Chapter 27

Charlie

“So how’d you pull up after New Year’s?” Dave asked me with a leer.

In every place I’d ever worked, there was that guy. A total dickhead, but you had to put up with him for the sake of professionalism. I forced myself to smile now. For some reason, that got harder lately. Probably the trauma of having to deal with my nutbag family. I came up with a suitably bland reply, hoping to throw him off the scent.

“Not bad. Just went round to Henry’s with the rest of our team.”

Of course, it couldn’t be that easy, could it?

“Didn’t end up going out afterwards?” Dave scoffed. “Pubs were crawling with girls.”

“What use were they to you?” I asked, starting to stiffen. He watched my spoon move faster and faster as I stirred milk into my coffee. “You’ve got Katie.”

His face screwed up in an expression of disgust.

“That fat bitch?—”

My free hand was out before I could even blink, grabbing the front of his uniform and shoving him against the wall without even sloshing my coffee.

“See, that’s where you made your mistake. ‘We’re just not that into each other;’ ‘We decided to see other people;’ or even ‘She saw what a complete tool I am and dumped my fucking arse’ would have all been acceptable ways to tell me you’ve broken up with a woman that’s far too good for the likes of you.”

“You fucking date her then,” Dave croaked out.

I watched his face turn redder, feeling a strange kind of calm, and considered his idea. Katie was gorgeous, smart too, making a living as a photographer, but… She wasn’t the person I saw smiling up at me. No, it was a whole other temptress in a blood-red dress that haunted my dreams.

And my days too.

“Pretty sure she deserves better than me too.”

That had to be the case, right? Attracting girls took no effort, but keeping them? Sometimes I felt like I was some kind of carnival attraction, fun to ride, but not something you’d waste your future doing.

“You two got time to stand around fondling each other?” Knox marched into the break room with a frown even deeper than the last. Every damn day he was in a shittier mood. Apparently, a foursome wasn’t the team building activity you might’ve hoped it was. “We’ve got trucks to clean.”

“And you’re not my team lead.”

Dave shoved me away and went to face down Knoxy. I knew he was a dumb prick, but I didn’t realise just how dumb until now. My lead was cruising for a bruising, and punching Dave so hard he’d see God was just the kind of workout he was looking for. Of course, that was when Brent walked in, that sixth sense of his putting him right where he needed to be to defuse tensions when they arose.

“Morning, fellas,” he said, conspicuously ignoring the two of them as they stepped back. “Hope you had a good break. Just a FYI, Judy’s replacement will be starting today. She’ll be shadowing Jude for a week or two to learn the ropes, and then she’ll take on the role permanently.”

“A new piece of skirt in the office.” Dave’s grin was nauseating. “Nice.”

“You—” Knox snapped.

“Do realise that we have a HR department?” Brent asked Dave mildly. “What am I saying? Of course you do. They’ve had words with you about sexual harassment in the workplace before. How many written warnings have you got so far?” He made a show of thinking about it, but the old man had a mind like a steel trap.

“Two,” Dave ground out.

“Two, that’s right! Well, third time’s the charm, mate.” He clapped Dave on the shoulder. “If you want to lose your position in the metro fire service and be unemployable in any other state.”

Dave scowled but said no more.

“Now, can you two get your teams started on cleaning the trucks?” Brent asked.

“Already on it, Boss,” Knox said with a nod.

“Good man.”

I grabbed my coffee, barely holding back a smirk as I walked out of the break room and into the appliance bay.

“Whoever the hell is starting here,” I said to Knox, “I hope she’s got balls of steel with that dickhead hanging around. I half hope Dave pulls something, just to get him the fuck out of the service.”

“Let’s not worry about the admin staff and focus on the job, right?”

There was an anger in Knox’s eyes that wasn’t there before. Christmas, New Years, it always set him on edge, but not as badly as this. I stared right back, not prepared to look away, because Knoxy didn’t respect anyone who let them walk all over him, but that just gave me a ringside seat to the moment when the anger started to burn out, leaving just the cold coals of pain.

He was hurting.

That thought came from nowhere and felt weird, wrong, but the more I looked, the more it couldn’t be ignored. He was hurting, and I was pretty sure I knew why. His family were a trash fire, but that never changed.

So what had?

My lips moved because I wanted to say something. What? That I felt it too? Millie blocking me wasn’t unexpected. It was simply the way it worked these days. My parents met through friends, but people didn’t do that now. They went on apps and connected with strangers who didn’t give a flying fuck about each other. They didn’t owe anyone the courtesy of an explanation, so you just hit the block button if you weren’t interested.

So why did it feel differently when Millie did it?

Connection, that’s what I’d felt the first time, but when I discovered her in the shower later that night, it was so much more intense. I’d just stood in the doorway, watching the way the water skimmed down her body, jealous of every drop until I stepped forward to caress her. I’d washed the two of us clean and then I’d pressed her into the wall and?—

“Trucks need cleaning,” Knox barked. “You know where the buckets and the sponges are. Find them if you don’t.”

His orders delivered, he turned to pass them onto the others only to find Noah sitting on one of the steps, phone in hand.

“Why the fuck…?” Henry nudged Noah, trying to warn him, but it was too late. “You’re on your phone, again.” Knox made it sound like Noah had just poured accelerant on hot coals. “What the hell are you looking at?”

Knox snatching Noah’s phone from his hand was over reach, pure and simple. You could bollock out someone who was lagging, even go formal and put in a performance review request, but you did not take someone’s private belongings. Noah jumped to his feet, his mouth opening in protest. When Knox saw what was on the screen though, he went still, all the fire dying inside him. Henry shot me a meaningful look, so I stepped up.

Millie, that’s who the message stream was with, or was meant to be. Noah had sent her a text asking her if they could talk. On the one hand, I was stoked. He was stepping up, actually doing something rather than just mooning after the girl that got away.

So why did I feel a prickle of jealousy?

It was quickly dismissed when I saw he’d had as much luck as me. No reply, and he’d sent it Christmas Day. That had me setting my mug down on a step.

I’d imagined it then, that feeling of connection. Millie had panted on the end of my dick because it made her feel good, no more. She’d confessed that she had feelings about Noah back at school, but that obviously didn’t translate to now. Whatever itch she wanted scratched, it was done. I shook my head, kicking myself for not doing as Dave said and going out on New Year’s. The easiest way to get over a girl was to get under another, right?

So how did that explain this?

“So, you’ve seen the appliance bay before…”

Brent was doing his usual tour for a new staff member, and that had me and the other fellas looking around the truck to see who the new hire was. A pretty girl would be nice, or a friendly one.

I just didn’t expect it to be Millie.

Dressed in a pencil skirt and a white blouse, that beautiful light-brown hair was pinned back now, making her appear clean and professional looking.

For good reason.

She smiled and nodded along with Brent’s spiel with all the deference of a new employee. The old prick said he had hired someone, but he didn’t bother to mention who.

“Boys, you remember Millie McDonald,” he said now as he brought her over to our truck. “She’s our new admin hire.”