“What?” Tara asked.
“I don’t know,” Boyd said. “It’s…. WhatIwant? That’s not something I think about a lot.”
She gave him a confused look, and then after a glance at her phone, drained her coffee and passed him her card over the table.
“Well, think about it now,” she said as she gathered up her files and stuffed them into her briefcase. “I have all the paperwork. I’ll chase up this disciplinary hearing for a couple of days because, whatever you decide, we want you cleared on that, and once you make up your mind, I’ll be behind you a hundred percent.”
Boyd stood up and offered his hand across the table.
“Thank you.”
She gripped his hand firmly, her short nails pearl white and fingers callused, and gave him a crooked, tired smile.
“You’d think nobody would want to stop you from saving people from fires,” she said. Her handshake was brisk and done as she stepped back. “But once politics gets involved… common sense goes out the window. Take care.”
The bell over the door jingled as she left. Boyd sat back down and stared into his coffee. He hadn’t drunk much, and it had gotten cold, the cream melted to a scum on top. Boyd took a drink anyhow. He had another twenty minutes before he had to move his car, and Cutter’s Gap had been pretty clear he wasn’t needed there.
What did he want?
Morgan.
Apparently the answer was easy and came with the heavy, sweet ache of want that settled somewhere between his gut and his chest. Boyd made a face at himself and tried again. Whathewanted to do with his life, without anything owed to anyone else. Just this once, something that was just for him.
A job. A city. Hell, just a vacation that wasn’t a tag-team drive with Shay back from the Midwest in a muscle car whose shocks were gone. Did being angry about his suspension mean hedidwant to be a firefighter, or was he just pissed because it was unfair?
He took another drink of cold coffee and tried to let the answer come to him. It coalesced out of the darkness of his brain—sticky-sweet hunger with scruffy blond hair, a long, lean body, and the odd mixture of caution and cockiness as he touched Boyd. His hand cautiously still under Boyd’s, pulse fast and nervous, as Boyd touched him.
Fine, Boyd sighed, point taken. He wanted Morgan. That wasn’t a surprise, and it didn’t have to mean anything. Drunk revelations about being halfway in love didn’t count either. And just because Boyd decided to want something for himself didn’t mean he could just ignore what everyone else thought. Whatever the DNA turned up, nobody was going to be thrilled that Boyd had muddied the waters.
He absently flicked his tongue over his lower lip. The split was just the suggestion of a rough seam now, but Boyd didn’t need the pain to remember the raw-meat taste of his own blood. That had been over an indiscretion. Once Shay found out how far it had gone, he definitely wouldn’t be happy.
Boyd drained the last of the coffee and left a tip under the cup as he got up. He still didn’t think Morgan was a mistake, but maybe bad ideas came with a shelf life.
The bell over the door jangled as he went outside, and the hot air made sweat break out on him. He fished his phone out of his pocket as he headed down the street toward the parking lot where he’d left his pickup. It had been set to Do Not Disturb during his meeting with Tara, but he hadn’t expected anyone to call. The other firefighters had texted him their support already, his mom had threatened to come home to read someone the riot act, and that was pretty much it.
But the cracked screen was full of notifications. Boyd flicked through them as he walked. Most of them were from Shay.
Have you seen the paper? Why didn’t anyone tell me….
Where ARE you? I tried to call.
You’re SUSPENDED! What the hell did you do?
Mom is in the hospital. Call me—
Then one from Mac.Did you talk to ANYONE? Call me when you get—
Boyd pressed his thumb down against the broken screen until he could feel the cracked edge press against his skin. Guilt chewed at the base of his skull as though someone had pushed their knuckles into the nape of his neck.
“Fuck,” he muttered as he stopped abruptly in the middle of the pavement. Someone banged into his shoulder, bounced off, and cursed him.
“Asshole,” the girl snapped as she caught her balance and dodged past him. “Watch what you’re doing.”
Boyd ignored her as he opened his phone and scanned through the messages. Nobody had sent him an actual link, just panic and accusations.
Is it TRUE?!?Danni spluttered in Messenger.
Two journalists had slid into his Twitter DMs to ask if he’d talk to them.
