“Grayson Malone. I knew you couldn’t stay away from me for this long,” Devon says. “Come here and give me a kiss.” Before I can back away, he grabs my head and plants a big, loud kiss on my cheek that has me shoving him away.
“Hell, you’re the reason I’ve been staying away.” I laugh, but then we hook thumbs and clasp our hands together and give each other a man-pat.
“How’s dispatch?” he asks, but the smirk on his lips and shake of his head tells me he already knows.
“Like Hell on Earth.”
“No adrenaline. No high. No—”
“No chicks asking to see how big your stick is,” Alyssa says as she walks into the room with a laugh and a quick hug. “Christ. Please tell us you’re here because you’ve been reinstated. All this overtime means momma ain’t getting any.”
“First off, my stick is still big, just not getting any use,” I say.
“That isn’t what we hear,” rings out from Christian before going back to talking on his phone.
“Whatever.” I roll my eyes. “You need to get some because we all know how cranky you get during a dry spell.” I dodge as Alyssa swats at me. “And shit, I don’t know what to tell you. I’m still waiting for Cochran to tell me he loves me more and is going to put me up on that board.” I lift my chin in the direction of the schedule.
“The only one happy you aren’t here is Christian over there,” Alyssa says as Christian raises his middle finger. “With you gone, he’s getting all the faint-hearted women giving him the googly eyes instead of you.”
I laugh, knowing Christian is horribly shy and utterly devoted to his wife. “I’m sure he loves that.”
“So, it’s really that bad over at dispatch, huh?”
“Not bad. Just same ol’ day in and day out. I’m bored to fucking tears.” I miss flying. I miss my crew. Being here just reinforces both of those things more than I want to acknowledge.
“But I’m sure Luke is loving that you’re home.”
“He is.” I shrug. “But I’m going stir crazy.”
“I bet you are,” she says with a knowing smile.
“What?”
She purses her lips and raises her eyebrows. “We all know what Daddy’s been doing while Luke’s at school.”
I just shake my head as Devon stands behind her, pretending as if he’s slapping an invisible ass. They all burst out laughing. “You guys are jerks.”
“So? Is it true? Are you hitting that hottie who was kissing you at the pub?” Jen asks.
“They’re doing a lot more than kissing,” Christian yells from his corner.
“Since when have you ever known the Gazette gossip column to be accurate? Last year, they had Devon pegged as dating Dixie.”
“You’re an ass.” Devon laughs.
“And Dixie was a pig.” I think back to how much we harassed the shit out of Dev when the column came out. And when the subsequent correction was published the next day. Needless to say, someone overheard Dev mention how he couldn’t wait for his date with Dixie and misinterpreted it as a literal date. Too bad he meant his appointment to pick the piglet up for his mom and take her to the family farm. The town laughed for weeks over it.
“And you’re avoiding answering our question,” Dev says.
“Why do I come here for this abuse?” I ask, but I know full well that the abuse is deserved. What I don’t like is how the simple question about a certain golden brown-haired woman sends my thoughts straight back to Sidney and what happened and how I can’t stop thinking about it. Or her.
“Because you love us.” Jen shrugs and heads over to where she’s doing one of her thousand-piece jigsaw puzzles—there’s sometimes a lot of time between calls.
“Sometimes.”
“What’s this crap I hear about people thinking you’re a hot dad, anyway?” Devon says, but then he holds up a hand. “Wait, let me guess—you signed yourself up for the contest because you weren’t getting enough attention ‘round these parts.”
“That’s exactly right,” I say as I shake my head no. “My damn brothers signed me up, and now I’m stuck in it.”
“You’re stuck in something, all right. I hope she is at least worth the pain.”
My middle finger is raised back at him as I make my way down the hall toward Cochran’s office.
“Don’t worry, I’ll vote for you!” Jen calls to me.
“At least someone loves me,” I say as I stop at Cochran’s office door. His head is down, his fingers are typing furiously. I knock on the jamb.
He startles, but a smile spreads when he sees me. “Malone.” He nods. “I thought that was your voice out here.”
“Sir. Just checking in to see if you’ve heard anything yet.”
“I’ve heard, all right.” He chuckles, and it confuses me. “Getting a lot of phone calls at the station from women asking if you’re available to give mouth-to-mouth.”
“There’s no accounting for taste,” I say with a self-deprecating laugh. “Sorry about that.”
He shrugs and looks relaxed, when he’s typically anything but. “At least you’re being productive in your time off. Maybe your next photo should include one of the helos. Get us some added advertising with all this newfound publicity of yours.”
“You’re shameless, you know that?”
“Yeah, well, with High-Life setting up shop across town, we could use every little added bit of visibility.” He’s referring to the new medevac company currently encroaching on our turf.
“It’s taking that much out of our business?”
“Not the emergency side of it, no. But the medical transport side, yes.”
“That sucks.” And it does, because now my mind is full of worries about layoffs. If they needed to let people go, the guy who’s grounded would be the first one on the block. “Maybe it’s because you’re missing your star pilot.”
There is no shame in reminding him how much money I make him.
“That’s exactly why,” he says through his laugh. “They want you before the board in a week or two and plan to reinstate you by the end of the month. You just need to make them all the promises they want to hear.”
I lift my eyebrows. “I’ve learned so much about why we have rules while having desk duty in dispatch. I won’t take chances. I won’t save lives if risks are involved. I won’t, I won’t I won’t,” I say drolly as he shakes his head.
“Try it with a little more enthusiasm next time,” he says.
“Noted. Thanks.”
He nods and puts his head back down, letting me know the discussion is over. “Advertising, Malone. Make sure you mention where you work when you do whatever it is for this cockamamie contest you’re in. That might win you some favor as well.”
Fucking great.