"Hey, Connor, you look like something the dog dragged in!" Mike called as I walked through the door. Tesla wagged her tail and ran over to him as he grabbed a dog treat out of the cabinet and made her sit. Once she'd gotten what she wanted, she pulled her bunny out of the toy basket and walked over to her bed where she flopped down with a loud, "Woof!"
"Thanks, Kelly," I called as I walked to the locker room to drop my backpack off. "Always count on you for a morning lift!"
The locker room was empty, and I stared at the photo of Quinn hanging on the door. It was a photo I'd taken just after we'd moved into the house. She was lying on the front lawn with her books open, studying for an exam, as I'd cut the grass in the backyard. I'd come around the corner to find her lying on the fresh cut grass in the front of the house. Her books were spread out, but she was lying on her back with her arms spread and her face to the sun. She looked like an angel bathed in sunlight. An instant before I'd snapped the picture, she'd opened her eyes and looked right at me smiling. Later, I'd threatened to make it the photo on our wedding announcement. Quinn had simply laughed.
I slammed the locker shut and standing behind it was Victor Vangel.
"What do you want, Vangel?" I said in a flat voice.
"You know what I want, Connor," he said menacingly. "I want you to take your name out of the running, and I want your vote for Squad Lieutenant."
"Go to hell, Vangel," I said. "I have nothing to do with the process of choosing the next Lieutenant and you know it."
"You putting in a good word for me could help sway the decision, though," he said as his eyes narrowed. "And if you’re not trying to get promoted, I have a much better chance. Is there some reason you don't want to do that?"
"You know damn well why I don't want to do that," I said as I turned and spun the lock and then pulled it to make sure it was sealed. "I can't stand you, Vangel. I think you're a weasel and a lousy firefighter, and I can't imagine you ever earning the loyalty of the men you lead. How you’ve managed to fool everyone else, I have no idea."
"I see," Victor said quietly. "Well, then I guess I'm going to have to pull out the big guns and use what I have to get what I want."
"You can't blackmail me," I said. I knew he could cause a great deal of damage before Leo and I released the information about my ownership of CSC, but I didn't want him to know that. "I know about you, and just because you got the top score on the Lieutenant exam doesn’t mean you’re competent, Victor. You're a hot-head who is a danger to everyone around you."
"You son of a bitch..." Victor said. "You're going to be sorry you said that, Connor."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," I said, waving him off. "Promises, promises."
Victor turned and stormed out of the locker room without another word. I followed, hoping that today was not going to be the day he decided to spill the news about my involvement in CSC, but preparing myself if he did.
Back in the community area, Victor was nowhere to be seen, so I breathed a sigh of relief and sat down to breakfast with the guys. Danny and Mike teased me about my date with Alex as they tried to get more information about it out of me. I didn’t want to reveal too much since I wasn’t sure where this was headed and definitely didn’t want to be humiliated if or when Alex decided it wasn’t working. The guys groaned as I kept my cards close to my chest, but eventually let it go.
Around noon, we were called out on a medical emergency that turned out to be nothing much, so I persuaded Mike to stop by the flower shop near the hospital so I could run in and pick something up.
"Can't you just do what the rest of us do and buy them at the gas station, Connor?" Newsome yelled as I returned to the truck with a dozen pink roses in a large gold box.
"And you wonder why you're still single." I laughed, shaking my head. I left the flowers in the engine, knowing we'd probably be stopping by the hospital at some point, and helped Mike do an equipment check that took the rest of the afternoon.
"New girl, eh?" Mike asked after I'd tucked the box under the seat.
"Yeah, well, she's nice," I said, trying not to let on how much I liked Alex.
"Hey, you know it's okay if you fall for someone else, don't you?" he asked as he pulled out the checklist and began reading from it as I checked the supplies and gear. "No one would think any less of you if you fell for someone. It doesn't take anything away from what you had with Quinn."
I was quiet as he spoke. None of the guys had ever talked to me about the fire or losing Quinn because I'd shut it all down. There was no room for anyone to ask me anything aside from whether I was okay or not, and I hadn't wanted to talk to any of them about it once I'd returned to work.
"It's just..." I began, not knowing how to talk about this. It had been ten years that I'd kept the feelings bottled up, and in that time, I hadn't met anyone who I'd wanted to open up to. Sure, I'd slept with a handful of women on the nights when getting my physical needs met outweighed the feelings of guilt that would flood over me the next morning, but I hadn't fallen for a single one of them. "She's different."
"I can tell," Mike said as he focused on the list. "And that's okay, Cam. The guys from opposite shift said she’s cool. You should bring her around the station sometime and introduce her to the people you work with."
"I don't know..." I said, trailing off.
"Does she know about Quinn?" he asked quietly.
"Yes, I think that's why I'm so drawn to her," I said. "It's like she doesn't dwell on the sadness, but she doesn't want to force me to put it all behind me and forget."
"Oh, she's a keeper, man." Mike nodded. "Grab her and hang on with everything you've got."
"Yeah," I murmured. "Yeah."
We finished the equipment check as the guys were staring dinner, so I jumped in and cut up vegetables for the salad. Victor had returned and was studiously ignoring me from the other side of the room. Danny shot me a questioning look, and I simply shrugged and said, "No idea."