Out of the Blue (10 page)

I pushed the pain away, dusting myself off and ruling out any real injury, when I saw Kris hadn’t gotten back up. He lay on the ground, his helmet lying next to him, and he wasn’t moving.

“Fuck me. Kris?” I dropped to my knees beside him, checking for obvious injuries. He was nonresponsive but otherwise looked unhurt. “Kris, buddy, talk to me,” I said, gently patting his soot-smudged face. “C’mon, bud, wake up.” His eyes fluttered open. “There you are, big guy. How’re you feeling?”

His eyes cleared and he was back with me. With a slow smile, he lifted his hand and cradled my cheek.

“Cam…” he whispered.

Before I could decipher the look in Kris’s eyes, Mason ran over to us and I stood quickly.

“Lieutenant, are you okay? What happened?”

“Get a medic over here, Kris’s helmet was knocked off and he hit his head. He was only out for a few seconds, but he needs to be cleared.” Mason took off as I knelt down to Kris once more.

“You okay, buddy? You looked a little confused there for a sec.” I tried to keep my tone light, but I wasn’t successful.

“Yeah, man, I’m okay.” Kris shook himself and sat up, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’m okay, but that’s gonna hurt like a fucker later.” Although his words were spoken easily, he didn’t look at me, preferring to gaze at the ground.

Brandon arrived and led Kris to the back of an ambulance to be cleared. We’d all had concussions before, it came with the job, and I knew he’d be fine. Kris would be told to take a day off, which he’d refuse, then come back to work claiming it was only a scratch.

The collapsed roof helped our efforts somewhat as it smothered the fire and made it easier to contain. With the ambulances gone, a few locals stood around and watched as we continued with the mop-up. The building was a write-off and the neighboring buildings had some damage as well. One team would stay behind to make sure there were no hot spots or flare-ups, but our job was done. Mason, Brandon, and I rolled up the hoses and stored the gear, ready to head back to the station, get cleaned up, and write the report.

Seated in the truck and holding an ice pack to the back of his head, Kris’s breath hitched as I climbed in beside him.

“Hey, how’re you feeling?” I asked.

“Fine.” Kris’s sharp tone was contrary to his usual easy manner.

“Fine?”

Kris wouldn’t look at me, a tight set to his jaw. “I’m okay, all right?”

Brandon climbed in behind me and raised an eyebrow at Kris.

“Fuck off, Brandon,” Kris spat.

“Well, fuck us all for giving a shit, you sorry bastard.” Brandon’s sympathy level was clearly low.

When we arrived back at the station, Kris took off as soon as he exited the truck. He didn’t come into work the following evening, and although he had been told to take the night off, no one had expected him to do it.

When I walked into the break room two nights later, Kris was sitting with the guys, laughing. “Hey, you’re back. How’re you feeling?” I asked, relieved to see him back to normal.

“Better, man. I must’ve hit my head harder than I thought.” He chuckled. Whatever I’d
thought
I saw in his eyes two nights ago was a result of his head smacking the asphalt and not something else.

With no major calls, the night passed easily and Kris was his usual self: quick with a smile and joke that had the crew laughing.

With the night shift over, I was changing out of my uniform when Kris walked into the locker room. “Hey, man, I wanted to apologize for the other night.”

“What for? You didn’t do anything,” I reassured him.

“I was short-tempered and mean. That’s not me.”

“You cracked your head on the blacktop, I’d be short-tempered and mean too.”

“Yeah, well, you probably would.” He smiled and stuck his hand out. “Friends?”

“Of course we’re friends.” I laughed, grabbing his hand, and was pulled in for a hug. Kris’s large arms held me for longer than necessary, and he breathed deeply next to my ear before letting go.

Did he just sniff me?

Kris closed his locker, waving as he walked out.

“See ya next week.”

What the…?

Over the next week, Kris was as easygoing as ever, but sometimes I would catch him looking at me. At times I thought it was my imagination, as when I looked again he was busy with another task. A couple of times I raised an eyebrow at him, and he turned away, laughing.

While things with Kris were normal, everything else was far from it, and my last shift was a real bitch. I knew Jake was okay—at that time of night he’d be sound asleep—so I didn’t need to text him, but my shift was long and boring and it was during these slow times I was unable to keep the thoughts from frying my brain and making my nerves twitch. When I was bored, I had time to think and that’s when I turned into an asshole.

My mind was stuck in a whirl of never-ending images and when my co-workers asked me a question—no matter what it was—my snappy short answers had them keeping their distance from me. I was on edge and the blare from the intercom made me jump so much my coffee spilled over my hand and chest, burning my skin through my shirt. I needed to keep busy, but there were only so many times I could check the truck and the equipment, and when I started cleaning the break room, my colleagues thought I’d gone mad. Maybe I had.

While work was tough, being at home was tougher. I was crippling our relationship and I needed to talk to Jake before it got out of hand and I made things worse. But the timing was never right. How did I tell him that I saw images of his broken, dead body in a car wreck? How could I bring that up, knowing how his parents died, knowing he nearly went home with them and could have ended up dying tragically as well? When could I tell him? I’d been on a row of night shifts that felt like forever. It wasn’t a conversation I could have in the thirty minutes a day we saw each other.

Arriving home Sunday morning, jittery with nerves, I saw Jake lying spread-eagle on our bed, pulling lazily on his morning wood. I hadn’t been able to clear my mind since leaving the fire station and seeing Jake jerking off was a welcome distraction. I needed to get out of my head. I was exhausted, and Jake must’ve sensed this when I entered the room as his eyes flashed with concern. In a sleepy, lusty tone, he directed me to strip and lay flat on the bed. All thoughts of talking to him fled; it could wait until our schedules aligned again.

Lying back, I let Jake do all the work, my cock buried deep in his ass and him riding me like a bull. He was glorious above me, his head thrown back, pinching his nipples as he impaled himself harder and deeper on my thick shaft.

Grabbing his hips, I thrust myself into him. Jake looked down at me with his luminous blue eyes, his chocolate brown hair dark with sweat hung across his forehead, and he grinned as he continued his assault from above. Lost in his desire and with an orgasm building, he didn’t notice the tension that had once again crept into my body.

I attempted to push my fear aside, but I found the more I tried, the more vivid the images were that bombarded me. Horror trickled down my spine and it hit me with such force, my chest felt like it was trapped in a large vise. I gripped the sheets and my heartbeat pounded in my ears. My hips stilling, I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to rid myself of the image of Jake’s dead body. I shook my head from side to side and my icy cold body trembled with renewed dread.

Jake slowed his hips—a soft cock was hard to ride—and he became motionless above me. He hadn’t come and the sudden awareness of what happened must’ve stunned him. He climbed off me and my softened dick slid from his ass making me wince. Slow building waves of confusion and frustration radiated from him and threatened to smother me like a thick blanket.

“What the hell?” Jake’s voice was soft in disbelief, probably at my deflated erection.

My fear mingled with shame, and frustration—as well as a healthy dose of anger—and my throat tightened. Jake didn’t understand. He lived in his own little world where bad things didn’t happen, or if they did, they happened to other people.

I kept my eyes closed as I tried to rein in my anger. Anger at Jake, at myself, and anger at the unfairness of the entire fucked-up world.

I swung my legs off the bed and stood, my anger not allowing me to lie down. “Not everything’s about you, Jake,” I spat.

“What? This isn’t about me at all and you know it. I’ve been patient with you and this problem you won’t talk to me about. I said I’d give you time in the hope things would fix themselves or you’d get over it. How long is this going to continue, huh? You’ve changed… you’re not
you
anymore. I know you’re going through something, but if you won’t tell me what it is, I can’t help you. Your mood swings alone make my head spin. You’ve turned into this… this… moody, selfish asshole.”

I glared at him. “Well, aren’t you just the perfect boyfriend.” The venom in my tone shocked me as well as Jake, and I wished my mouth would close and my brain would shut down. I wanted to disengage from this fight, but I couldn’t. All the pressure that built over my last shift and the last month mingled with my exhaustion, and I was on the edge of sanity, about to take that final step over the edge. “You never do anything wrong, do you? You live the perfect life, cocooned in your little tower, never having to deal with real life. You, my parents, Caroline, everyone. All seeing what you want to see and living a life of ignorance. That must be
fucking
bliss. You can’t keep living like that, you know, the world won’t let you, and one day your perfect life is gonna fall down around you.”

Shock and hurt flooded Jake’s face, and my blood raged through my veins, the pulse at my neck throbbing. Jake stood at the end of our bed looking lost and confused and a whole lot hurt.

He turned and fled to the bathroom. As the door slammed, I heard the telltale running of water through the pipes. Pounding fists and ragged sobs came from the other side of the door and something crashed as Jake screamed out his hurt and frustration.

They were the sounds of a man fighting himself, when he should have been fighting me.

I couldn’t stop the violent shudders that ran through my body. Pulling on some sweats, I left the apartment, slamming the door.

Jake

That was the last time we’d been intimate.

It had been a little over two months since Cam had acted like the man I fell in love with.

Cam’s words cut deep enough to bleed, but I put my big-boy pants on and tried to get him to talk about his nightmares that were now relentless. He needed to talk to someone, and I tried to convince him to get help.

Cam turned in on himself and slunk around the apartment in a depressed daze—when he was home, that is—and although I didn’t think he was trying to avoid me, his body screamed
stay away
.

I refused to back down, but Cam wouldn’t tell me what was going on in his head and I didn’t know what else to do.

The man who owned my soul was crushing it, and our relationship was crumbling around me.

Cam was back on night shift, and he either stayed late and didn’t come home until I’d gone to work, or he would do a double shift. It seemed he would do anything to avoid being home with me. He stopped texting, not bothering to tell me what he was doing, and would often come home smelling of beer. He’d sleep late on his days off and then slink out of the apartment without speaking.

I noticed everything changing about him. Cam’s face was now pale and gaunt, his eyes sunken. He was constantly tired and irritable, and when he spoke, which wasn’t often, he would snap at me and fly off the handle for little or no reason. We’d stopped sharing meals, so I didn’t know if he ate or not. I assumed he ate at the station or whenever he left the apartment, but I noticed the weight loss.

Our lives, once combined in every way, became separate entities. One surviving without the other, but not living. We stopped making love. Stopped touching. Stopped talking.

Everything I knew. Stopped.

I didn’t know how long we could survive like that. The man had my heart, but whether or not he still wanted it was another question entirely.

My frustration would build, threatening to overwhelm me with white-hot heat. I constantly screamed at myself
why
? When Cam wasn’t home, I slammed doors and threw the dishes in the sink, not caring if anything broke. When he was home, I was quiet and tried to be invisible so he wouldn’t notice I was there. When I tried to talk to him, he would snap at me and tell me to mind my own business.

He wasn’t the man I fell in love with all those years ago. He wasn’t charming or thoughtful, and his dazzling amber eyes were now filled with anger, frustration, and vulnerability. My hair stood on end, since I was forever pulling at it, and I would go through everything in my mind, every scenario, every possibility, as I tried to find the source of Cam’s problem. I came up empty handed every time. The only thing I knew for sure was that it started with that freeway accident.

When my anger fled, I was left drained and wrung out. Defeated, I would sit at the bottom of the shower, my shoulders heaving with my sobs, and I would cry until the water ran cold over my already sensitive skin.

And the cycle would start again: Anger. Frustration. Sadness. Depression.

Constantly nauseous, my appetite fled with my anger and it left a gaping hole in my stomach. My muscles were stiff and sore no matter how much I ran, and my skin felt too tight for my body.

Running was my way of clearing my head. It used to give me a new perspective on whatever bothered me at the time, but it wasn’t working now and I was alone with my thoughts with no clear way out.

Late one night, I woke to Cam screaming from the living room. He slept on the couch most nights now and only slept in our bed when I was at work. The first time he’d slept on the couch had hurt and I’d fought the tears that burned my eyes. Now it was normal, accepted.

“Jake. JAAAAAAKE!”

The nightmares were constant and it broke my heart every time. He was clearly upset, as tears streamed down his face; he looked like he was in agony, but I knew better than to shake his shoulders or touch his face during one of those dreams. He’d knocked me across the face a couple of times when I had tried to wake him. The only thing that worked was a cold, wet cloth to his feet. I’d let the dream play out once, only to be traumatized by the event myself so much I didn’t sleep for two days, so it was cruel to let him suffer in his own head as well. I moved to the kitchen for a cloth and some water, my heart beating a constant tattoo in my chest as Cam’s screams continued. “Jake! No, no, no, no, NOOOOOO!”