“Sure. The teachers were good. The classes were good. The kids were assholes.”
“Oh well. You can’t win ’em all,” she said. Kids could be jerks when they were jealous. She imagined a lot of guys would be jealous of the handsome teenager Gabe must have been. He probably attracted plenty of female attention, but she didn’t want to think about that now…or ever.
“So, do you like being a bank teller and want to make a career of it, or is this just a step to something else?”
Misty snorted. “Does anyone want to be a bank teller when they grow up?”
Gabe was quiet, so she forged on. “Yeah, I guess it’s a step. I wanted to dance professionally, maybe doing music videos or live tours, but there really isn’t much call for that around this area. I could save up and go to Hollywood—eventually. But by then, I’d be too old.”
He laughed. “Old? You’re only twenty-two!”
“Almost twenty-three. My birthday is in a couple of weeks. I should have gone to Hollywood or Vegas right out of high school, but I needed to be close to my grandparents until…” A lump formed in her throat, so she just stopped talking.
“Until they left you,” Gabe said.
She sighed. “Yeah. Sometimes it feels that way.”Freakin’ abandonment issues…
He squeezed her hand again. “Well, you have me. I may be a sorry excuse for a relative, but I can be a good friend.”
A friend.Well, she knew where she stood. Or sat, at the moment—thank goodness. Fatigue swamped her, and her posture slumped.
She felt Gabe slide his arm around her back. She didn’t know how he’d react to her leaning her head on his shoulder, but she did it anyway. He didn’t pull away. The two of them sat in a cocoon of silence for a few minutes.
“So, how about you? Did you always want to be a firefighter?”
“Doesn’t every little boy? Especially if the whole frigging family is in the fire service?”
“I wouldn’t know,” she said. “I was a little girl with girly-girl dreams when we lived near you. But I can imagine the pressure you must’ve been under to carry on the family tradition.”
“I don’t mind. I love the job. Right now, my parents are struggling with my youngest brother, Luca. He wants to be a cop.”
“In a family of firefighters? Doesn’t that make him the black sheep?”
He chuckled. “You know it. My mother is usually so calm about our jobs, but with Luca… Well, he’s the baby. And she doesn’t want her baby getting shot.”
“But she’s not worried about the rest of you in a fire?”
He was quiet for a moment, then said, “She knows we can take care of ourselves.”
“The last time I saw Luca, he was about six or seven years old. I have a hard time seeing him as a cop.”
“Just like I had a hard time seeing you as a mature woman, until… Well, there you were. All grown-up and beautiful to boot.”
Misty smiled, not that he could see it. She kept her head on his shoulder. Leaning on him felt good, natural, like coming home. She basked in his warmth, very glad he didn’t pull away.
