I slipped in my earbuds and pulled up my coursework, trying to block out the sound of the television blaring and someone thudding away on a treadmill.
We’d definitely have callouts during our shift. Probably four to six runs and most of them would be medical and not trauma. Every call still got my blood pumping; I was an adrenaline junky like most of the crew. Whether it was an unresponsive person, difficulty breathing, an unknown injury, or a big trauma, we never really knew what we were going into.
I’d dealt with all sorts of callouts ranging from crazy to funny to sad to unsettling, although most of what we dealt with was pretty mundane. But I always felt good helping people, no matter what kind of services they needed.
I never wanted the traumas, but my job was to be trained and ready for the smallest callout to the biggest and I made sure I was always prepared to tackle anything thrown my way.
I settled in at my laptop, ready to jump if a call came in. Until then, I’d complete yet another training course and drink some coffee while trying to forget the fact that Dre fucking King was now my damn partner.
Five
Dre
“You wanna grab food before we head back?” I asked as I pulled the rig out of the long emergency room drive. We’d successfully kept alive and delivered a heart attack patient. Likely wouldn’t ever hear of the final outcome—only the biggest, most memorable cases usually got brought back up in future conversations—but we’d done our job by getting him to the hospital.
“No,” Khi snapped.
We’d been riding together for over a week and were on our fourth shift together. In the overall scheme of things, working with Khi wasn’t enjoyable, but it wasn’t horrible—more just annoying as hell. He pretty much acted as if I didn’t exist except in situations that mandated we speak.
The biggest issue was just never really escaping the tension. If I was at work, he was there. If I was at home, he was there. We weren’t attached at the hip, obviously, but no matter what, we were always thrown back together for things like dinner, hanging out, relaxing, and sleeping.
Dinner at the station often included the crew around the table. Dinner at home was almost always half of if not the entire gang.
Hanging out at the station was usually a group. Hanging out at Remington Place was usually at least half of the housemates and neighbors.
Relaxing at the station or at home—with my sketchbook and music—meant our shared room, unless I snagged another spot, but Khi was almost always around.
Sleeping shouldn’t have been much of an issue, but I realized quickly that I was a fairly light sleeper and having someone else in the room with me made it hard to sleep. Since I didn’t want to get punched in the face, I didn’t bring it up, but Khi did a lot of tossing and turning, grunting and groaning, and made this tiny little noise I wouldn’t have called a full-fledged snore, but it was still annoying as hell.
If we only saw each other from time-to-time, the silent treatment wouldn’t have bothered me so much. But we were together in some capacity well over half of our time. Khi’s grumpy-ass snappy comments and refusing to speak to me unless absolutely necessary were getting old.
“I’m hungry. If you want the food at the station, whatever, I’d rather get a burger or something.” I headed toward a restaurant I knew had fast carry-out in case we got another call. Maybe I was being belligerent, but Khi’s attitude was on my last nerve. If I wanted to grab food, I was going to grab food. Khi be damned. And the fact that I was in control of where the rig went brought me a little jolt of glee.
“We have to go do that pick-up,” Khi reminded me through gritted teeth. “Your choice, but I’d rather not have a full stomach when we gather up a body that may have been decomposing for days.”
Fuck. I’d forgotten about the pick-up. Depending on contracts through the county and private companies, we sometimes found ourselves being called in to remove a body when the coroner wasn’t available—or didn’t want to deal with the removal. This wasn’t something that happened on every crew I’d been on in the past, but it wasn’t unusual.
Mostly, the jobs were fairly quick and easy, but sometimes we ran into issues with smell depending on how long the body had been there. I’d heard some rough stories from crew members who went on stomach-churning removal runs.
As much as I hated to admit it, Khi was right. Eating before a removal wasn’t smart.
“Fine. We’ll grab food later.” I made a left turn and headed toward the location of our assignment. Glancing at Khi, I attempted easy conversation once again. “Good job with that last call. I was a little worried when we first got there. You think he’ll live?”
Khi’s jaw bulged. “Hard to say. Heart is tricky.” I’d noticed Khi—if he acknowledged me at all—was most likely to talk about patients and the job, but even then, I got short, clipped answers.
“True. Glad his wife called when she did. Caught it early.”
Khi gave hard nod.
“Do you…”
“Stop. We’re not doing this. It works just fine if we don’t talk,” Khi ground out. “There’s the house. Let’s get this body and be done with it.”
Throughout the body removal—which turned out to be a simple one—and three more calls during that shift, I stewed over Khi’s refusal to even try to work through our situation.
When we’d ended up relegated to the same room at Aunt Bev’s, I’d accepted it and made it work because we hardly ever saw each other. But now? It was too much. I’d spent over half of my life cowering from my parents and society out of fear of being myself. I wasn’t going back there. If I could overcome the
