Jonah's Return (Detroit Heat Book 3) Read online

  Jonah nodded as the smile disappeared. “I’m sure. I still want to serve the department in some way, but I just can’t be out there anymore. It’s too hard watching friends get hurt or worse.”

  A little something sparked inside me, “You think we don’t feel it here because were safe inside these four walls? We hear about the deaths and accidents. Unlike you guys, though, we don’t have much to distract us. We don’t move on to the next fire. The spirits of the men we lose hang around here like dust over everything.” God, things had gotten morbid fast.

  “Sorry, Jonah. It’s just… It’s just that things don’t really fade away for me.” I didn’t know if I was talking about work or our relationship. I guess there wasn’t much difference between the two, anyway.

  He sat upright, again. For a while neither of us spoke; neither of us did anything but stare into the past.

  Jonah was picking at the corner of my nameplate with no particular focus. It was a small accompaniment to the large silence filling the room. When he looked back up at me, I saw that the sadness had returned.

  Jonah said, “I seem to remember that we used to do that for each other.”

  “Used to do what?”

  “We used to help each other fade away, or make the bad shit fade away. Sometimes on shift I’d had a bad day, and you were there to help. Other days it was the other way around. We were really similar, but strong in different ways. I don’t know, it just worked.”

  I nodded, returning his sad smile. “Yeah, it did. It worked right up until it didn’t.”

  My heart hadn’t slowed from double time since Jonah had walked into my office. We were riding a roller coaster in pitch black; I had no idea where the conversation was headed. My head was churning with thoughts. I didn’t know where to start. Every time I started reading into something he said, we’d make an abrupt turn, and I was lost again.

  “Yeah.” Jonas voice sounded far away. “That’s another reason I’m leaving Engine 37.”

  Confusion. Complete confusion. This wasn’t just another turn; it was a damn 180.

  “Jonah, what are you talking about?” My screen went black, letting me know that we’d spent ten minutes dancing around our emotions. One question was front and center in my mind: what was Jonah’s game plan?

  His eyebrows rose, and Jonah let out a sigh that turned to a laugh. “It took two years, but I can’t stand them anymore. I can’t stand them after what they did to you. What they did to us, I guess.” I had no idea what to say, so there was another few moments of silence before Jonah spoke again. “One of us should’ve transferred to another station. You were a good fire fighter; too good to be behind a desk. Too good to...”

  I was getting exasperated. I was on the edge of my seat and completely lost. “Too good to what, Jonah?” I don’t remember it being so hard to pry emotions from him.

  “Jesus, Abbey. Too good to get away. You were the best goddamn thing ever. I know that. I tell myself that every day. You’re the one I think about when we go on a run. You’re the one on my mind when I pack up. The last two years have felt like…shit, they haven’t felt like anything.”

  Jonah stood up, and my eyes followed him. I couldn’t take them off of him.

  “I’ve wanted to get you back a million times. I’ve come this close, but I knew it couldn’t happen. Not because I fucked up – I hope anyway. It was because of the job. I wouldn’t even let myself think of trying to get you back as long as I was at Engine 37. It ruined us. I didn’t help any, but it ruined us. This was the only thing I could do.”

  The roller coaster had hit a series of bumps, and it was derailing before me in slow motion. I couldn’t think, I couldn’t breathe, my heart was the only thing working, and it was working overtime. Jonah turned and reached for the door that led to the hallway.

  When I spoke, my voice was church quiet, “What was the only thing?”

  He turned back to me, “It was Engine 37 or you. I’m sorry it took me so damn long to figure that out. I choose you. I choose you over the job, over the brotherhood, over the rush. It’s not the same without you, so what’s the point?”

  I felt weightless. I wrapped my legs around the chair in case I began to float away. Jonah was watching me for a reaction, but I didn’t think it was possible. I didn’t know if action was possible. He turned the knob and opened the door with the frosted glass window. For a moment he didn’t move. I knew he was giving me one last chance to give him an answer.

  Looking down, I saw his transfer request form. Engine 37 or me. Engine 37 or transfer. Jonah had made his case, and he had left the rest up to me. The transfer form could disappear without anybody knowing it, and everything go back to the way it was. Even on the computer, the form had two buttons at the bottom: Submit or Reset Form.

  He turned away and took a step into the hall. My body screamed into action.

  “I don’t want to go back to the way it was!”

  Jonah froze.

  Every bit of my being that had been frozen was on fire. Question after question after question ran through my head. None of them had answers. Would the two of us working together be any different than last time? Would leaving the front lines get to him over time? Would we even work out in the long run? No answers. I had no answers, but I was still standing. I had no answers, but I was still moving from behind my desk.

  I had no answers, but I pulled Jonah’s hand from the doorknob.

  His gray eyes. Damn his gray eyes. Beautiful and convincing, just like the rest of him.

  Tugging on his arm, I let him back to the chair across from my desk. “Damn you, Jonah. Looks like you’re not going anywhere.” I gave the doors a shove and let it close on its own. “Let’s finish this transfer form, and you and I have some serious talking to do.”

  He smiled, and all the bad washed away.

  What now? I asked myself the same question over and over, again. I sat in a coffee shop, and when I took a sip of my cold latte, it hit me that I’d been asking myself that question for quite a while. I drained the last of the coffee and looked around.

  Abbey worked until five, which meant I had about six hours to kill. I had six hours to get my shit together. I hadn’t done it in two years, so why did I think six hours would be enough?

  In her office, I had felt such conviction. In the coffee shop, all I felt was terror. I wasn’t afraid of Abbey. I was afraid of myself. I remembered what I had been like before and after the two of us split up. Things had been hard but great before. After? After, I had just acted like a complete asshole to her. It’s a wonder she didn’t throw me out the second that I sat down.

  I never even expected her to hear me out, and now we were going to meet after work. I was not prepared. I needed to get my apology in order. No, an apology wouldn’t mean shit to Abbey. I owed her two years of life. That was closer to the truth. I owed her two years of good memories and happy times.

  She was right when she said she didn’t want to go back to the way that it was. There was no going back. If we had a future, there would be scars. An apology would be like trying to pretend that a scar didn’t exist. I wasn’t looking to put the scars on display, just learn to live with them until we forgot they were even there.

  So if I don’t need to apologize, what do I need to do? I was unprepared. I checked my watch. Five and a half hours. I didn’t know if a lifetime would be enough to get prepared.

  I could almost hear Abby’s voice inside my head, “No one is ever prepared.” Two years was long enough. I didn’t know what the hell I was going to say to her, but I had to try. It’s just like the fire service. We train and we study and we are still never prepared. I was beginning to think that love might be the same way.

  Two very drawn out cups of coffee later, and Abbey would be by any second. I was no closer to a grand speech or grand plan. My heart would jump every time I saw someone walking by the windows. Just one sit-down with Abbey, and all the old memories and good times were returning in force. I knew there was a hard road
ahead, but I wanted it.

  At ten past, I saw her. This time, my heart really did leap. God, she looks good. Abbey was in amazing shape, just like she had been when she was on Engine 37. I looked down and realized that I wasn’t working out quite as hard as I used to. I tried to hide my smile when she walked in, but it was no use.

  Abbey saw it and immediately pointed a finger at me, “Don’t you smile at me like that. Jonah Swain, you have got yourself in a deep, dark hole. You’ve got some climbing to do.”

  She was right. Her words were hard, but I could see the hint of a smile at the corners of her mouth. If I knew Abbey, she was about to hit me with the punchline.

  “And you can start digging by getting me a chai tea latte.” She rarely disappointed.

  I nodded and dug into my pockets for the wad of cash I’d gotten back from my third coffee. My nerves were shot, and I began to think I should have gone with decaf.

  Abbey grabbed a two-person table, and I watched her as I waited for her drink. I knew that she had to be as much of a mess as I was, but she wasn’t showing it. When it came to emergencies, I could handle myself just fine. When it came to personal stuff, I was a wreck.

  “You drink.” It was hard not to fall back into our routines, even with a two year gap. They were comfortable, something I never felt with Candice. She never got used to the fire fighter life.

  Taking the cup, Abbey rolled her eyes. I would have taken it as a defeat, if she hadn’t smiled along with it. “I shouldn’t be smiling, you know.”

  I nodded, “Yeah, I know.” She took a sip, and I knew I had to start things. I had started all of this by showing up at her office, and that put the burden on me. “How’ve you been?”

  “I’ve been doing well, actually. Work is…well, it’s work.”

  “You miss it?”

  Abbey tilted her head, giving me a non-committal response, “Yes and no.”

  I knew she missed it, but,if she was like me, it was tainted. Maybe there were departments that just clicked, and all of the guys understood each other, but it only took one or two bad apples to ruin things.

  Havens was one of those. No joke was too offensive, no personal jab was off-limits. He lived for fire and pussy, and when he couldn’t get either, he was an ornery son of a bitch. Havens hated the fact that he hadn’t been able to get to Abbey. When she rejected him, he was quick to start laying into her.

  “I know what you mean. There’s good parts about it, and then there’s parts that make you want to...” I didn’t really know where I had been going with that statement.

  She gave me a playful kick under the table, “Make you want to put in a transfer request?”

  I chuckled, “Yeah, something like that. Abbey, I’m serious about all of this. Like I said, I’m sorry it took me two years to get my head out of my ass.”

  The conversation was switching gears. I would have loved to keep it light, but we had important stuff to discuss.

  Abbey knew it was time to get down and dirty, too. “I didn’t wait around for you, Jonah.”

  “I know you didn’t. I didn’t expect you to. I didn’t wait around for you either, I just didn’t feel like dating. I had a bad taste in my mouth after Engine 37. I buried myself in the work, and I didn’t even like that.”

  “After I transferred the HQ, the shit didn’t stop. You probably didn’t know that, but I still have to deal with guys from 37. I deal with other transfers, but mostly formal complaints.”

  I hadn’t even thought about it. Just because Abbey wasn’t with Engine 37 anymore, that didn’t mean she was out of the fire service. God, the terrible memories must have stung her over and over again, like working with a wasp’s nest overhead.

  “About 37?” I didn’t think we were that much worse than other divisions around the city.

  Abbey nodded, “Yeah about 37. I’ve processed more complaints about 37—Havens specifically—than most other departments. He’s pissed off just about everyone from top to bottom in the DFD.”

  I leaned back in the chair. I was shocked, but I didn’t know why. I guess because there is a culture of not narcing on anyone, especially if they are on your shift. Havens was the kind of guy that didn’t care who hated him, even when he really should have cared. I guess he had the record to prove it.

  “I don’t want to blame anyone in particular, I just—“

  “You.” Abbey stared right at me.

  “What?”

  She pointed a finger, “You are to blame. We could have powered through it. We could have talked about it, for fuck’s sake.”

  “You’re right.”

  I could see that Abbey was getting fired up, again, and there would be no standing in her way. “Damn right, I’m right. You just acted.” I didn’t say anything. I knew Abbey well enough to know she wasn’t done laying into me. “Shit, Jonah. Men really can’t connect things in their heads, can they? What is it that they drill into you constantly with fire fighting? Team. Your partner and you have to be in perfect sync, and you have to look out for them. A relationship is no different. I never understood why you didn’t connect those two things.”

  Neither did I, until that moment. She was right, men are no good at making connections compared to women. A relationship wasn’t much different from standing in front of an inferno. You know you are going inside, but you have someone next to you that you trust with your life. You know them inside and out. You know how they work, and they know how you work. The two of you should move instinctually as one. The two of us should have moved that way.

  I was a little stunned. “Wow.”

  Abbey rolled her eyes, “Boys.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” It was my turn to roll my eyes at her. For a few seconds I didn’t know what to say. The chemistry between us was still there, but where were we supposed to go from there? Somehow I doubted that the two of us could fall back into old routines that quickly.

  My mind was empty. I searched every corner for the right words. Hell, I searched for any words. I felt like I had a shot with Abbey, however slim that it might be. She made it very clear to me that there was still a lot of hurt and mistrust. That wasn’t something to come back from without some serious work.

  “Jonah.”

  I snapped out of my fruitless search for words, “Hmm?”

  Abbey had her head cocked to one side. She was more refreshing than spring after a long winter. “Jonah. Just ask me.”

  I knew I’d catch hell, but my gender was getting the better of me, “Ask you what?”

  “Really? God, you are thicker than I remember. Ask me on a date, dumbass.”

  I probably had a blank look on my face. There were still no words floating around in my thick skull. Finally, as if the fear of drowning made me kick my legs, my inner voice returned, “Do it!”

  “Are you free for dinner this weekend?”

  Abbey smiled and sipped her latte. I knew she’d play with me a little before answering. She always did love to see me sweat. She set the cup down and locked eyes with me, “I thought you’d never ask. Really, Jonah, I thought you’d never ask.”

  I didn’t know if I expected a weight to be lifted off my shoulders. I didn’t really know what to expect. It wasn’t like some damn Lifetime movie where the guy gets the girl after equal parts strife and self-discovery. It was life, it was messy, and for Abbey and me, it was starting all over again.

  I waited a day to tell my friends, because I knew exactly what they were going to say. Even two years later, the animosity was still strong from them. Jonah had ruined my career, blah blah blah. I needed the extra day to figure out exactly how I was going to break the news to them.