Page 22 of When In Doubt

“Fine.” I knew someone was gonna get roped into this at some point. I was just hoping it wouldn’t be me.

I head to the rack of RTC kits. We keep the main ones on the trucks for whenever we respond to road accidents, so these are just backups, but they still need going through. I pull them off one by one and check they’ve got everything inside before placing them back in a neat row.

I’m trying to wait Mack out. I’m not stupid, he’s obviously got something he wants to talk to me about, but I’m not gonna be the one to break.

“So…” He tries to sound casual. Got him. “You talk to that lady?”

I frown. Is he serious? He dragged me in here just to gossip? I guess there’s something in the water.

“I did,” I deadpan.

“And?”

I round the shelves stacked with line bags, raising an eyebrow at him. “And I apologized.”

“What’s going on there? You seem…” he trails off, waving a hand towards me. “Weird about her.”

I thought I had a better poker face than that. “I knew her in school.”

Mack grew up here too, but he’s seven years older so we didn’t overlap much. He probably never really came across Freya back then. “I didn’t realize you guys were friends.”

“I wouldn’t call us friends.” I scoff. “It was a little more one sided than that.”

“Oh yeah?” Mack asks, his face lighting up with curiosity.

I rub at the spot between my eyebrows. I really didn’t want to get into this, but this is Mack, right? He’s one of my closest friends. “If I tell you, you gotta keep it to yourself.” I don’t need this getting around to everyone.

“Of course.”

“I kind of had a thing for her when we were younger.”

He chews the inside of his cheek. “What kind of a thing?”

I sigh, thinking back on just how down bad I was back then. “I was a little obsessed.” I see him trying to suppress his laughter and I have to turn my back. “I know, I know, it’s pathetic.”

He chuckles. “No, no, it’s nice. But when you say obsessed...”

I sigh. “I used to watch her a lot.”

“Jesus.”

I wince. “I’m making it sound worse than it is. I was just a really shy kid, and she was always doing her own thing.”

“Did you ever talk to her?”

“Once.”

“How’d it go?”

“She told me she was busy with her dominoes.” I cringe. I’d tucked my tail between my legs and never tried again.

“Fuck.” He gives me a pat on the arm. “That’s rough, man.”

“Did you really pull me in here to talk about a girl?”

He tips his head to the side, caught. “I actually wanted to talk some more about the captain thing.”

I groan, scrubbing a hand down my face. “Jesus Christ, when are you going to drop it?”