Second Chances

Chapter 8

A few hours later

Adam's POV

I yawned, struggling to keep my eyes open as I stared at the papers in front of me. I reached for my coffee mug before realizing that it was once again empty. It wasn't even noon, and I'd already been here for over five hours. I had been the first one here, even beating Voight by almost an hour. He had looked surprised to see me but hadn't commented.

I looked down at my coffee mug, which sadly still had not refilled itself. With a sigh, I stood up and headed to the break room. As I was beginning to fix what was probably my sixth cup of coffee for the morning, I heard footsteps behind me. I turned around and saw Kim. My breath caught as the image of her lifeless body from my nightmare replayed in my mind. She closed the door behind her, before walking over and standing a few feet from me. I tried not to stare at her since I was pretty sure she had already caught me doing just that a couple of times this morning, so instead I decided to start talking. Unfortunately, we both had that idea at the same time.

"Adam, I- look we should probably talk."

"Hey, um, so want to come over for dinner tonight?"

We both paused, not sure who should continue. Kim ultimately broke the silence first, leaving me wondering what it was she wanted to talk about.

"Uh, yeah, sure, dinner sounds fine."

"Great. I was thinking I could make fettuccine alfredo but if you want something else I could make that instead-"

"Adam-"

"Well, I can't really make much besides that but we could order something if you want-" I realized I was rambling but I couldn't seem to find a way to stop. Maybe it was delirium from lack of sleep or maybe it was the excessive amount of caffeine flowing through my veins.

"Adam-"

"Or ya know we could go somewhere like a restaurant or something-" Or maybe it was because I couldn't really just say 'I'm so relieved that you're not dead' out of the blue without sounding like a crazy person, so apparently instead I was just rambling like one.

"Adam!"

"Or we could go to a movie. We haven't done that in a while." I turned back to my coffee, hoping that the distraction would put an end to my nervous rambling.

"For the love of- Adam! Just once in your life can you stop being a child and just listen?!"

I dropped my coffee mug, shocked by Kim raising her voice. She looked shocked, too. We stared at each other for a second, and I could have sworn I saw tears in her eyes, but I must have been imagining it. After a second, I hurried to clean up the mess of coffee spreading on the floor, and by the time I looked back up, Kim was already at the door. Just as she was about to open it, Kev walked in. He hesitated for a moment before saying, "Um, we got a lead. Sarge says everyone needs to be in tac gear ready to roll out in ten."

Kim brushed past him, and Kev glanced over at her as she walked away before turning his gaze back to me. "You guys good?"

I started to nod, but I stopped myself. I rubbed a hand across my face and answered truthfully, "I don't know, man."

Kev was about to say something else, but at that moment Voight walked by and told us in no uncertain terms that if we didn't hurry up, we'd be spending next shift on patrol, so that quickly put an end to our conversation.