Burn Me Anthology

by Shantel Tessier

Dear god. This was a horrible idea. I was standing here with a big ass cake in my arms, and Karen was looking for the badass firefighter room. We were a pair of nuts.

  “Can I help you ladies?”

  We both spun around and were face to face with Shorty.

  “Cal!” Karen shouted.

  I looked him up and down. Shorty fit him better.

  “Karen? What are you doing here?” he asked.

  She hitched her thumb at me. “Brynn got you guys some goodies yesterday, and Abe tipped her too much. She brought over a cake to make up for it.”

  Cal rubbed his stomach. “Now that sounds amazing. We had the last of the cake from yesterday for breakfast.”

  I wrinkled my nose. “For breakfast?” I was all for cake, but I much prefer a donut for breakfast than cake.

  “Yeah. It’s really amazing it made it that long. You want me to go get Abe for you?” Cal motioned up the staircase to the right.

  “No.”

  “Yes,” we both said at the same time.

  Karen glared at me. “Yes, we’d love it if you could get him.”

  Cal jogged up the stairs.

  “That’s totally the badass firefighter lair up there.” She moved to the stairs, and looked up them. “It’s just stairs,” she whispered.

  “What the hell did you think it was going to be?” I hissed. “A stairway to top-less firefighters and Dalmatians?”

  She wiggled her eyebrows. “Now that would definitely be a stairway to heaven.”

  “Do you inhale the overspray while I’m airbrushing? Is that what’s wrong with you? Has it all gone to your brain?”

  She stuck her tongue out and crossed her eyes. “No, I just eat icing by the spoonful.”

  A sugar high. That would explain her kooky behavior.

  “Someone's coming.” She scurried away from the stairs, and stood behind me.

  “What are you doing?” I whispered. I spun to face her, but she grabbed onto my shoulders, and moved whenever I did. “Dammit, Karen. What the hell?” We spun around three times with her basically attached to my shoulders, but I couldn’t see her face to face.

  A low, masculine voice sounded behind us. “Uh, were you ladies looking for me?”

  I stopped spinning, and my eyes bugged up. “Please tell me that isn’t him,” I whispered to Karen.

  “Uh, it’s not him?”

  Yeah, that sounded convincing. Here I was, spinning around like a dog chasing it’s tail with Karen clinging to my back.

  Perfect first impression. Well, second impression.

  “Uh, well…” I stuttered. All thought left my mind and I was wondering what exactly were words, and how I could string them together to make a coherent thought.

  “We were just testing out some new boxes that Brynn got in. It’s so hard to find a sturdy box these days.” Karen steered me around to face green eyes.

  Damn.

  He was sexy.

  I thrusted the box at him. “Cake.” Just call me Brynn the cavewoman. Oh oh ah, here cake. All I needed to do was beat on my chest, and the transformation would be complete.

  “You brought me a cake?”

  He seemed to be ignoring my inner cavewoman. There was a god. “Um, yeah. You paid me way too much yesterday, and I felt bad.”

  He shook his head. “You didn’t have to do this.” He lifted the lid off the cake, and he closed his eyes as he inhaled deeply. “Holy crap.”

  “Is that cake? Fuck you, that is a cake.” It sounded like a herd of elephants were marching down the stars. Shaggy came to a skidding stop next to green eyes, and put his hands on the box. “Cake,” he moaned.

  Green eyes elbowed him in the gut, and motioned to Karen and I. “Guests, you dumbass.”

  Shaggy straightened up, and his jaw dropped when he looked at Karen and I. “Whoa. Today just became a phenomenal day.” A huge grin spread across his lips, and he didn’t take his eyes off Karen. It looked like the feeling was mutual between the two.

  Karen laughed, and elbowed me in the side. “Brynn thought she needed to bring a cake over. I tagged along. I’ve never been in a fire station before.”

  Shaggy cleared his throat. “You want me to give you the two cent tour?”

  Karen batted her eyes, and fluffed her hair. “That would be awesome.” She grabbed the arm he gallantly offered, and wrapped her hand around his bicep. “You can take care of Brynn, right, Abe?”

  “Uh, yeah. You guys take your time.” Karen and Shaggy took off into the large garage and I was left alone with green eyes.

  My idea of bringing Karen along had backfired since she had abandoned her post as my wing woman. I needed to find something to say, and I needed to figure it out now. “So, uh, I wasn’t sure if you were going to be working.” I would have slapped myself on the forehead if he wouldn’t have thought that I was an idiot.

  “I’m in the middle of a four on. Friday at eight am I’m off for three days.”

  “Wow. Four days in a row?”

  “Yeah.

  “Twenty four hours a day?” That sounded insane to me.

  He chuckled. “Yeah. That’s how it goes.”

  While I was at the bakery a lot, it wasn’t like I was saving lives or risking my life with every cake I put in the oven. “Impressive.”

  “Uh, did you want your own tour of the fire house?”

  I looked around. “Um, if you’re not too busy. I don’t want to take you away from something important.”

  He motioned up the stairs. “How about we take this upstairs, and we can start the tour up there. Right now that’s the most important thing I have to do.”

  My cheeks heated at his words. “Well, then I’d love a tour.”

  He moved up the stairs, and my eyes were trained on his tight butt that I wanted to squeeze and see if it was as firm as it looked.

  “Up here is where we do most of our relaxing when we have down time from calls.”

  Concentrate, Brynn. “Um, do you guys have much down time?”

  He shrugged his shoulders and stood at the top of the steps waiting for me. “It really goes in spurts. Some days we’ll get ten calls, and then other days we barely get two.”

  “But less calls is a good thing, right?”

  He smiled. “Yeah, sweetheart. Definitely a good thing.” He motioned to the left. “We’ll go this way first. Here we have the kitchen and living area where you can normally find a few guys.”

  The kitchen was huge. The ceilings were all vaulted opening up the space, and there were several yards of counter space with cabinets beneath them. The oven and stove were twice the size of anything you would see in a house, with a huge hood hung over the stove top. There were two dishwashers, a large sink, and various kitchen appliances littered over the counter tops.

  “Wow. This is amazing.” You know those home shows of people looking to buy a new house, and they tour three or four houses? I love watching them just to see the kitchen. I am a kitchen whore. Big, small, or in between, I love to look at them.

  “Yeah, it’s good for the guys who like to cook?”

  “And that’s not you,” I laughed.

  He shook his head. “Um, yeah. Not me at all. In my thirty-four years of life I’ve discovered I’m not intended to be in the kitchen.”

  “Good thing you have delicious restaurants and bakeries in Mark’s Corners to help you out then.”

  “Right on, sweetheart.” He placed his hand on the small of my back, and guided me through the kitchen and into a dining room that opened up to a large living room that had a pool table, and an air hockey table along with two large sectionals in front of a ginormous TV.

  “I don’t think your TV is big enough…” I turned to look at him. “I still don’t know what your name is.”

  “Abe, sweetheart. You’re Brynn, right?”

  I nodded my head. “Yup, that’s me.”

  His eyes warmed to a dark green, and he smiled down at me. “It suits you.”

  Um, huh? “Thank you?” />
  “It’s as pretty as you are.” He guided me back the way we came to the other side of the stairs.

  “Do you guys have paramedics here?”

  “Yeah? Everything okay?” His voice was filled with concern.

  “I’m good, but I think you must have bumped your head before I got here. You should really get that checked out.”

  He shook his head and chuckled. “Haven’t bumped my head all day. Just call them like I see them.” He swept out his hand. “This is where we sleep.”

  There were fifteen beds spread out in the large room, with three of the beds occupied by sleeping bodies. “It’s like summer camp,” I whispered.

  Abe chuckled, and grabbed my hand. “That’s a good assessment, except no mosquitoes.”

  He pulled me out of the community bedroom, and into the small hallway by the stairs.

  I looked around. “Okay. Now where is the fire pole?”

  “That might be a myth, sweetheart. I’ve never had a fire pole in any of the firehouses I’ve worked in.”

  I pouted out my bottom lip. “Well, that’s a bit disappointing.” Not that I would have actually slid down the thing, but I would have loved to watch Abe do it.

  “Whoa. More cake?”

  “Sounds like the guys found the cake you brought over.”

  I leaned forward and looked into the kitchen. “Well, I did bring it for you guys, so I guess that’s a good thing.”

  “It’ll be gone before morning.”

  “Um, well, I better get going so you can grab a slice before it’s all gone.”

  He tightened his grip on my hand, and leaned into me. “Don’t go yet.”

  I looked up into his mesmerizing green eyes. “Um, I need to get back to the bakery to get everything ready for tomorrow.” Waking up at four am was easier when I knew that everything was ready for me.

  “Well, what are you doing tomorrow night?”

  “Tomorrow?” I squeaked out.

  “Yeah.”

  “Um.” Tomorrow was Friday night, also known as the night I binge watched the latest Netflix series and ate a pint of ice cream. “I tend to stay in.”

  “Well, how about you come out with me? I know of a great little place I’d love to take you to.”

  Erg, me? “I … uh … well.”

  “She’d love to.” Karen stood in the entry to the kitchen with a plate of cake in her hand. “She lives above the bakery. You can pick her up at seven.”

  “Wait, what? How could you-,” I sputtered. Whose side was she on?

  “You okay with that, Brynn?”

  I looked up into his eyes and sighed. Who was I kidding? I should be thanking Karen up and down for jumping in, and saying yes for me. If I had been alone I would have made up some lame excuse and spent Friday night alone like I always do. “Um, that should be fine.”

  He squeezed my hand, and a panty dropping smile spread across his lips. Lord have mercy, this man should be illegal. “I’ll see you tomorrow night, sweetheart.”

  “‘Kay.” Yup, that was the only thing I managed to say. My brain was complete mush just by one touch from Abe.

  “Later, Karen.” Abe walked into the kitchen, and I collapsed against the wall.

  “No time for that right now.” Karen looped her arm through mine, and pulled me down the stairs. “We can swoon over Abe and Blake in the car.”

  “Blake?”

  She bound down the last three steps, and pushed open the door. “Shaggy.”

  “Did we both just get dates?”

  Karen beeped open the locks on her car, and looked over her shoulder at me. “We sure did, and you are not canceling yours.”

  I slid into the car, and looked up at the fire station. As of right now I had no plans to cancel on Abe. I didn’t have his phone number or any way to get in touch with him, so it really wasn’t an option to cancel.

  I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.

  Chapter 4

  Abe

  I knocked.

  And waited.

  Knocked again.

  And waited.

  It was two minutes to seven and I was wondering if Brynn was ever going to open the door. “Brynn, sweetheart?”

  I heard a scuffle behind the door, and the lock on the door finally turned. She pulled open the door, and looked down at the floor. “Hey.”

  You wanna know what I didn’t understand? Women who were drop dead gorgeous and were shy as hell. Brynn was the most beautiful woman I had ever met. “Up here, Brynn.” I reached out, and put a finger under her chin. “Let me see those pretty eyes.”

  She tipped back her head, and tucked her hair behind her ear. “Not as pretty as yours.”

  A smirk spread across my lips. “You think I’m pretty?”

  “Erg, not pretty, but pretty for a man.”

  “You still called me pretty, sweetheart.” She moved to shut the door, and I put my foot out to stop her. “What are you doing?”

  “Starting over. I really can’t go on this date with me calling you pretty.” She looked expectantly at me to move my foot.

  I held up my hands, and stepped back. Odd, but if that's what she wanted, she could have it. I stared at the closed door waiting for her to open it.

  “Knock,” she called through the door.

  I shook my head, and raised my hand to knock. “Kooky.”

  She opened the door and smiled. “Hi, Abe.”

  Okay, she was right, that was much better. “Hey, sweetheart.” I moved in, resting my hand on her waist, and pressed a kiss to the side of her head. “You look beautiful.”

  She blushed under my words, and a light sigh left her lips. “So do you.” She winced, and threw her hands in the air. “Dang it. Now I called you beautiful.” She started to close to door, and I put my arm out.

  “Nope, not again, sweetheart. Sometimes you just gotta take what you’re given, and move on.” I pushed my way into her apartment, and shut the door behind me. She only got one redo. I could accept the fact she had called me beautiful. Funny, but I accepted it. “What’s that smell?”

  Her cheeks heated again. “Uh, well, I was just working on something.”

  My mouth watered at the heavenly smell. “Do I get to be your taste tester?”

  She glanced over her shoulder into the small kitchen. “Uh, it’s not ready yet. I literally just took it out of the oven when you knocked the first time.”

  “What is it?” I had never smelled something so delicious before.

  “Double chocolate bundt cake. Once it cools I plan to put a salted caramel drizzle on it.”

  Sweet heaven above, chocolate and caramel. I ran my fingers through my hair. “Any chance you know when it’s going to be done?”

  She laughed. “About an hour.”

  That was perfect. “You ready for dinner?” If we ate now, we could be back to have cake for dessert.

  “Yeah.” She grabbed her purse, and hitched it over her shoulder.

  I eyed the cake sitting on the counter. “You sure it’ll be okay while we’re gone?”

  She threw her head back and laughed. “You’re concern for the cake is nice, but it’ll be okay by itself. It won’t throw a rager or anything like that.”

  “You sure? Maybe we should bring it with us.” She giggled and I watched.

  Damn, Brynn was beautiful. Her long, brunette hair flowed around her shoulders as her blue eyes lit up. I wasn’t going to be able to keep my hands off of her.

  My hand rested on her hip, and I pulled her close to me. She rested her hand on my chest, and her laughter died. “Abe,” she breathed out.

  “You looked so beautiful, sweetheart, I needed to see it up close.”

  Pink climbed her cheeks, and she ducked her head into my shoulder.

  My hand slid around her waist, and pulled her close. “Don’t be embarrassed, sweetheart.”

  She looked up at me. “I’m not embarrassed, it’s just no one has ever said anything like that to me.”

  Tha
t was going to change as long as I was around.

  ***

  Brynn

  This had never happened before.

  The man barely knew me, and I was in his arms while he told me how beautiful I was.

  All of my past relationships were blah and mediocre. I wasn’t even in a relationship with Abe, and he was already treating me better.

  “You really wanna go out tonight?”

  I blinked slowly. Maybe I was reading this whole thing wrong. “Uh, I guess if you don’t want to go out—”

  He shook his head. “Brynn, I still want to go on a date with you, I just mean do we have to leave, or can we just stay here?”

  Oh. That was good. “Um, I could cook?”

  “Only if you want, or we could order something in.”

  I smiled. “I did hear that was your specialty, but I think I can wrangle something up for us. We just might have to run to the store around the corner for a few things.”

  “I like the sound of that.”

  “Just let me take a peek in the fridge, make a list, and then we can go, yeah?”

  He nodded his head. “Sounds like a good plan, sweetheart.”

  I rummaged through the fridge knowing I had most everything I needed to make spaghetti. All we were going to have to pick up was hamburger, Italian sausage, and garlic. And wine. Lots of wine. I was two seconds away from freaking out about Abe being in my kitchen.

  He was hovering by the bundt cake, watching me.

  “Um, we just need a couple of things. Plus I can grab a loaf of bread from the bakery.”

  “You even make bread? Holy hell, woman.”

  I shrugged. “Um, yeah?”

  “Incredible,” he muttered.

  It really wasn’t. Compared to the bakeries I had worked at in the past, I didn’t make much. I was a one woman bakery with Karen manning the front.

  We made a quick dash to the store with Abe insisting on paying for everything. He carried the bags on the way back, and even held my hand.

  I felt like a blushing school girl when his fingers had intertwined with mine. He led me up the stairs, unpacked the bags, and sat at the kitchen table while I cooked.

  “You really don’t know how to cook?” I leaned against the stove next to the counter, and picked up my wine glass.