Page 3 of Never Forget
"That's nice," she said when I stopped talking.
I never tried again.
I'd been dating her for eight months. I'd been trying to break up with her for three. Every time I got close, something happened. A birthday. A family dinner. Her father's business trip that meant she "really needed me right now." The opportunities kept slipping away, and the deeper I got, the harder it became to imagine climbing out.
Another text came through.
Amber
This is important to me.
I clicked my tongue and sighed again. I'd tried saying no before. She'd shown up at my apartment with a suit and her car running. I'd learned it was easier to just go along.
"You gonna fill me in, or just keep making faces at your phone?"
"Amber wants me to go to her mom's annual charity gala."
"Sounds fancy." Jack raised an eyebrow. "You don't sound too eager."
"I'm not."
I was supposed to be on shift tomorrow night. I could call Captain Sutton and tell him I couldn't come in, but that would leave Station 33 running a three-man crew. Most stations across Havensworth ran three, sometimes two when budget cuts hit hard. Station 33 was different. Captain Sutton had pull, and he'd used it to get his son Tyler assigned to our shift. The brass looked the other way because legacy mattered in Havensworth. Fathers and sons, uncles and nephews, names that went backgenerations on the department roster. So we ran four; Captain Sutton, Engineer Sean, Tyler, and me.
Technically, Station 33 was overstaffed. But I'd seen what happened when crews went in short-handed. Four was the real number. The right number. I wasn't going to leave my guys without enough backup.
"Hey, Jack. I hate to ask, but can you cover my shift tomorrow?"
Jack didn't hesitate. "Done."
"You sure? I know Rosie?—"
"Loretta can babysit." He waved a hand. "It's handled. Go do your thing."
That was Jack. He never made you feel like you owed him something. Never kept score. He just showed up.
I wished I knew how to be more like him.
"Best friend" never felt like the right word for what Jack was to me. He was more like a big brother. My father drank too much. My mother worked double shifts to keep us afloat. My sister picked up extra jobs to help out until she was old enough to leave. When things got hard at home, I knew I could always walk over to Jack's house and his family would treat me like one of their own.
Every good thing I had, Jack had pointed me toward.
Jack was the one who told me to try out for football in high school. He'd played himself, and he knew it could give me something I couldn't find at home. He was right. I found a team. Brothers. Family. Years later, when he became a firefighter, he told me to join him and I found the same thing all over again.
The night wore on. More drinks, more stories, that loose, easy feeling you only get with people who've seen you at your worst. By the time we closed out our tab, my shoulders had loosened and the knot in my chest had unwound just enough to let me breathe.
Tomorrow I'd put on the navy suit. Tomorrow I'd smile at Amber's mother and shake hands with Amber's father and pretend I belonged in their world.
Tonight, I had this. The laughter and the smoke-stained ceiling and the man across the table who'd been my brother in every way that mattered since I was seven years old.
It would have to be enough.
The Henderson estate sat at the end of a tree-lined drive in Mount Pleasant. It was a house that had a name instead of just an address. Three stories of old Havensworth money, white columns, wraparound porches, and enough chandeliers to light a small airport. Every window glowed gold against the January night, and the cars lining the circular driveway cost more than I'd make in a decade.
I'd come here tonight to end things with Amber.
That was the plan. Find a quiet moment, pull her aside, say the words I'd been rehearsing for three months.This isn't working. We want different things. You deserve someone who wants what you want.
Simple. Clean. Done.
