Page 5 of Give Me a Reason

He’d believed they had the kind of love that would persevere and grow through all odds—the forever kind of love. She had to have known that, too, but she still let her imo persuade her to leave him to pursue an acting career in Korea. Her uncertainty had sullied the verity of their love.

Did Anne still believe she made the right choice in breaking up with him?

Did she still believe he was unworthy of her like her imo thought?

That he was a dumb jock without a promising future?

Was being a fire captain too blue-collar for the likes of her bougie family?

The memory of the betrayal, heartbreak, and humiliation made Frederick’s insides wither like a fragile leaf under the scorching beam of a magnifying glass.

“Fuck,” he spat, shoving his sweat-soaked hair out of his eyes.

It had taken him a long time—years of therapy—to stop blaming himself. To stop hating himself for not being enough. It was Anne and her imo who were not enough. Their arrogance, vanity, and delusions of superiority were their shortcomings.

It didn’t matter what they thought of him. He was enough. Even his jarring run-in with Anne couldn’t shake his faith in that fundamental truth. He would never allow anyone to make him doubt that again.

Frederick shut the treadmill off and stood bent over at the waist, panting and dripping sweat on the belt.

But he wasn’t being fair. Anne wasn’t like her imo.

He would never have fallen in love with someone like that.

She just hadn’t loved him enough to stand up for him.

He stepped down from the treadmill, pulling his T-shirt up to wipe the salt out of his eyes.

The only thing that mattered about that sad little story was that it was all ancient history.

It was safe to shove all his feelings away without going through the effort of properly processing them.

He wasn’t going to run into Anne again. There was no point engaging in painful self-reflection for the sake of his future self.

Besides, he hardly had any feelings to process.

“Right,” he scoffed under his breath. He could almost see his therapist’s slow, disappointed headshake. “Whatever.”

Deliberately regressing from years of progress might not be the wisest move, but it was the only move Frederick could make right now.

He was overwhelmed, overcome, over… everything, so he needed to give himself some grace.

If that looked like working out until he couldn’t see straight to avoid thinking about Anne, then he needed to give himself permission to do just that.

Frederick wrapped up his workout an hour later—heeding his lieutenant’s suggestion to stop killing himself —and returned to his office.

Then he trudged into his bedroom and its adjacent bathroom to take a long—he checked his watch—a short hot shower before he hit the stack of reports hard in preparation for his meeting with Pete.

His legs felt a bit unsteady after all the weighted squats, but the workout did him good.

By the time he came out of the shower and got into his uniform—a pair of cargo pants and a department T-shirt with his name and rank embroidered on his right chest—he’d put the whole incident behind him.

Completely and totally. What incident? He couldn’t say what that incident might be, because he’d already forgotten it.

So it made no sense he had to read the same report three times before he understood the gist of it.

It had to be because of the ruckus outside.

He couldn’t have asked for a better crew, but they were a rowdy bunch.

Grumbling under his breath, he shut his office door and tackled the last report with his head bent studiously over his desk.

Frederick looked up when there was a knock at his door. “Come in.”

“Why did you have your door closed?” Pete walked in with a perplexed frown.

“I couldn’t concentrate because of that noisy bunch,” Frederick mumbled.

“That never bothered you before.” His friend sat on one of the guest chairs and crossed a slender ankle over his knee. Some people might mistake his slight stature as being scrawny, but the battalion chief was all corded muscles and 5 percent body fat. “And they aren’t even being loud.”

“They were loud .” Frederick glared at him. “So I closed the door.”

“All right, all right.” Pete held up his hands and muttered through the side of his mouth, “Someone’s got their undies in a knot today.”

“Maybe it’s because someone pushed this meeting back at the last minute,” Frederick said pointedly. It was true. If he’d gone to Bethany’s class in the afternoon as originally planned, he might not have run into Anne.

What had she been doing there anyway? Was she back in the US permanently? What about her acting career? Did something happen to her? He gritted his teeth together. He did not care. She could do whatever the hell she wanted, where she wanted, as long as she stayed away from him.

“Take it up with Deputy Nolan.” Pete shrugged. “He’s the one who moved up the administrative meeting, making everyone shuffle their schedules around.”

“Power-tripping pencil pusher,” Frederick bit out.

“Hey, you’re not being fair to him. He’s not as bad as that.” His friend frowned. “Seriously, what is going on with you?”

Frederick planted his elbows on his desk and dropped his head into his hands. “I saw Anne today.”

“Anne? The Anne? Anne Lee ?” Pete’s voice rose exponentially higher with every iteration of her name.

But he caught himself and overcorrected his volume, so Frederick could hardly hear his next questions.

“What do you mean you saw her? You finally caved and watched one of her K-dramas? I hope you watched Tears in Heaven because Katie and I firmly believe that was her best role. An orphaned art student with a heart of gold whose terminal illness—”

“No.” Frederick cut him off, burrowing deeper into his hands. “ No. You know I don’t watch any of her shows.”

That was an understatement. He assiduously avoided all Korean and Korean American media in case he accidentally saw or read anything about Anne.

With the rise in popularity of Korean pop culture this past decade, it was not an easy feat, but he’d managed somehow…

until now. Who the hell would’ve thought all that effort would be wasted over a chance encounter?

Pete reached across the desk and tugged Frederick’s hands off his face. “Explain.”

“I ran into her this morning.” He sighed, slumping in his chair. “At an elementary school in Palos Verdes, of all places.”

“You met Anne Lee in person?” His friend clapped a hand over his mouth, looking sheepish.

Pete and his wife were both Taiwanese American, but they’d been huge fans of K-dramas even before they became mainstream. And Anne Lee was a big star in Korea by all accounts. Frederick couldn’t blame his friend for his fanboy moment.

“I mean, wow. Rough deal, man,” Pete said in a suitably concerned voice. “When did she come back to the States?”

“Hell if I know.” Frederick stared unseeingly at the ceiling. He knew nothing about her life, and he intended to keep it that way.

Pete knocked on his desk until Frederick met his eyes. “Are you okay?”

“Of course.” Frederick sat up straight and pulled his shoulders back. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

His friend arched an eloquent eyebrow calling his bullshit.

Frederick gave him a bad-tempered grunt and turned his head away.

He didn’t meet Pete until he left Wall Street and joined the fire department six years ago.

They were the same age, but Pete was already a driver operator, having started a couple of years before he had.

They grew close working in the same shift for years, rising in ranks together, until Pete became the battalion chief last year.

Now they didn’t spend every waking hour together, since Pete had to supervise multiple fire stations as the battalion chief, but they still saw each other almost every day. In short, his best friend knew him all too well.

“Fine.” Frederick finally caved. “It was unexpected, and I was a little unsettled, but I’m over it. It’s behind me. Okay? Okay. Let’s get on with the meeting, Chief.”

It looked for a moment as though his friend would argue, but he went along with Frederick’s obvious attempt to change the subject. “Very well, Captain. How is Sandy settling in? I don’t see all the nuances on my visits. Have there been any issues that I might’ve missed?”

“With the rookie? Nah.” Frederick rubbed his jaw. “She’s smart, hardworking, and strong. And she doesn’t take any bullshit from the rest of the guys. All in all, she’s a great addition to our team. We’re lucky to have her.”

“Good. I’m glad to hear that.” Pete pointed his chin at the stack of documents on Frederick’s desk. “Are there any incident reports you want to give me a heads-up on?”

“C Shift switched out our sugar with salt earlier this week.” Frederick coughed into his fist, holding back a laugh. “But I can’t blame them since my crew added a bottle of apple cider vinegar into their iced tea pitcher last week.”

Pete chuckled. “Just make sure to keep things friendly, Captain.”

“Always, Chief.” Frederick nodded. “They’re all good people. No hard feelings on either side.”

And he had no hard feelings toward Anne. None whatsoever. In fact, he wished her all the best… as long as she stayed the fuck out of his life.