CHAPTER NINE – CASEY
I was still recovering from the embarrassment of what I had done a few nights ago. Today, it was a rainy, gray sort of day and I had been up since the crack of dawn just puttering around my tiny studio apartment, trying to figure out what the hell I could do to fill the time and keep my mind from going too crazy. Every moment that I didn’t fill with activity was immediately swarmed with negative thoughts, one part of my brain scolding and lecturing the other part about how stupid it was for letting a guy like Luke get so close to me. For letting my guard all the way down and following some handsome, sexy stranger out of the club and into his car.
After all, wasn’t that the number one rule that had been drilled into my head when I was a little kid? Don’t get into a car with a stranger. Especially not after you had been drinking, when your boundaries were low and your inhibitions loosey-goosey. I had broken a lot of the rules the other night—rules taught to me as well as the rules I had half-consciously established for myself. I had let someone get very close. Too close. And now I was punishing myself by floating aimlessly around the apartment, beating myself up for allowing feelings to surface. Almost one whole entire emotion. That was way too much for me. Now I needed time to mope and be alone for a while, to recover from it.
After dashing out of Luke’s SUV like a bat out of hell, I had bolted around the corner and run around the block a few times to clear my mind, not quite sober or ready yet to get in my own car and drive home from the club. I had let the cool autumn breeze give me goosebumps and remind me that there was an entire world outside. I had stared up at the bright neon lights of the city, surrounding me on all sides, and thought about how packed the city was. Full to the brim with total strangers. Travelers. People coming from far and wide to let their hair down and pretend like there were no rules.
Las Vegas was the perfect city for making big, beautiful mistakes, and it had actually comforted me a little bit to think that there were countless other people doing equally stupid shit as what I had just done. Not that I could accept my actions as being okay under any circumstances. I just simply was not the kind of guy who could go have a one-night stand with a random man and then brush myself off and go back to what I was before.
No, my time with Luke, however short and unplanned, had altered me in some way. Now I was standing in the elevator of my apartment complex, heading downward to the community gym, hoping that if I worked out hard enough, maybe I could sweat out the memories of the other night and be a normal version of myself again. I just needed to distract myself. Desperately. And a little pain would be a great substitute for work, wouldn’t it?
The doors shuttered open, and I strode into the gym, looking around a little nervously. I was definitely not in the mood to deal with the stares and questions of other people. Perhaps it was just because I was admittedly pretty well-built and muscular, but it seemed like half the time when I came down here, I would end up accosted by some scrawny young guy asking for workout tips. Even when I brought my earbuds and listened to music, which you’d think would indicate that I wanted to be left alone, people still tended to try and talk to me.
Apart from the annoyance of having to dole out free advice to some upstart who was definitely too lazy to actually follow it, I hated having someone gawk rudely at my scar under these harsh fluorescent lights. I had never been a particularly vain man, of course, even back when I was a new firefighter and constantly being ogled at emergency calls by men and women alike. Long before I got this horrible jagged scar, I had already been uncomfortable at being looked at that way. I just could never figure out the appropriate way to react. I was shy, even back then, even in high school when I was the star player of my football team. The story of my life seemed to be that I just wanted to be left alone in peace, and people just could not let me have that for some reason.
I wondered sometimes if maybe I had just inherited my mom’s inherent likability or something. Growing up, it had always been annoying to go grocery shopping or to the park with my mom because everywhere we went, we ran into friends of hers. People just flocked to her, chatting with her for hours while I stood awkwardly waiting to go home. I couldn’t blame my mom for that, of course, especially since my father had never been much of a talker, and she had probably gotten pretty bored at times.
My dad was another story entirely. People looked up to him, referred to him with respect and even a little awe sometimes, when they talked about him. He was the strong, stoic type that seemed to strike both fear and appreciation into people’s hearts. They had been a funny pair, my parents: my mom, the chatty, over-friendly busybody; and my dad, the tight-lipped, traditional tough guy.
Sometimes it felt like I was a dysfunctional mix of the two. I had my dad’s temperament and desire to be left to my own devices, but I had my mom’s calming and inviting aura. Or something like that.
“Damn, I need something else to think about,” I grumbled out loud to myself as I walked over to the weightlifting section of the gym. I was pleased to have found the gym totally empty, probably as a result of the early hour. It was a Sunday morning, and most of my neighbors were probably still sleeping. A lot of them would get up in an hour or so to get ready for church, and still others would roll out of bed late for brunch. I remembered Chief’s words to me about taking time to go to brunch. I wrinkled my nose and began lifting weights, thinking to myself that if he thought I was the kind of man who would shell out serious money just for the privilege of eating eggs benedict at one in the afternoon, he didn’t really know me very well at all.
But he did know me. He had known me since I was born, actually. And honestly, judging by my actions the other night… did I really even know myself?
An annoying, unasked-for thought intruded into the forefront of my mind: you would go to brunch happily if you could go there with Luke.
“God damn it,” I groaned, rolling my eyes. “Get out of my head already.”
It was a good thing nobody else was around at the moment. The last thing I needed was for one of my nosy neighbors to catch me talking to myself while curling barbells. It hadn’t even been more than a couple days, and I was already talking to myself. How the hell was I supposed to survive an entire two weeks off from work? By the time Chief was willing to let me clock back in, I would probably have lost every shred of sanity I had in the first place. I spent the next hour and a half working out, getting sweaty and achy all over, which was just what I needed. To be so sore and exhausted that my brain didn’t have energy left to wander very far.
When I was satisfied with my workout, I showered off and headed back upstairs to my apartment. I got dressed and walked into my kitchen, checking the time on the oven. It was barely nine in the morning, and I was already running out of stuff to do. I pulled open one of my kitchen cupboards and took out my flimsy, well-worn recipe book. It was full of tried-and-true recipes as well as some recipes that still needed tweaking. I flipped toward the back of the book to find one of the latter type. I wanted to embark on the kind of culinary adventure that would require a lot of focus. Something to keep my mind busy.
I picked a red velvet brownie recipe that I had been working on for a few months off and on. I decided today was the day to finally master it and turn it into something worth moving to the “tried-and-true” section of my cookbook. I turned on some classic rock and put on my decidedly un-manly apron, then started taking out the ingredients I needed. To my relief, I already had everything on hand in my kitchen, and I got to work.
As I measured out flour, sugar, and several other ingredients, I felt my brain shut off a little bit. The noise died down and I was able to focus. Pleased with myself, I decided that when I was done baking these—provided that they did, in fact, turn out well—I would drive down to the fire station and drop them off for my coworkers. Surely Chief couldn’t fault me for showing up to work if I was just there to bring baked goods, right? It was a loophole he had not specifically mentioned, so I figured I was in the clear on that one.
Besides, I still had several hours to kill until the appointment I was dreading this afternoon—my appointment with the therapist, Dr. Waltham, who I had been seeing. She and I were working on breaking down my anxieties and trauma regarding the day that I rushed into a burning bungalow to rescue a tiny little girl. The day that had resulted in a week’s stay in the hospital and left me with this damn scar. Most days, the memories of that event only existed in the back of my mind, like a low hum of background noise. But sometimes, when I was especially keyed up or frustrated, it would resurface at the front of my thoughts, reminding me of how traumatic that situation had been. I needed to learn to get beyond it. I had to learn to let the past go.
For a while I had assumed that time would be enough to heal me, but finally I had learned that I needed more help than I was getting. It had been very difficult for me to admit that, but if I was going to continue my work as a fireman, I needed to heal. And I needed Dr. Waltham to help me do that, because my career meant everything to me. I was not going to abandon my job, but I had to take care of myself, too, even if it made me feel like I was weak for seeing a therapist.
I took my time with the brownies, making sure they were utterly perfect. When they were done I packed them up in a Tupperware container and headed out the door. I wasn’t going to warn Chief Reyes that I was coming by, just in case he tried to stop me. It was easier to ask for forgiveness than permission in this case.
I got into my car and as I drove, I couldn’t stop thinking about Luke for some reason. He was occupying my mind completely, and I felt like a fool, once again, for running out on him. He probably thought I was a complete weirdo for ditching him merely minutes after having the best sex of my life. Perhaps I had been stupid to think I could get by totally on my own, putting myself in quarantine for no good reason. I was still uptight about my scar, but my night with Luke had reminded me how awesome it was touching another man, feeling that intense pleasure.
When I got to the fire station, I sat in my car for a few minutes, thinking it over. A dumb idea had occurred to me, and I was trying to figure out whether it was worth indulging.
I could download one of those stupid dating apps everyone kept telling me to try. Maybe it would lead nowhere. Or maybe, just maybe, it would lead somewhere interesting. To someone interesting. If I decided I hated it, I could always just delete the app. No harm, no foul. So right there, in my car, I downloaded a dating app and made a profile. I uploaded a couple pictures showing the right side of my face, hiding my scarred left cheek, and forced myself to put the phone away while I went into the station to bring my crewmembers some damn brownies.