you it can happen to anybody,” said Hansen softly, and he looked away again, unable to face me. “At least with Peyton, you don’t have to worry about her, you know? I wonder every single day if Paisley will come home after shift. I worry about when she goes on a medical call without me. I worry when she scouts a burning building. I worry about it every second of every day, and it’s exhausting.”
