Golden Hour (Crescent City)

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  Published by CAMPBELL REINHARDT

  campbellreinhardt@gmail.com

  Cover photo: Stocksy

  Cover Design by Campbell Reinhardt

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Copyright © 2014 Steph Campbell & Liz Reinhardt writing as Campbell Reinhardt

  All rights reserved.

  “Warren, you done? We got the call like five minutes ago. We shouldn’t keep them waiting. You hear me?”

  It’s actually been a minute and a half, but to a medic as green as Dean, it must feel like an eternity. I remember those days.

  I sigh. “Damn, it Dean. I know this is your first week, so you’re still all gung-ho, but I can’t piss while you’re yammering in my goddamn ear. So why don’t you play the quiet game or count out gauze rolls or whatever the hell else you wanna do. Just keep your mouth shut while you’re doing it. I’ll be back just as soon as I drain the lizard.”

  I yank my pants back up one hip and try to keep my balance. Good thing I’m pissing into a wide open ditch on the side of the road, because I can’t aim for shit this morning. I realized I went too far last night when the town drunk had to nudge me to inform me it was last call.

  If Old Man Doherty is more sober than you are at closing time, you’re probably in for a world of liver damage and hangover pain.

  When I’m done hosing down a fair amount of weeds along the highway, I climb into the back of the truck. Dean slides the window open and his face sticks out, clean-shaven and so damn good. The kid’s like the Boy Scouts and Superman and Leave it to Beaver all rolled into one upstanding hulk. It makes my soul darken just looking at all that upstandingness.

  “What the hell is it now, Dean?” I moan as I grab an IV set up and a bag of saline. I hook myself up without so much as a wince, used to this routine, and settle back, an arm over my eyes.

  “Are you riding back there?” he asks.

  Even his voice is like some radio announcer’s. Good fucking god, could they have paired me with anyone more obnoxiously eager to do his best every day to keep physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight...I did make it to a few Boy Scout meetings during my tattered youth. Mostly because Billy Santos’s sister was hot as hell, and his mother led the troop, so Sierra Santos tagged along.

  Once Mama Bear Santos caught me with my tongue down her daughter’s throat, I was out of the scouting life for good.

  “No, Dean. I’m riding up front with you. This is a hologram of me lying back here. Just trying to keep you on your toes.” How the hell long does this IV take to work? I need to rehydrate. My head is pulsing.

  Dean starts the engine and pulls out. I rock back and forth, and it makes me smile. He’s driving like a dick because he knows it will shake me up. So Superman has a shitty side. I like it.

  “Look, you can drink all you want on your own time. But you shouldn’t show up to work drunk. People depend on us, Warren. We have lives on the line.” He makes the speech like he’s been practicing it in his head since I forced him to pull over so I could take a wiz.

  I slow clap. “That’s it, man. Keep it coming. I have this feeling your speeches are going to be exactly as much help as my guidance counselor’s feel-good posters in high school. That speech you just made? It’s the equivalent of that one poster with the kitten on the tree branch that said, ‘Hang in there!’ Both of ‘em just about changed my life.”

  “Screw off, Warren. You may think this is just some big joke, but I take this seriously.” I look up. He’s staring straight out the windshield, and—damn—even the back of his head looks serious.

  “I’ll tell you what. When you’ve been on this job more than a week, you come back and talk to me about serious.” Talk to me after you work your first code. Talk to me once you watch someone you love die. I feel the sludge of churning acid burn at the back of my throat, but I swallow it down.

  “This call? The two of us showing up five minutes late might mean we’re too late to help. Did you ever think of that?” he demands, his hands squeezing that steering wheel the way I know he wants to squeeze my throat.

  “I might have,” I say, closing my eyes and breathing easy through my nose. “If it wasn’t a call to the Fenwick’s.”

  I can see him itching like hell to ask me, but his pride won’t let him. I chuckle and lean back, glad to let him stew. He thinks he invented this game, but he doesn’t even have a clue how to play. And the Fenwick’s will be a nice introduction to ‘Get Off Your Fucking High Horse 101.’

  Dean keeps the lights and sirens going the whole way there, then pulls into the tiny driveway of the Fenwick’s’ home so sharply it feels like he’s taken part of the curb with him. He flings open the backdoors and glares at me.

  “You have to get off the stretcher, Warren. We need it for the call.” He nudges my boot, but I don’t budge.

  “We don’t need the stretcher, because this call is gonna be bullshit,” I say. He tosses a pair of gloves onto my lap and shoves a pair into his back pocket.

  “You don’t know that. Dispatch said ‘unknown medical emergency.’ Someone could have had a stroke. Or fallen. Get off the damn stretcher,” Dean yips. He yanks at the heart monitor on the bench seat and slings the medical bag over his shoulder. “You want people dying on your watch, fine. But I’m going inside, even if I have to carry the patient out on my back.”

  “There’s no patient!” I yell after him, but he’s already slammed the heavy door to the back of the truck.

  I grab a four-by-four and tear it open with my teeth, yank the IV from my arm and press the gauze square to my skin as I heave myself off the stretcher and follow Dean across the pristinely manicured lawn.

  The front door, made of heavy, ornately carved oak, flings open with a bang.

  And Chelsea Fenwick is standing there in a nearly identical version of the next-to-nothing dress she was wearing last night at the bar, holding a glass of tea, looking like every southern boy’s fantasy.

  “Well, well, well,” she says, nibbling on the end of her straw. “Talk about full service. I asked for you, Caleb, and they sent two handsome men in uniform.”

  “You requested him? You can’t request medics, ma’am,” Dean says, his cheeks a deep, frustrated red. “Where is the patient?”

  Chelsea giggles and fixes her stare back on me. “I’m the patient.”

  Dean’s eyes make the rounds back and forth between Chelsea and me. All I can do is shake my head. “I tried to tell you,” I say, holding my hands up surrender style.

  “Let’s check your vitals.” He’s determined to do this by the book, ignoring the obvious fact that Chelsea is healthy as a horse and called with an emergency need for something Dean can’t give her.

  “I think it’s my heart,” she says dramatically, her eyes still trained on me. My chest. My belt. We got cut off in the middle of something last night when Chelsea’s friend tossed her cookies in the middle of the bar. Chelsea had to bail to take her home. Looks like she’s called to finish what we started, and I can’t say that I mind one bit.

  “Okay, well, I’ve got the heart monitor here. L
et’s get inside and we can take a look. Are you feeling nauseous? Have you taken any medication?” Dean asks, stubborn as a mule to find the mystery ailment Chelsea is “suffering” from.

  “I think...I think I should lie down in the back of your ambulance. Do you have a stretcher I can use?” Chelsea winks at me.

  “I told you we needed the stretcher,” Dean mutters.

  “Come on, Chelsea, I’ll show you the truck,” I say, wrapping my arm around her waist and leading her down the narrow drive. I know this game. I’ve played it before. It’s a fetish for some women—men in uniform on their turf does it for them. And that’s fine with me.

  “You can’t—” Dean calls after us.

  Chelsea slips her hand through mine and calls, “Go ahead and make yourself at home! There’s a pitcher of sweet tea and some boudin on the counter!” over her shoulder.

  In my mind, I can picture Dean shoving his hands in his pockets, kicking at the ground, and pouting, but I don’t turn around, because Chelsea is walking backward and unbuttoning my crisp shirt. Next she’ll go for my belt, and pull me into the back of the truck, ignoring the fact that there’s been blood and brain matter and countless other bodily fluids spilled on the very surfaces that she’s willing to bump against as she strips down—and goes down on me.

  “So, ma’am,” I say, closing the door of the ambulance behind me. “What’s your emergency?”

  “You didn’t say goodbye last night.” She pushes my collared shirt off of my shoulders and gives my undershirt a good tug. I help her out and pull it up over my head, then get to work on the zipper holding together the thin lace of her dress.

  “That was emergent?” I ask.

  “No, but doing this was,” Chelsea says. She reaches inside my pants and wraps her hand around my dick. I press one hand onto the wall of the truck to steady myself and shimmy out of my pants. Chelsea licks her lips, top first, then bottom, and sinks down to her knees, her tits barely contained in her tiny lace bra.

  I look down as her fingers slide into the waistband of my boxer briefs and give a solid tug, revealing my raging hard-on. She goes to work with her eyes closed, moaning appreciatively in the back of her throat as she sucks harder.

  Good as it feels, I keep an eye on the closed door, waiting for Dean to bust in and get the shock of his respectable young life. Damnit. That kind of thinking makes it hard to concentrate on the amazing job Chelsea is doing.

  I reach my hands down to her shoulders and tug her up.

  “Did you not like?” she coos with a frown.

  “I fucking loved it, baby, but I’m not selfish.” I let her push me back on the floor and straddle my hips. I’m sure as hell ready to pick up where we left off before her friend blew chunks. But I’m also ready to get what we both want and be done.

  It’s not like me to give a rat’s ass what anyone else thinks, and I guess I really don’t. It’s not so much that Dean’s opinion matters; his silent judgment is just irritating, and I don’t want to deal with more of it if he catches me and Chelsea.

  “That’s it, sweetheart.” I can’t help smiling as she unhooks that bra. Man, the joy of getting some one-on-one time with Chelsea Fenwick’s tits is worth listening to Dean lecture me all goddamn shift. I bury my face in her perfumed skin, muttering a prayer of thanks for girls who know exactly how to drive me out of my mind.

  The vibration of the pager on the floor of the truck couldn’t come at a worse time.

  I pat at the floor blindly, reaching for it, but unable to pull my mouth away from Chelsea.

  “Ignore it,” Chelsea gasps, pulling my hand back up to her tits.

  “I ca—” I start, just as Dean’s palm slaps into the back of the truck.

  “Warren, get out of the back. We’ve got a call,” he yells, his voice tinged with panic. “Hurry up Warren, I mean it!”

  I nip once more at Chelsea’s neck then pull my pants up.

  “We’ll continue this another time, darlin’.”

  Chelsea nestles her tits back into her bra, slips her dress on, and pouts. “Promise?” she asks.

  I don’t promise shit. Ever.

  Dean has had enough and uses his key on the outer lock of the door.

  “Get. Out. Now,” he says, his mouth in a grim line, his eyes narrowed to slits. He tosses the bag and monitor in.

  “Come on, good-lookin’, I’ve got lives to save,” I say, patting her ass and lending a hand to help her down.

  Chelsea hops out of the truck and walks back to her house with one quick wave over her shoulder for me. I climb into the passenger seat and finish getting dressed as we speed off, lights and sirens blaring.

  “What’s the call?” I ask.

  “10-15,” Dean says, smugly.

  I nod. “Where?”

  “Fifth and Rampart.”

  “Alright, buddy, slow down there. It’s just around the corner. And it’s a seizure, not a code.” I finish buttoning my shirt and clip my name tag back on. Dean takes the next turn so hard and fast, it slams me into the door. The way he’s trying damn hard not to grin lets me know it had to be intentional.

  This guy is a living, breathing version of the paramedic oath we all took. This shift can’t end quickly enough. And I make a mental oath of my own to annoy the shit out of Dean so much that by the end of it, he’ll be calling our Operations Manager begging for a new partner. Being back on a truck wasn’t what I wanted, and I have no reason left to make the best of it.

  I’ll come to work. I’ll punch a clock. But I’m not here to make friends. I’m here to stay out of jail and count down the hours until I can uncap a cold beer.

  Period.

  “You missed your turn, dipshit,” I mutter.

  “Charlie? Hello?” I let myself into the tiny house my brother inherited after our grandfather died. Gram moved in with Mama and Daddy, her dementia finally revealing itself after Papa passed.

  The house is still spartan and out of date, with harvest gold appliances and rust colored shag carpeting, but Charlie doesn’t care about design. As long as things are perfectly clean and put back in their exact place, he’s happy.

  I think Charlie also inherited Papa’s OCD.

  My brother comes out of his room in clean workout clothes, his hair shower-damp. “Hey, Lise. I thought you were coming over after shift.”

  “I traded with Piper, so I don’t have to go in until tonight. I also picked up lunch from Johnny’s.” I hold the paper sack out in front of me, and Charlie leaps over like a puppy off his leash.

  “You’re my favorite sister, you know that?” he asks, biting into a shrimp po-boy like a starving man.

  “I’m your only sister. You have anything to drink?” I open his fridge and frown. “Charlie, you need to go food shopping. You can’t live on Abita and eggs. What the hell do you eat?”

  “Egg and beer omelets, obviously.” He makes a muscle, showing off his biceps. “I need protein to stay cut.”

  “You need a girlfriend who doesn’t have a barstool with her name engraved on it at Cat’s Meow. Someone who’s put together enough to remind you to go to the grocery store.” I raise an eyebrow and he snorts.

  “Please. Like I’d set foot in Cat’s Meow. Desperate girls and karaoke are two of my least favorite things. Just because you always managed to drag Mike there—” He stops and puts his po-boy down. “Sorry. That was fucked-up.”

  “What? Saying his name?” I pull my muffaletta out of the sack with shaking fingers, my stomach knotted so tight, I don’t want to think about eating. But I have to keep up appearances. It’s what Dupuis do—it’s part of my heritage. Mine and Charlie’s. Which is why talking about Mike is so damn hard for both of us. “It’s okay, Charlie. Do you really think Mike would have wanted us to whisper his name like he was some martyr? He’d hate that.”

  My brother runs his hand over his dark hair. “I know that. I know. I just—how the hell are you doing?” His look pierces into me and he opens his mouth, then clamps it shut. Like he isn’t
sure he wants to say what he’s about to say. “Because for me? It gets better. For days at a clip. And then it hits like a ton of fucking bricks out of nowhere, and it feels like I’m getting the news all over again.” He leans forward, palms flat on the dining room table, and clears his throat. “Maybe it’s time for one of those beers.”

  I don’t rag on him about how it’s barely noon, or that like me, he probably has to work tonight. I grab him a can and take one for myself, giving him a tight half-hug as I put my plate down. “I know exactly what you mean. I think it sucks way worse that way. I feel like I’d rather just be hurting every single second than feel like things are almost normal and get sucker punched when I remember all over again how damn wrong they really are.”

  He cracks the beer open and drinks too long for thirst. He drinks to numb, and I bite my tongue. I know better than anyone how sometimes you just need to deaden the pain. As much as it still hurts to have witnessed Mike’s last minutes on earth, Charlie saw it all.

  Charlie watched those bullets tear into Mike—his partner, his best friend. He watched the shock on Mike’s face jump to terror when he realized he was bleeding out.

  My knees dissolve into jelly. I slump onto the chair and take a long pull of my beer, closing my eyes against the strong memory of the last day I had with Mike. How I saw him alive one morning and dead the same evening.

  It’s never quite connected up for me. How I’d run my hands over his big, gorgeous body while we were still wrapped in the sheets I’d bought for the new queen bed in our brand new apartment two weeks before. Silk. A splurge—I was celebrating paying off the last of my school loans. Those sheets caressed our bodies as Mike rolled me under him, growled my name, and kissed every inch of me. We had to stop or he would have been late for work.

  He promised we’d pick up where we left off the minute shift was over.

  A few short hours later, that gorgeous, muscled chest—the one marked with a tattoo of our initials in a heart to match the tree Mike carved up the day I accepted his proposal—was torn open and riddled with bullet holes, covered in pools of drying and new blood.