"Aspen, I have to be up in less than an hour. For the love of God, shut the hell up."
I heard what sounded like covers rustling, and then the sound of her getting up and walking away from where I assumed she'd been in bed.
I smiled, thinking about her husband, Drew.
I'd been at the fire department with him for my entire paramedic career, and I actually missed him, even though he was older himself.
"You're one to talk," I said. "Your husband is old."
"He is not," she snapped.
It was an old argument, but one that I loved to rile her up about.
"And anyway, I'm not sleeping with an old man. I'm sleeping with a man older than me, but not by a whole lot. About a few years at most."
I didn't actually know his age, but I assumed he was about thirty-four to thirty-six years old. He didn't look much older than that.
"Hmm," Aspen hummed. "Is there a reason you couldn't tell me this last night when I called?"
"Because I was too busy having my vagina stuffed with a magnificent cock," I drawled.
Aspen gagged.
"Oh, you're one to talk. You never cease in telling me about Drew's magnificent cock. What's so different if I relay the same thing about the man that I'm sleeping with?" I asked, my eyes going to my rearview when I saw a single headlight pop up in it.
"Because I'm the one that is doing the telling … duh."
I turned onto the road that would lead me to my work, and wondered if I had time to stop and get coffee.
After a quick glance at the clock, I realized that I barely even had time to get to work, let alone stop for coffee.
"How's everyone doing?" I asked conversationally.
"Fine," she grumbled. "Drew picked up two forty-eight hour shifts this week, and will be gone Monday, Tuesday, Friday, Saturday."
That sucked.
"That sucks," I echoed my thoughts. "Why is he having to work two doubles?"
"Because PD's out with the flu," she answered hesitantly.
At one time, that would've worried me.
Now, not so much.
Not when I'd just left a hunky piece of man meat, happy and sated in his bed.
"That sucks," I repeated. "Glad I'm not there to catch that."
I was, too. I hated being sick. I was the type of woman that couldn't handle being sick. When I was sick with a cold, I couldn't function. There was something about being sick that really seemed to hit me hard and force me to slow down. It was almost as if my body knew I wouldn't take the time and rest, so it made me do it whether I wanted to do it or not.
Fuck responsibilities.
"Wow."
I started to brake as I pulled into the station, waving at the paramedic I would be working with today.
I hadn't worked with him before, but he was handsome. Though, Sean had already warned me that he was an ass.
I would save my judgement until I knew better, though. I really didn't like to judge before I knew for a fact.
"Wow what?" I asked, reaching into the floorboard for my duffel of clothes that Sean had stopped at my house and allowed me to collect last night.
"I'm just surprised that you're not freakin' out, that's all," she amended. "It's nice to see that you're moving on. I was worried."
I was, too. Not that I would tell my friend that I had been.
There were certain things that she didn't need to know, and I wanted to keep it that way.
"Have you heard anything on my brother?" I asked, changing the subject.
My inadequacies were never a favorite topic of conversation for me.
The other end of the line was silent, and I started to get a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.
"Aspen."
She inhaled swiftly, then blew out the breath.
"He was arrested a few nights ago over a domestic disturbance with his former girlfriend."
My eyes closed.
A long time ago, I harbored hopes that my brother and Aspen would get married. Then he had to go and ruin it by cheating on her with his partner, a bitch of a cop that I despised.
Not because she was a bad cop, but because she was a nasty person. One that made my brother a bad person, too.
Danny, although a little selfish at times, wasn't a bad person before he got together with her. I didn't know this man that he'd turned into over the last year, and I hated that that woman had changed him for the worse.
"Why was he arrested?" I asked. "What happened?"
I heard what sounded like Aspen moving even further away from where she'd been previously standing. I then heard a door, likely the back door that led out onto her newly renovated deck, and then she began to speak, this time in a louder voice that I could actually hear.
"Apparently, there had been a big fight going on between the two for half the night before cops were actually called out," she started. "After the cops showed, Officer Slutface McWhorebag – who, I might add, has gotten pretty darn fat – accused Danny of hurting her. She showed the cops bruises and everything."