I took another swallow of my water. “She broke up with her boyfriend last night.”
“Good.” He started doing curls on his other arm. “Sloan’ll be happy.”
“Well, I’m glad someone’s getting what they want out of it. She doesn’t want to date me. Sex only.”
“Okay. What’s the problem?” He set his weight down with a thump. “I thought you didn’t want to date. Didn’t you blow off that yoga instructor?”
“This is different. I like Kristen. A lot. And we get along. We get along fucking great. And the weird thing is I know she likes me too—I can tell. Something doesn’t feel right.” I finished my water and crushed the cup, tossing it into the trash can by the towels.
“Hmm. How was the sex?” he asked.
I scoffed. “Fuck, it was the best sex I’ve ever had. Not even kidding.”
She’d pounced me like a hungry tiger that escaped its cage. The way she smelled, the way she tasted—even thinking about it made my dick twitch.
Shawn came through the door and tossed a gym towel onto the weight rack. “What up, fellas?”
Brandon and I nodded at him.
“Just ask her what her deal is,” Brandon said. “It’s probably because she just broke up with what’s-his-face. Kristen’s pretty blunt. I don’t imagine her not telling you exactly what she’s thinking if you asked.”
Shawn sat on the other bench next to Brandon. “You talking about Kristen? Sloan’s friend? She’s single now? She’s hot as fuck. I’d hit it.” He lay down and scooted under the weight bar.
I grabbed his towel and threw it at him. “Hey, asshole, she’s taken.”
Shawn laughed, dragging the towel off his face. “Not by you.”
“Yes, by me.” Sort of.
He paused with his hands on his barbell and looked over at me. “Damn! You’re crushing that? She’s gone slumming, bro!”
I gave him the finger.
Brandon chuckled. “Do you want me to ask Sloan?”
“No.” Kristen and Sloan would see that shit a mile away. “Don’t ask. Don’t tell her what I said, yeah?”
He picked his weight up and started doing curls again. “Just see how it goes. Give it a few weeks.”
Shawn grinned. “Can’t nail that shit down, huh?”
I ignored him and stood up to grab weights for my barbell. I wasn’t getting into this with him. Relationship advice from Shawn was the last thing I fucking needed. He’d had his car egged by girls so many times we’d had to start locking the gate to the fire station parking lot.
Shawn grunted through his set and put the bar back on the rack with a clang. “She probably wants to get back with the ex.”
“He reenlisted. It’s why they broke up,” I said, wanting to put that theory to bed. “He’s not coming back.”
Brandon spoke up. “Her idea to break up or his?”
“Hers. Or maybe his. I’m not sure.” He reenlisted knowing she’d leave him if he did.
I hadn’t thought of that. Even if she’d broken up with him, her hand had been forced. So in a way, he’d done the leaving.
Shit, maybe that changed things.
Shawn sat there catching his breath. “He’s gonna miss those care packages and titty pics and come begging. Trust me, dude. And in the meantime she’s gonna revenge fuck her way through her contacts list.” He reached down and grabbed his water bottle, taking a drink. “Looks like she just got to the j’s.”
Jealousy surged at the thought of Tyler trying to get her back. Now I wished I had brought him up earlier so I knew how she felt about it all.
Brandon chuckled and switched arms. “She probably just needs time, bud.”
Shawn snickered, scooting back under his bar. “She probably just needs the d, and not just yours.”
“Fuck you,” I said, tightening my weight on the bar.
Brandon laughed. “Come on, it’s been what? Twelve hours since they broke up? You can’t expect her to just dive right into another relationship, no matter how amazing you might be.”
Brandon had a point. But maybe Shawn did too. She’d been tied down for two years. Maybe she was happy to be single and wanted to see what else was out there.
I didn’t like that. At all. I didn’t like anything Shawn was pointing out.
Suddenly my forty-eight-hour shift felt too long.
The red lights flashed through the gym. We had a call. All three of us were up in an instant.
The voice of the dispatcher came over the loudspeaker. “Person down. Engine ten respond to sick person at four thirty-seven Palm Drive with medic unit six hundred seventy-four.”
We streamed out of the gym into the apparatus bay and climbed into the engine as Javier came out of the crew quarters.
“I almost got to eat a sandwich,” Javier said, getting into the front seat with the laptop.
I climbed into the driver’s seat. Shawn sat behind me next to Brandon and put on his headset. “Hey, Javier, Josh’s fucking Kristen.”
Javier paused mid–seat belt and looked at me. “Really? Isn’t she engaged?”
I turned on the ignition and the engine rumbled to life. “No. She broke up with him last night. She doesn’t want to date me though. And I’m not fucking her. I like her, asshole,” I said over my shoulder.
Shawn snorted. “Naw, she’s fucking you. Hey, man, for real though—if you’re a dick in a jar, you better not rock the boat.”
I put on my headset. “What?” I hit the button to open the bay doors and turned on the lights.
“You’re a dick in a jar. Chris Rock? ‘Break in case of emergencies.’ She had an emergency, dude,” Shawn said. “If you start getting all stage-five clinger, she’s gonna replace your ass and get a new jar.”
Brandon laughed. “I think what he’s saying is to give her space.”
Javier opened up the laptop. “Normally I’d disagree with any and everything Shawn says, but as an old married guy with two grown daughters, I have to agree with him. It’s too soon. Let things happen naturally.”
Javier looked at the laptop and got the specifics for the call. Vague. Sick person, possibly unconscious.
More bullshit.