Page 104 of Chasing Smoke

“What’s going on, Ansel? Whatever it is, we’ll figure it out.” I place the cardboard container on my lap and take his hand.

He swallows hard. How bad could this be?

“I was offered a job at Portland Fire and Rescue.”

He’s leaving?

“I don’t understand. Why would they just offer you a job?”

He looks down at our joined hands. “Because I applied for a job with them… months ago.”

I tilt my head and say nothing.

“Before we were anything… before we were… this.” He squeezes my hand.

My head spins out of control. He applied to the Portland Fire Department? I had no idea he wanted out of Echo Lake. I thought he was a lifer. “Help me understand why this is the first I’m hearing of this.”

He nods a few times as if he knows he has explaining to do. “Ramsey got the promotion over me at the station. I’m not bitter about it. He’s a good guy, and he deserved it. Okay, I was a little bitter. But I want to move up in the ranks too, and now I’ll be waiting for Ramsey to get promoted before I can be next in line. The day I heard, I thought if I went somewhere with more stations, there’d be more opportunity for me to grow there. Honestly, when I applied, I just did it on a whim.”

I shake my head. “So, they offered you a job from an application?” I understand what he’s saying, although I don’t understand why he never told me about it. I feel like I just got slapped across the face.

I remember how many interviews Caleb went on to get accepted into TEEX, but I guess that’s a more elite program.

“I interviewed,” he admits, and a sprout of anger erupts in my gut.

“You did?”

“Twice, actually.” He cringes, and his eyes downturn again.

I huff. He’s interviewed twice. One of them had to be during the times we’ve been kind of together because I remember when Ramsey got the promotion and Carrie invited me to his celebration party.

I jolt up off my seat, my pizza tipping off my lap and splattering onto the sidewalk. “Is there even a friend in Portland, Ansel, or were you just up there for interviews?”

He pushes a hand through his hair. “No, there’s a friend. But… yeah, I went up there for the interviews.”

My hands tighten into fists. “You lied.”

He hangs his head and nods. “I omitted the truth. I didn’t know what was going to happen, and you had so much to deal with, I didn’t want to add that into any equation. Or stress you out anymore.”

“Ansel, omission is lying. You purposely kept this information from me.” My voice grows louder.

A few people glance in our direction. Great, we just came out, and now people are seeing us arguing on Main Street.

Shame coats his eyes. “At first it didn’t matter, we weren’t involved.”

“And once we were? You never thought, I should tell Collins because I might be leaving Echo Lake?”

His shoulders sag. “Then I did keep it from you. I thought I was doing the right thing. I wasn’t even sure I was going to take the job.”

“That’s not the point!” My hands fist at my sides. “Ansel, you allowed me to get attached to you knowing there was a possibility you’d leave me. You were the first man I trusted again after Caleb.”

“I didn’t want to hurt you or stress you out. You already had so much going on. I didn’t want to add to it.”

“And had you wanted to take the job in Portland? Had they offered you something you couldn’t pass up? You would have hurt me… much worse… you would have left me.”

“Collins,” he says with desperation.

“This is unbelievable.” My fury feels like a hot lava rock in the dead center of my chest.