Page 34 of Dueling Flames

This afternoon would be better; I told myself as I steadied my breathing. I would talk to Thorne and then we would go to the climbing gym. Maybe play some basketball after dinner.

Chapter 13

Thorne

The last few days, I excused myself from doing anything with Lissa. I just needed space. She didn’t push it, but I’m sure she wouldn’t let me continue avoiding her when I got to work. She’s not exactly afraid of confrontation.

Yet, here I stood, checking out of my latest physical therapy appointment with good news. Looks like I might be back on full duty in another two weeks if everything kept improving at the same rate. And the one person I wanted to tell the most wasn’t here. All because I wasn’t prepared for her reason of why we shouldn’t be partners.

She must think I’m a coward. I knew she had training yesterday, so when she left her apartment, I went in and grabbed my pillows and a few other things. I didn’t grab everything. Not yet. If I took all my stuff back that meant I had lost hope. I didn’t want to let go of hope just yet.

She’d be right, though. I am a coward.

Lissa

I walked into the station for my next shift with one goal in mind, to smack Thorne on the head. He’d ignored me for two days, answered texts with excuses, and missed everything we had planned. He didn’t even tell me how his physical therapy went. When I asked, he texted back, “Fine.”

I’d come to the realization that I was indeed jealous after I saw Thorne with Milo. Chelsea helped me wrap my head around that concept. But this had gone beyond jealousy. If he doesn’t want to continue a relationship with me, fine. We both promised that this would not affect our job, but poor communication because of some bullshit with his ex was affecting everything.

With my stuff in my locker, I walked through the station in search of Thorne. I found him in the lounge with the other guys. He looked up at me and smiled. He smiled at me after ignoring me for two days. That bastard.

“Thorne, can I talk to you?” I said with a straight a face as I could muster.

His eyes widened, and his lips tightened. Oh, he knew what was coming.

CLANG – CLANG – CLANG

The alarm sounded. I pointed at Thorne, then raced downstairs to get my equipment together. Trevor hopped on the truck and took off as soon as I closed my door.

We ran the entire shift. Any downtime was filled with truck reorganization and showers before the next emergency happened. By the end of the shift, I was too tired to talk to Thorne. I barely managed to shower once I got back home before I collapsed into bed.

Thorne managed to evade me for the next few days. I even tried to catch him at his apartment. The last four weeks had been wonderful. I’d fallen hard and fast for this man. And even before when he was just my annoying partner, I never pegged Thorne as a coward.

I could still feel his body wrapped around mine when I slept. His warm hands rubbing my arms when we watched TV. All the jokes and silly competitions throughout the day when it was just the two of us. All of that was now gone. Because of Milo?

I met my friends for dinner on the fifth day of Thorne ignoring me. My next shift started in the morning, so this would be a great distraction.

“Girl, I can’t believe he’s blowing you off,” Jeff frowned, waving his wineglass around. “I suppose he still replies because he knows he can’t ghost you since you work together.”

I grabbed Jeff’s arm to keep him from spilling his drink. “Calm down. It’s not that important. Let’s talk about anything else.”

My friends gave me sad eyes, then looked at each other.

“No,” I said, then smiled. “Tell me some good news.”

Monica turned to Chelsea. “You said you had something to tell us. Go ahead and share.”

Chelsea hadn’t mentioned anything to me, so I was a bit surprised. She smiled and grabbed my hand. “I didn’t want to tell you while you were still sad, but I’m really excited.”

“I’m not sad. I’m mad.” I laughed. “Please tell me it’s good news.”

Chelsea vibrated when she grinned. “I’m pregnant.”

I jumped up out of my chair and crashed into my friend. “That’s so exciting. Congratulations!”

Three sets of arms engulfed Chelsea as we cheered and swayed.

“Get off me,” Chelsea said underneath us. “I can’t breathe.”