Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
T W E N T Y N I N E
The late afternoon California sun was bearing down hard on my head. I could feel the sticky sweat trickling slowly down my neck and back under my t-shirt. I was beginning to feel miserable, mostly because I was hot and slightly hungry, but I also felt horrible due to lack of sleep.
The more the days kept passing without hearing anything back from the board about their final decision about my job, the more stressed and annoyed I got. A terrible combination, in my opinion, because I could barely even stand myself.
"Two weeks, huh?" I said sarcastically, grabbing the hose from the ground to rinse the soap off the window.
Shawn hasn't missed a chance to assign me ridiculous tasks since I started at the 116. Whenever I thought he couldn't find anything more absurd for me to do, he would find a way to do it.
Today the punishment was to clean all the windows from the firehouse in the horrible heatwave we were having in the state. Before today I never realized how many windows this station has until I started cleaning them when the shift started hours ago.
"That is usually how long suffering takes when Shawn targets one of us. You, on the other hand, are different. It's been about what? A month?" Theo stated, flipping one of the cleaning supply buckets before sitting down on it. "What did you even say to him that day? I only caught the last part of your conversation."
"Nothing. We just have history together."
Theo nearly did a spit take. His dark eyes grew wide as he tried to control his coughing after choking back his water. "Wait, he's the firefighter you dated?"
I gave him a disgusted look for even thinking that I ever dated that prick. Theo raised his hands in defense the second he saw my face, holding back a laugh. "Hey, the word gets around quickly here. Men like to gossip more than women."
"Oh, I can see that," I rolled my eyes, tempted to spray him with the hose. "For your information, I rather get torture and have a prolonged and painful death than to date that Cheeto head asshole."
"Cheeto head asshole?" Theo threw his head back and laughed loudly. "Wow, what an insult. At this point, I don't know who is more mature if you or my thirteen-year-old sister."
"Ha, funny," I grabbed the window squeegee from the ground and threw it at him. In a swift move, he effortlessly caught it before it made contact with his head. "Get your ass up; break is over. I'm not cleaning all of this alone."
