ONE


CHAPTER ONE
CALIFORNIA DREAMIN'

The city was blazing. The heat was blistering. It was the start of the summer in California and Collin was already sweating buckets.

    And even then, Collin's uncle Bobby was more than thrilled to have his nephew sitting in the passenger seat of his truck as they drove down the 405, Collin's suitcases in the bed and the air on full blast. As they drove, Bobby was babbling away about some new recipe he was trying out and tweaking to perfection, hoping that he'll be able to use it at the next family dinner with the 118.

    "I'm sure you remember a few of them, right? From the last time you visited," Bobby said, turning  a corner after the GPS let out an instruction.

    "Sure, but do any of them remember me?" Collin asked.

    "Believe me, anyone with the last name Nash is worth remembering."

    Collin wasn't sure if he wanted to take that to heart, no matter how cocky he may have been about certain things. The week after Evelyn and Collin broke up, Collin seemed to be doing okay and every day seemed to be more or less the same. He got up, went to work, came home, made dinner, and then went to sleep because he couldn't keep his eyes open for another second. He didn't find the time to go out and get a drink, or more so he didn't want to make the time to go out and get a drink. He threw himself into knees' deep worth of work, and distracted himself when he felt like he couldn't stare at his paperwork anymore. 

    It hurt, the breakup, and it stung, but in the long run he found out that most of his life was spent from living with his parents, to living in a dorm, to living with Evelyn after graduating. He didn't spend a lot of time on his own, so he wasn't sure if he really knew what he wanted out of his life. So he said yes to working with his uncle. He was going to move out of his apartment in St. Paul and transfer to fire station 118 in California. He figured it was time, he had been living in St. Paul his entire life, and he was getting tired of the snow. It was time for a change of scenery.

     He was finishing his month out at the station in Minnesota before he turned in his two weeks' notice, finished up the lease, and packed up his life to move out west to sunny Los Angeles. He thanked his lucky stars that he started apartment hunting a few days after he got the call, and he had already secured a place by the time he was ready to finally head out. Now all that was left was to get his car back because he wasn't sure how long he was going to last carpooling with his uncle. And no matter how much Bobby was going to reassure that he was more than happy to carpool with Collin until he got his car out of Minnesota, Collin could tell when Bobby was starting to get a little annoyed and fed up with something so it was only a matter of time before he started harping (which wasn't going to be long, Collin knew that much).

     Bobby helped Collin with his suitcases as they made their way into the apartment complex, pressing the elevator buttons and waiting for the next one to come up.

     "So," Bobby piped up, "are you excited to be working with your old man?"

     "Not as excited as I am to finally be getting out of the Minnesota cold. Man, I was honestly starting to feel kind of miserable living there. No offense."

     Bobby shrugged. "None taken. Clearly since I've been living here for quite awhile."

     "That's true."

     "Hey, how's Evelyn? I haven't seen her in some time. Is she doing okay?"

     Collin lowered his head at the sound of her name, licking his lips before answering. "We, uh, we actually broke up. Last week."

     "Aw, I'm sorry to hear that, kiddo."

      "Yeah. She got this really cool chef's apprenticeship in New York and since I was coming over here to work with you and the rest of the team, it really only made sense to end things. I'm sure we could've made the long distance work somehow, but it was only a matter of time, you know?"

     Bobby shrugged pensively. "Well, you got six years out of it with her. That's gotta count for something."

     Collin could only simply nod in response.

      Moving into his new apartment was a remarkable step up from his last one, considering that the place he shared with Evelyn was equivalent to the size of two shoeboxes. This one was a spacious, loft-style dwelling with an open-concept kitchen and an upper level for his bed, with room for a sofa and a coffee table that he was definitely going to need a trip to Ikea for. But he could worry about furnishing it later since his boxes would be coming soon in the later week. Now, he needed to find out how to make the floor the most comfortable space until he had time to either go mattress shopping or give in to the ads he's been seeing on the internet about having a comfortable mattress shipped to his door. The least he could do at the moment was buy an air mattress and hope for the best. He had another day before his shift officially started at the fire station so he had some time to kill to get his apartment into a semi-livable space before getting a variety of knick knacks to decorate it with.

     Now that Collin was on his own, he essentially had more time to discover things about himself that he didn't know before. This was the first time that he could probably consider himself his own person, without any of the underlying factors like a girlfriend or family member. He looked around the vacant room that was now his own with his hands on his hips, wondering how the hell he was going to set up his new space. His life was full of possibility now, and he couldn't wait to find out what he could do with it. The first thing he did was DoorDash an air mattress and an air pump to go with it because heaven forbid he sleep on the hardwood floor and wake up sore for his first shift.

     To be fair, maybe Collin was a little bit at fault for hyping up his move a little too much. Maybe it was the prospect of living on the golden coast of the sunshine state, where the sun refused to die and the nights were just cool enough to keep him from sleeping in a pool of his own sweat, but now that he was here, in the middle of his bare bones apartment, with nothing but a few suitcases (boxes were coming within the week) and a cheap air pump in his hands, he realized it really wasn't all that and a bag of chips. Not yet, at least. He just got here.

     Next thing on his list was to make sure that he had enough food to last him at least a week so he didn't have to bet on takeout every night, aside from the occasional stint all because he didn't feel like cooking. So, he ordered an Uber.
















AUTHOR'S NOTE  ╱  061424
okay listen i pulled my head out of my ass for this okay ? i have an irrational fear of first chapters and i lowkey thought i was in over my head and biting off more than i could chew but i did ! is the chapter short ? sure, but it could be worse—it could be nonexistent and it would have been if i didn't fight the urge to delete the entire chapter but we're here and i will take any small win i can get !

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