“Bernard, are you okay?”
He stared at his coffee as if he was searching for answers to the universe. While Alejandro went on a tirade about the benefits of sleeping with a psychic, Bernard had been unusually quiet. At this point, the big guy would have been making dry, subtle quips about Alejandro’s latest conquest.
“It’s been a long night.”
Cryptic. He was the last one at the table to beat around the bush. But when Chad stopped by the table, taking the cold cup of coffee, replacing it with a new one, complete with steam, he finally looked up. He worked himself to the bone, but the circles around his eyes spoke volumes.
“And then he predicted how I was going to finish him, and what do you know, he was right.”
Shaking my head, I glared at Alejandro, who, in his usual self-indulgent way, missed reading the room. “Big guy, what’s going on? First rule of?—”
“Just a lot on my mind. Work has been rough this morning. It was an all-hands-on-deck situation after yesterday. The Centurions barely made it in time. It’ll be another long day as we go through the casualties and reach out to the families.”
“You call the families?” I assumed the Centurions were like the rest, swoop in, save the day, then sign a few photos before heading back to their posh base of operations.Knowing they contacted the families made me hate them a little less.
“Each and everyone.” That was the perk of being a paramedic. There was no doubt about my abilities in the ambulance, and I rarely thought about the patient after the fact. Every once in a while, I considered the specific ailments and what I could have done better, but it was about the medicine, not the patient.
I rested a hand on his shoulder, giving it a squeeze. “You’re good people, Bernard.”
“Well,” Griffin started, “I have some news that will perk up the table.” So help me God, if he announced a comic book release day again, I might very well slap him.
“Xander…” He turned to face me. “Our dear, dear friend Xander?—”
“Griffin.” The last person in the world I should have entrusted with a secret. I skipped thinking about how I’d kill him and focused on how I’d dispose of his body.
“Has himself a crush.”
Alejandro let out a dramatic gasp. “Like a ‘go out on a date’ crush or ‘I want to treat his ass like a buffet’ crush?”
Even Bernard sipped his coffee with one eye in my direction. With a swift motion, I kicked Griffin under the table. Next time he joined me in the pool, I’d drown him. Being a paramedic, I could kill him and dispose of the body before anybody noticed he was missing.
“Ohhh.” Alejandro’s eyes went wide as he sat back. “He’s doing that murdery thing again. It’s a ‘go out to dinner’ crush.”
“Stop calling him a crush.” I banged my fist on the table harder than expected. All three leaned back at the burst of anger. They held their tongues, waiting for me to process my actions.
“That was loud,” I mumbled. “Sorry about that. But Alejandro…” I flung a sugar packet at him. “It’s not a crush.”
“The table says otherwise,” Bernard said before diving into his coffee again. Leave it to my catastrophic love life to bring the man back to reality.
“I was at the bridge yesterday, and, well, I nearly died.”
“Get past the boring parts,” Griffin said.
“The bridge gave out under me, and I was hanging over the river by a piece of rebar.”
“Drama,” Alejandro added, “I love it.”
Another kick under the table. He pushed his chair out of reach. He grabbed his avocado toast and started chomping. Sticking something in his mouth was the only way to pause the quips.
“Get on with it,” Griffin said. “You were about to die and…”
Death. Hanging over the water, the chances of survival were almost zero, but I didn’t think about dying. It wasn’t a superhero that dove to save me. It was an ordinary man. Okay, maybe he wasn’t all that ordinary.
“Out of nowhere, a hand reached out. It was this guy I bumped into on the bridge. He was there trying to get a story, I think. If it wasn’t for him, I’m pretty sure I would have… died.”
“So now you’re going to reward him with some sweet loving?”
I lied. Alejandro wouldn’t let a full mouth slow him down.
