Page 54 of Burn Point

I waited for her to reply.

“Hello, Skippy, did you fall asleep on me?”

“No,” she blurted. “I’m still here. Uh, I’m not sure what is next. I’ll probably stay here a little longer, and then I don’t know. Maybe I’ll head back south. Maybe I’ll head west.”

“Well, I’m having a Fourth of July party if you head south around that time. You can park Pearl in the yard. It’ll be like old times.”

Suddenly, I wanted that. Wanted her here. Jordan had been under my skin since day one, despite the lies I told myself.

“We’ll see,” she said on a yawn. I looked at my watch—we’d been talking for hours.

“Damn, I guess I better let you go. It’s late and I’m on shift tomorrow.”

“Oh, okay. Wow, I didn’t realize the time.” She laughed softly. “I guess I better finish this edit so I can go play tomorrow.”

“This has been fun, Skippy. It was good to hear your voice.”

“Yeah, it’s been good to catch up, much better than through text. I guess I’ve been a little homesick for everyone there. I didn’t mean to talk your ear off.”

“You didn’t. I enjoyed it. I’m here if you ever, you know, feel like you’re getting too homesick.” And now I sounded like a fucking teenager. I needed to shut the hell up before I said too much.

But talking to her felt so right.

“Don’t be a stranger, okay?” I said.

“Okay. Have a good shift tomorrow. Maybe you’ll call me and tell me about your day? I miss hearing your stories.”

And just like that, I knew I was fucked. Everything Jordan did called to me and made me want to spend more and more time talking with her.

The three weeks that Jordan had been gone had been long and lonely. If she’d been homesick on the road, then I was homesick for her. Maybe not her, but the company she provided.

Nothing had been the same after Jordan. Life went back to normal, but suddenly everything seemed lackluster. Ball games were boring to watch. The house was too quiet. Coffee on the back deck didn’t hit the same.

One evening I’d noticed the scuffs on my kitchen table, so I drug it out to the shed to sand it down and re-stain it. That project led to me redoing the tops of my coffee table and end tables as well. From there I made a list. The kitchen counters needed to be refinished. The walls needed a fresh coat of paint. The bathroom needed updating. The deck needed to be pressure washed and resealed. Even the floors needed to be redone.

I had plenty of stuff to do to keep me busy, each project I ticked off the list more satisfying than the last. I left Jordan’s room alone, not wanting to disturb the lingering memory of her. As if I redid that room, I’d be erasing the last of her being here.

I’d get to it eventually, just not yet.

And if I paused at the doorway of her bathroom, where I’d gotten that glimpse of her naked back, it didn’t mean anything.

If I remembered her standing at my stove cooking or sitting with her feet propped on the deck railing, or dancing in the kitchen, it was just a fond memory of the fun times we’d shared.

If I found a pair of her lacy underwear stuck inside a t-shirt, it didn’t mean anything that I put it in the drawer where I’d see it every day.

But after hearing her voice, and the resulting ache that settled in my chest after we said goodbye, the truth was hard to ignore. I missed her, and it was way more than just me missing her as a friend. This longing in my soul had to mean something.

Chapter 14

Nate

“Pull that line and let’s run some tests on the six-inch LDH,” Collins growled around his toothpick.

We were three hours into hose testing, and everyone was over it. I was hungry and tired and hot. The sweltering humidity made breathing a chore. Sweat ran down my face and my shirt clung to me as we pulled down the large diameter hose. Each hose weighed about seventy pounds rolled up, even more with water in it.

And we still had five hoses to test.

Collins slipped his toothpick out, flipping it to the trashcan and grabbed a water, dousing his head with the remains. “I don’t know what Chief’s problem was, but he crawled up my ass this morning, and made sure to point out that every hose in this station was to be tested today. After that, I want you to make sure all those radios and extra batteries are charged.”

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