Free The ETA From You to Me by L Zimmerman Page B

stammering uselessly for a second. “I--w h a t.”
     
    “I’ve seen the tapes, Geo. I swear, the sexual tension between you? I’d need a chainsaw to cut through that shit. Now get back to work.”
     
    The line went dead and Grant temporarily wondered how many times a person could go into shock in one day before their brain finally gave up and vegetated itself. He set the phone back in the cradle, absently writing down the time on the dispatch sheet when Billy informed him that he was done with his current run.
     
    He brought up the unlock that was across town, paging Billy back to give it to him. He waited half a second, and then paged again to let him know that Mike and Elliot weren’t going to be working for the rest of the day, and that Clayton was going to be indisposed for the next hour.
     
    With the police on the lookout for Mike, and Clayton getting Elliot settled into his house or apartment or wherever he lived, Grant started to work on autopilot. The second they got a run that Grant knew Billy would never get to in time, he called Jeff up. Halfway through the second ring, another line started to call and he hung up on Jeff to answer.
     
    “John's Towing,” Grant muttered, rubbing a palm down his face and preparing to deal with some sort of angry customer.
     
    “Hungry?” Clayton grunted over the other line.
     
    “Huh?” Grant sat up.
     
    “You heard me, Superman. I asked if you were hungry.”
     
    Startled, and mildly pleased, Grant tripped over his words. “Yeah, kinda. I haven’t eaten today--I was gonna get something from the vend--”
     
    “What do you want?” Clayton didn’t even sound irritated at Grant. Actually, he sounded pretty calm, which was probably more of a shock to Grant than if he were being tased in the nipple or something.
     
    “…. Chinese? Burgers work, too.” Truthfully, Grant was pretty much game for any type of food because hello, food. Food was amazing. Clayton huffed, the sound of a turn signal clicking in the background.
     
    “… what don’t you want.”
     
    That was probably the best question anyone had ever asked him. “Tacos, or fish. Or anything containing onions.”
     
    “Ok.”
     
    "Thanks, oh, and I'm totally Batman, not Superman." Grant smiled to himself, pleased at the half-chuckle from Clayton.
     
    "If it helps you sleep at night," Clayton teased, hanging up before Grant could come up with a retort. Sitting back in his seat, Grant had to stop himself from grinning. What if Clayton was actually trying to seduce Grant through his stomach? It was possible, there was even a slogan all about it. Though, any time someone said it to Grant, he instantly thought of people going into cardiac arrest due to clogged arteries from too much McDonalds.
     
    Grant could see himself going into cardiac arrest due to looking at Clayton’s face for too long. There was such thing as death-by-pining, right?
     
    Shaking his head to try and clear his mind, Grant reached for the phone to dial Jared. The conversation was painful, mostly with Grant apologizing and Jared cursing up a storm. He was only mildly shaken by the time he got off the phone, feeling just a tiny bit of relief that--despite being furious--Jared had agreed to work the shift.
     
    Next on the list was to call Jeff again, since he was the first available driver with a wrecker.
     
    Billy and David were the main flatbed drivers on weekends, while Clayton, Mike, Jeff and Brian drove the wreckers. Grant didn’t really know Brian very well, he was an older man that was on parole and avoided the office like the plague because Grant was a cop’s son. Grant didn’t mind, the guy creeped him out. The only downside was that he made Grant's life harder because Grant couldn’t dispatch him to schools or parks, or generally anywhere that held an abundance of children.
     
    The conversation went exactly how Grant anticipated--with a lot of cursing, being hung up on twice, and some passive aggressive