Page 25 of Mister Fireman

James huffed and clenched his jaw. “I’m not going to fire you, but I am going to give you the rest of the week off. Get the hell out of my face.”

Shit, he hadn’t said nothing but a word. I couldn’t wait to get the hell out of here. My love and passion for what I did was starting to wane. The more I thought about Theo and my bucket list, the less I wanted to be tied to this station. It took me hardly no time to pack and head out. Before I could get out of the parking lot good, I was getting a call from Robin. I answered quickly, not wanting her repetitious calls to frustrate me even more.

“Hello?”

“Hey… is now a good time?”

“Yeah, wassup?”

“I was just calling to see if you’d given any more thought to what we’d discussed.”

“Look, I’m a couple of months shy of my thirty-fifth birthday, Binny. Technically, I don’t have to do anything concerning that pact until then. I get you’re anxious to have a baby now, but that’s not my problem. I’m not in the headspace to think about giving myself to a child right now. If I’m still single after my birthday and things are a bit steadier with my career, we can talk about this then. But for right now, I’m not trying to have a baby with you or anyone else.”

The line was silent for a while before she ended the call. I felt like shit, but I was also slightly relieved. This may not have been an altogether no, but it was a not right now. Because right now, I needed to figure out how long I could continue on like this. Every time I went out on a call, my thoughts were plagued by Theo. It didn’t matter how many people we helped, losing that one was all consuming. And then there was Enjell… I couldn’t agree to anything with Robin until I knew there was no chance of a future with Enjell.

Thinking about her had me wanting to call her, but I decided to stalk her social media instead. I waited until I was at home to look at her Facebook page, and pride immediately filled me at the sight of her posting her plates. Already, she had hundreds of likes, shares, and comments. I shared the post and told everyone that was following me to go and support my girl, with a picture of us as a separate post. I wasn’t sure why she didn’t think she could be successful as a chef, but I said a quick prayer that her eyes would now be opened to all her possibilities.

Unable to deny my desire to hear her voice anymore, I decided I’d call her after I showered, and that was probably the quickest shower I’d ever taken. The moment I got comfortable in the center of my sofa, I called her, not even bothering to cut the TV on.

“Hey, stranger,” was her greeting, and hearing the smile in her voice made me smile.

“Hey, love. I take it you missed me?”

“It has been three days since I’ve heard from you, so yeah. I have.”

“Work has been hard,” I admitted. “But I didn’t call you for that. How are you?”

“I’m… starting to feel okay. I just picked up my weed, so I’m about to enjoy the rest of the night.”

“You wanna come over? We can talk about it.”

“I’d actually prefer to talk about it now. When I see you, I don’t want to think about nothing but us.”

“Mm… I love the sound of that. I’m going to send you my location.”

“Okay.” After I did, I returned to the call. “Oh, you’re at those new luxury apartments in Germantown?”

“Yeah.”

“I heard those were nice.”

“They are. I love my little apartment. It’s the perfect size since I’m never here.”

“What is it, a studio or a loft?”

“Loft.”

“Aww, I bet that’s cute.”

I chuckled before telling her, “Tell me what’s been going on with you.”

“To condense the story, Gino lied about how long he’d been cheating. He also lied about the move being sudden. He knew for six months and stopped paying the rent two months before he left. I was fifteen thousand behind on that. When I confronted him, he offered to send what we were behind on plus a little extra. I used that to get caught up on the rent and stock up on supplies for my cooking, which is surprisingly going well. I just made the post maybe like an hour ago, and I’ve gotten several orders already for the week. That’s pretty much it in a nutshell.”

I couldn’t respond immediately. I was stuck on the fact that she’d let her ex help her but not me. Logically, I could tell myself that was the least he could do, but something about him giving her money just wasn’t sitting right with me.

“How long is it going to take you to get here?” I asked.

“Maybe like fifteen minutes.”

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