City of Smoke // Brian 'Otis' Zvonecek ✔️

20 || MARATHON

One more day. That's it, just one more day until Otis could go to Rory and finally tell her that he loves her. It had taken him the whole day yesterday to talk some sense into himself after the party. To make himself believe that he could be the man Rory truly deserved, but now he was finally ready and all he had to do was make it through today's shift and hopefully by tomorrow afternoon, the two of them would finally be happy.

"Dude, are you coming?" Cruz asked, ducking his head underneath the car door towards Otis, who was staring down at his phone instead of getting out to go to work.

"Yeah, one sec." Otis mumbled in response, his brow furrowed a little as his thumb hovered above his screen, debating whether or not he should send Rory the 'good luck with the marathon' message he'd typed out on his way to the firehouse. He didn't know if she'd want to hear from him today or whether it would distract her or not, but he really wanted to wish her luck as he knew how nervous she was about being in charge.

Glancing out of the corner of his eye, he could see Cruz walking off, clearly not wanting to wait for him this time as they were already running a little late, and so, sucking in a breath as he mustered up the courage, Otis quickly tapped send before he changed his mind. As soon as the message changed from sent to delivered Otis crossed his fingers, praying to himself that he hadn't just thrown Rory into a flustered state over hearing from him so soon after the party.

He hadn't seen her since that night, the night he'd been a coward and left her after they'd shared the briefest kiss in the history of the world. Otis still wished he'd gone further that night and kissed her properly, confessed his love for her as then maybe he'd have been able to give her a better good luck message in person instead of over text, one which could possibly throw her off her game when she saw it. But Rory was good at her job, the best actually, so he knew there'd be no way she'd allow a simple message from him to get to her.

Locking his phone, Otis climbed out of the car, not exactly looking forward to this shift as Rory wouldn't be there at all. He'd miss seeing her, miss being around her but he knew it was probably for the better as he'd only end up distracted by what he was planning to do tomorrow and that would never end well.

As Otis reached the top of the apron, about to enter the firehouse and do the fastest quick change into his uniform, a gentle ping from his phone had him fumble his hand into his pocket. He almost dropped his phone in his haste to see who'd text him and when he saw the message on screen, sitting just below Rory's name and the flower emoji he'd picked out for her, his heart very nearly skipped a beat.

'Thank you :)'

It was only two words, and a smiley face, but it was enough to make Otis's chest flutter furiously, his day better than it had ever been before and it was only 8am. He'd been nervous about his plans for tomorrow, but after reading that message, after actually getting a reply from Rory who he thought wouldn't want to hear from him, he quickly found his nerves begin to diminish as they became overcome with excitement.

As the day went on, things within firehouse fifty-one seemed quiet, almost too quiet without Rory and Sylvie, the two women's presence greatly missed by the others. The atmosphere lacked that certain spark, the one that came from the bright, bubbly personalities of their two paramedics, which is why no one really seemed up to doing much other than lazing around and watching TV.

"I think they're broadcasting the marathon on some channels, we should check it out." Otis said casually, hoping he was hiding the underlying wish he had of seeing Rory's face on TV.

"Why? It's just people running." Mouch protested, moving the remote away from Otis as he tried to reach over and grab hold of it, making him frown a little at his childlike behaviour.