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“He clearly made an impression on you.”
Try as I might, I can’t keep the smile off my face. “I always had a crush on him.”
“Well, you’re free and single, and I didn’t see a ring on his finger,” Marcy says. “So, maybe it’s fate bringing you two together again.”
“Marcy, he’s two decades older than me.”
“And?”
“He’s old enough to be my father.”
“Listen, kid, the older you get, the less age matters. You’re an adult. He’s an adult,” she says. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned doing this job as long as I have, it’s that life is short. Very short. And we’ve only got one go ‘round, kid. If something or somebody makes you happy, it’s on you to go out there and take it. If you don’t, you may spend the rest of your life wondering what if? That’s not how I’m going to go out. What about you?”
I sit back in my chair and take a sip of my coffee, Marcy’s words rattling around in my head. I’m twenty-three years old, so my mortality isn’t something I’ve really given a lot of thought to. But she’s right. Life is short, and it’s on us to find those things that make us happy, that make us fulfilled, whether it be a physical thing or a person, grab onto them, and never let them go.
Like Marcy, I don’t want to leave this life wondering, what if?
3
HUNTER
My head pounds, and every square inch of my body aches. I feel like I got hit by a fucking train. I look around and quickly realize I’m in a hospital. Bits and pieces of what happened to land me there in the first place float through my brain.
“About time you woke up, you lazy piece of shit.”
I struggle to sit up, groaning as agony tears through my body, but I grit my teeth and manage. Darnell is sitting in a chair at the foot of the bed. He stands up and comes around to the side of the bed, then lays a hand on my arm.
“Good to see you back among the living, brother,” he says.
“Good to be among the living.”
“You remember what happened?”
I nod. “You get the woman out? Gloria, I think her name was.”
“She’s banged up but alive,” he says. “Thanks to you.”
“Best I recall, you were there too, despite me ordering you to get the fuck out.”
His smile is wide and bright. “And let you get all the glory? There’s a picture in the paper of me coming out of that fucking building with the woman in my arms. The news is calling me a goddamn hero. Can you believe that shit?”
My body seizes up in pain as I laugh. Closing my eyes, I lean back against the pillows and take short, shallow breaths, giving the pain ripping through me a few beats to subside. When it eventually does, I open my eyes again.
“Good for you, man,” I say. “You deserve the recognition.”
“You’re the one who pulled her out. Gloria told me what went down in there,” he replies. “If anybody’s a hero here and deserves the shine, it’s you.”
“Better you than me. I hate the fucking media.”
“Yeah, well, Captain Ray is going to tear you a new asshole when you’re upright again,” Darnell grouses. “He’s spent the past couple of days giving me a verbal colon flush because you’re not there, so I’m the handiest punching bag.”
“Yeah, well, you blew him off and went into that building after me,” I point out.
“Yeah, maybe.”
“Then you deserve that, too. Can’t have the good without the bad, man.”
His booming laughter echoes around the room. “Go fuck yourself.”
