Three Alarm Tenant

by Christa Maurice

“Maybe.” Pulling a card he grinned. “Who was Time’s Man of the Year for 1938?”

  “That isn’t the Art and Literature question,” Katherine protested, leaning over his shoulder. The scent of his soap enveloped her. Irish Spring. She should have stuck with her eighteen inches of buffer.

  “No cheating.”

  “I want to see the card.”

  He held up the card so she could see he had indeed read the Art and Literature question.

  “Oh good lord. I don’t know. 1938? Teddy Roosevelt?”

  “Hitler.”

  Katherine flopped on the floor. “You’re killing me.”

  “And for the record, I have not stacked the cards against you either.” He rolled a two and moved onto Science and Nature. “Question please.”

  Sitting up, she pulled a card and laughed. “I should have gotten this one. I can quote Shakespeare in my sleep.”

  “But what’s my question?”

  “What venomous snake is known as the gentleman among snakes?”

  “Boa constrictor?”

  Katherine grinned. Finally, he got one wrong. “Rattlesnake.”

  “I should have known that.” Jack raised one eyebrow.

  “I know. I did.” Katherine landed on roll again twice before settling on Geography. She couldn’t believe she was losing so badly. It reminded her of girls in school who lost to boys they liked so the male in question could feel superior. The way she had with Gary.

  “You have an even chance of getting this one right. Which is colder, the North or South Pole?”

  “There’s a difference? Gee, I’m doing so well. Got a coin I can flip?”

  “Are you always such a sore loser?” Jack asked.

  Katherine paused and looked at him. He had slouched against the couch, watching her with half serious eyes. Sore loser? Maybe a little. More than a little. Why? Was it her lack of one-on-one people skills again? Or couldn’t she concentrate with him sitting beside her as if they hadn’t nearly had sex this morning? “I’m sorry. I guess I’m a little too competitive. But you are killing me.”

  “I am.” He grinned. “But I’m being a sore winner.”

  She growled, smiling. “All right. Which is colder, the North Pole or the South Pole? I guess I’ll say the South Pole. It’s bigger.”

  “You're right.”

  “I am?”

  “That's what is says. It doesn’t say the South Pole is bigger, but I’ll take your word for it.”

  “So I get a wedge?”

  “If I agree to give it to you.”

  The blue wedge balanced temptingly in his palm. What was he trying to do? “If you agree? Now you are being a sore winner.” She reached for it.

  As she stretched, he pulled it away until she found herself with her arm across his chest and her hand planted on the floor too close to his thigh. The heat of his body tangled around her like a net.

  “What are you doing?” she demanded. The awkward pose brought her uncomfortably close. Another couple of inches and she’d have her lips pressed against his. She was too close to remember why that would be bad.

  “I used to drive my sister crazy doing this.”

  “Are you going to give it to me or not?”

  Raising one eyebrow in challenge, he smirked

  Her breathing wanted to run rampant and there were a few other body parts that were up for the race. “Jack, please give me the wedge?” If she waited long enough, he might come to his senses before she lost hers, but how long was going to be long enough? He didn’t move. “No wonder your sister hates you.”

  “Oh, this has nothing to do with why she hates me.” His smirk broke into a full grin. “Aren’t you going to try and get it?”

  Katherine put her hand on his thigh this time and leaned across his lap reaching for his hand which he had drawn further away. Soon she’d be lying across his lap. What was he doing? He came up with the friends idea. Her pulse throbbed through her brain again, disrupting any useful thought patterns. “Please give me the wedge.”

  “Pretty please?”

  She turned her head to look him in the eye. Now he really was too close. “Pretty please?”

  “Of course I will give you the wedge.” He didn’t move to hand over the game piece. For a moment it looked as if he would lean in and kiss her again. She locked eyes with him, willing him to either kiss her or end it. Her chest constricted with anticipation, not sure which she wanted.

  “Buddy.” He put the piece in her hand and helped her up. He stood. “Isn’t it about lunch time?”

  “Lunch?” Katherine repeated. She shook her head. For some reason she couldn’t remember the purpose of lunch. “I don’t know.”

  He walked into the kitchen. “We can finish the game later. You staying for lunch?”

  Katherine looked down at the blue wedge in her hand. It was the piece she wanted. However, it didn’t seem to be the ending she’d hoped for. “I guess so. Do you need help?”

  “No.” His voice sounded a little sharp. She froze and thought she heard him draw a deep breath. “I’ve got everything under control. Spaghetti okay with you? Meat sauce?”

  “Sure. Maybe I should check the towels.” She stood up and hobbled toward the cellar stairs. Her body ached in ways she couldn’t explain. It wasn’t as though they’d been wrestling on the floor.

  Jack met her in the short, dim hall at the top of the stairs. He reached for her and then jammed his hands in his back pockets instead. “Listen, I'm not mad. This friends thing is going to take a little getting used to. It was easier when I thought you were dating somebody else.” Swallowing hard, he started to reach for her again, but dropped his hand to his side.

  The friends thing had to go. It wouldn’t work. It couldn’t work, not with her feeling the way she did about him. “Who did you think I was dating?”

  Jack scuffed the tile with his toe. “Randy.”

  Inappropriate laughter bubbled up and overflowed. He looked so embarrassed. So incredibly, adorably embarrassed.

  “Randy! Are you kidding? What would I be doing dating Randy?”

  Jack flushed. “I didn’t know. I couldn’t figure it out either, but he was around all the time.”

  “Because he was constantly fixing the faucet.” Katherine sagged against the wall, chuckling. “Me and Randy, that’s rich.”

  “It’s a natural assumption. He had keys to your place.”

  “He doesn’t have keys to my apartment,” she said, a chill sweeping over her. Did Randy have keys? Had he somehow made a set while he was working on the house? Had he made a set from Jack’s keys? If he had keys, he could do anything and with his ego he would think she invited him. Katherine had a sudden, horrible vision of herself trying to give a statement to one of Gary’s friends. Would they even believe her? Her stomach knotted.

  “I thought he had keys. Kate, relax. He probably doesn’t.”

  “You haven’t seen him around when I’m not at home, have you?” Her voice sounded too shrill to her ears.

  “Kate.” Jack put his hands on her shoulders. His grip felt strong and sure. His calm flowed into her. “I thought he had keys. I haven’t seen him around. Don’t get freaked out. He was inside when I came to sign the lease, and I made an assumption. And then that one day he showed up and went inside with a gym bag.”

  “That’s what he carries his tools in.” She narrowed her eyes. “You thought he was sleeping with me? What did he say?”

  “Don’t get mad.” Jack put his hands up. “I didn’t have much to go on, and I read into things a little bit. Or more than a little.”

  Katherine swallowed. Randy didn’t have keys to her place and probably hadn't said anything to Jack that he hadn’t said to her. Jack assumed something was going on, Randy fed it. She had to stop assuming the worst. Randy was harmless, and Jack had been jealous. That thought warmed her. Jack jealous. He was still watching her with concern. She raised one eyebrow. “More than a little bit?”

  “A lot, then. A whole lot.�
�� He spun around and headed back to the kitchen. “I feel like I’m in high school again. I should be passing you notes in biology asking if you want to go to the dance.”

  “There is a dance at school in a month. I’m supposed to chaperone.” She put her hands behind her back and crossed her fingers but she wasn’t sure if she hoped he would accept or think she was joking. A high school dance? Why in heaven’s name would he want to go to a high school dance? She didn’t even want to go, she’d just drawn the wrong piece of paper out of the hat at the last teacher’s meeting.

  He stopped at the end of the hall and studied her. “Are you really asking me to a dance?”

  “Yes.” She swallowed hard.

  “Do I have to rent a tux?”

  “It’s not the prom, a suit will do.” The image of Jack wearing a suit came to mind, and she was glad they had never bothered to put a light in the hall because she could feel heat rising on her face which he wouldn’t see in the dark.

  “I’m not on duty, am I?”

  “No.” She wanted to pinch her lips closed. Wouldn’t it have been easier to announce that she had worked out his schedule until summer? She had it coded into her lesson plan book, his duty days and his semi-weekly night out.

  “Okay.” He shrugged. “Sounds like fun. Are you going to check your laundry?” He walked around the corner into the kitchen.

  “My laundry?” How had he missed that?

  He leaned back into the hall. “That was why you were in the hall, wasn’t it?” The kitchen light lit his face, and she could see his amused grin.

  Jerking open the door she ran down the stairs.

  * * * *

  Jack put a pot of water on the stove to boil and started hauling vegetables out of the crisper to add to the sauce, grinning. A high school dance. She had asked him to a high school dance. There was no way she’d planned it, based on the rosy blush on her cheeks, but that didn’t matter. Now that she’d asked he wasn't letting her out of it.

  Even better, she knew his schedule a month in advance. Poker had been very good training for keeping that realization off his face when she let it slip. This being friends wouldn’t last forever with her paying that kind of attention to detail. She’d cave and tell him what the real problem was so he could fix it and spend the rest of his life with her. Until then, there were high school dances.

  From the basement, he heard her yelp so he went to the top of the stairs. “What’s the matter?”

  “How did this happen?” Katherine howled, which didn’t answer the question at all.

  Hurrying down the stairs, scanning the floor for giant furry spiders to rescue her from, he found her holding a tie dyed towel. “What’s the matter?”

  “Look at this.” She shook out the towel and held it up for him to see.

  Pink bath towel with odd blue blotches on it. Maybe not the most beautiful pattern he'd ever seen, but if she liked it… “What’s wrong with it?”

  “It’s got blue marks all over it.” Reaching in the dryer she pulled out a yellow towel with the same odd markings and draped it over the pink one on her arm before reaching in for another pink and blue towel. “I don’t understand how this happened.”

  “My jeans.” Jack cringed. “I threw a pair of jeans in there this morning and forgot all about them. They were, ah, wet.” He coughed. Of course they were wet. He took a shower while wearing them.

  She started pulling towels into his laundry basket. His jeans tumbled out mixed in a wad of pastel and blue towels. “I don’t believe it. One pair of dark blue jeans and all my towels now come in a pretty new design.”

  “Except for the one you left on the upstairs floor.” He stopped, realizing he shouldn’t have been paying that much attention to her towels. But she shouldn’t be paying that much attention to his schedule either.

  She raised one eyebrow at him. “Yes, except for that one towel.”

  “I'm sorry, I forgot all about those jeans. I threw them in there when I left with Archer and didn’t think about them again. I can buy you new towels.” He stepped forward, ducking under the low hanging pipes.

  “It’s okay. They’re still absorbent, even if they look funny. Nobody sees them but me. Especially now that Randy isn’t using my bathroom.” She winked.

  “Hey, it was an obvious assumption.”

  “Oh sure, whatever you say. I thought you were making lunch.” Sneering playfully, she picked up the basket.

  “Well, you were yelling. I came to the rescue. I thought you were being attacked by those big black spiders you claim live down here.”

  “They do.” She walked past him with the basket perched on her hip.

  “I’ve never seen one.”

  “I told you they were fast.”

  At the bottom of the stairs he decided to wait until she was halfway up. Being right behind her at hip level was too much temptation, and he didn’t want to screw this up again right away. Make lunch, play nice and try to figure out what she needed. And get ready to escort her to a dance. He grinned to himself. That, he decided, could be a really fun evening.

  * * * *

  Katherine sprinted into school Monday morning. Even though she’d stayed up late with Jack finishing a second round of Trivial Pursuit, she didn’t feel the least bit tired. They were even now. He’d won one, and she’d won one. Next time, maybe she’d talk him into Monopoly. A huge stack of fliers sat in her mailbox, but she didn’t want to waste time sorting through them all now, so she shoved them in her bag on the way upstairs. All the rooms were closed and dark. She flicked on the lights in her own classroom and hung up her coat. Then she looked out the door to see if Pam had shown up yet. Nope, not yet. Katherine fussed with the attendance sheets and sorted through other memos. A reminder about the dance with a hand written note about her chaperoning. A memo about the next teacher’s meeting when they would be looking for suckers for prom. Depending on how this dance went, Katherine might not dread that. Someone selling a used car. A collection for a wedding gift for one of the science teachers. Katherine looked at Pam’s door again. Still dark and closed. The memos she trashed before starting laying out worksheets for her classes on the side counter.

  Pam’s lights flickered on.

  Katherine ran across the hall, sliding the last two feet to Pam’s desk. “Guess what?”

  “Jack asked you to marry him, and you gave in.”

  Katherine put her hands on her hips.

  Pam turned away to hang up her coat. “What?”

  “Jack is going to come with me to chaperon the dance.” Katherine put her hands behind her back. “He’s off duty that night, and he said it sounded like fun.”

  “He’s never chaperoned a high school dance, has he?”

  “Pam!”

  Pam turned around with her book bag in her hands. “You’re very excited about this for someone who wasn’t going to get mixed up with any more heroes. Did you change your mind?”

  “No. We have an understanding now.”

  “An understanding.” Pam nodded. “And how did this come about?”

  “My faucet broke.” Katherine perched on the edge of Pam’s desk. She knew she was grinning like a school girl, but she hadn’t been able to stop since last night.

  “What does your faucet have to do with this?”

  “Well, my faucet broke yesterday morning. Jack fixed it for me, and then he kissed me, and we had a long talk and decided to be friends.”

  “Whoa. Back up.” Pam closed her closet door and turned to Katherine. “Kissed you?”

  “Who kissed who?” Kitty asked, walking through the door with a cup of coffee cradled in her hands.

  “Jack kissed Katherine,” Pam explained. “What do you mean he kissed you?”

  “The fireman?” Kitty leaned on one of the student desks.

  “Pam, he kissed me, and it was like nothing I experienced in six years with Gary.”

  “Wow.” Kitty sighed. “Does he have any brothers?”

  “A couple hundred
, I’ll venture. Thousands if you go national.” Pam sat down behind her desk. “He’s a firefighter, the definition of brother is a little different for them. And I thought you didn’t want to get involved with that again? Kitty, did you make coffee or what?”

  “I’ll go get the pot.” Kitty set down her cup and darted out of the room.

  “I’m not. I told you, we have an understanding.”

  “Why don’t I believe this is going to hold?” Pam folded her arms. “I seem to remember you complaining about how Gary never did anything with you because he was always out with the guys and how they mattered more than you did. Is the fire department different?”

  “It doesn’t matter.” Katherine could hear herself, but not believe it. She wanted it to not matter. She and Jack could just be friends, but she could remember what his lips felt like on hers, and how he had teased her with the Trivial Pursuit wedge. “I’m free and independent. We’re friends,” she said firmly, as much to remind herself as to tell them.

  Kitty hustled through the door with the coffee pot and two mugs. “What did I miss?”

  “Katherine and Jack are going to the dance a week from Friday. She thinks they can be friends,” Pam said.

  “I thought men hated that,” Kitty said pouring two cups. “The whole ‘let’s be friends’ thing.”

  “He suggested it.” Katherine picked up a coffee cup. Kitty made the worst coffee on Earth, and for some reason everybody on this wing still let her make it.

  “It doesn’t sound kosher to me.” Pam picked up the other cup, sipped from it, made a face and set it down.

  “Why don’t you want to date this guy anyway?” Kitty asked. “This has never made sense to me.”

  “He’s a firefighter. He risks his life by vocation. I don’t know if—” Katherine's voice choked off.

  “You don’t know if you can do that again,” Pam finished.

  “Is it better to have long dull memories or short happy ones?” Kitty asked. “Look at Darlene McConikee. She’s been married to Frank for twenty-five years. Twenty-five boring years of cleaning the garage every spring and going to Atlantic City for two weeks every summer. Their major form of entertainment is chaperoning school dances. I saw her lesson plans once, she’s been using the same lesson plans for the last fifteen years.”