Page 54 of What We Brave
I close my eyes. The taste of him is still on my lips.
"Something," I whisper. "It felt like something."
12
REID
The locker room smells like bleach, stale sweat, and the distinct, metallic scent of adrenaline fading out. It’s the smell of a shift done right.
I slam my locker shut, the metal clang echoing off the tile. Twelve hours. Three overdoses, one cardiac arrest with ROSC, and a choking toddler. My body is wrecked, aching in the low back and shoulders, but my head?
My head is clear. Finally.
"You're smiling."
I look over my shoulder. Tony is leaning against the row of lockers behind me, arms crossed over his chest. He’s watching me with that look he’s had for months—half-suspicious, half-worried mother hen.
"I'm not smiling," I say, sitting on the bench to swap my boots for sneakers. "I'm tired."
"Bullshit. You're humming. You haven't hummed in four months. Usually, you just growl." Tony kicks the toe of my boot lightly. "Spill it. Did she call you?"
"No." I tie my laces, focusing on the knot. The questions, then the silence over the last few months was painful. Now, I'm actually in agood place. These questions don't hurt. It's funny what a little hope will do. "I'm giving her space."
"Space." Tony rolls the word around like he doesn't believe it. I guess I can't blame him. He watched me fall apart. "Last time you gave her 'space,' you ended up parked outside her apartment at three a.m. staring at her window."
I wince. "That was a low point. I admit that. I wasn't... stable."
"And you're stable now?"
I stand up, grabbing my duffel. I take a second to actually assess myself. The constant, buzzing anxiety that lived under my skin for the last few months is gone. The anger at Blake—the white-hot rage that made me want to put my fist through a wall—has cooled into something manageable. We’re not perfect. The house is still quiet, and we still walk on eggshells sometimes, but we’re functioning.
"Yeah," I say, and I mean it. "I'm stable. Laine and I had a moment at the ER the other night. A real moment. No yelling, no crying. Just... us. And Blake and I are figuring it out. We're not back to what we were before, but we're heading to okay."
Tony studies me for another second, looking for cracks maybe. When he doesn’t find any, the tension in his frame finally snaps. He slumps against the lockers, exhaling a heavy breath.
"Good," he says, rubbing a hand over his face. "That’s good, Reid. Seriously. I was worried we were gonna have to lock you up."
Tony looks wrecked. Like, properly wrecked — the kind of dark circles that have nothing to do with a bad shift and everything to do with a newborn who doesn't believe in sleep. His wife's running on fumes. He's running on fumes. The guy should be home, face-down on any horizontal surface, stealing whatever twenty minutes he can get.
And yet.
For the last few months — every single time I started sinking into my own head, circling the drain in that house that's way too quiet — Tony was just there. Dragging me out the front door. Shoving actual food at me like I'd forget how forks work. Or just sitting on my porch in the freezing cold, not saying a damn thing, because he didn't want to leave me alone with the silence.
He shouldn't have had the time for me. He made the time.
"I know," I say, dropping the humor. I step closer, invading his personal space because boundaries are for people who haven't saved your life. "Tony, look at me."
He lowers his hand, meeting my eyes.
"You have a newborn, man. You and Angie haven't slept in a hundred years, and you still spent half your off-duty time babysitting a grown-ass man." I shake my head, the weight of it actually hitting me. I'm really fucking lucky to have him. "I know I wasn't easy. And I know I crashed a lot of family dinners where I probably wasn't exactly the life of the party."
"Angie didn't mind," Tony says, though we both know Angie is a saint who definitely minded but loves me anyway. "She was worried, too. You’re family, Reid. You don’t leave family behind just because they’re bleeding."
"Yeah, well." I reach out, gripping his shoulder hard. "I'm not bleeding anymore. So go home. Kiss the wife. Hug the kid. Tell Angie I owe her a spa day. A weekend. Whatever she wants."
Tony cracks a smile. "I'm holding you to that. Diapers are expensive."
"Done. I'm serious, T. Thank you. For everything."
