“Sweetheart, if seeing a shrink meant getting ordered to date one of the hottest men in New England, you can bet your ass I’d be having daily sessions. Only you seem to think it’s a fate worse than death.”
“Then I guess that makes me the smart one,” she said before closing herself in her office.
Sitting at her desk, she clicked open her email and started a new message.
To: Grady, Erik
Subject: My panties
Dear Lieutenant Grady…
…
Erik rolled his shoulders and took a fortifying sip of the fire station coffee the men depended on to keep them running just as sure as The Animal—the name of Rescue 2’s rig—ran on diesel. He’d finally finished the mound of paperwork that Dozer had let pile up and then suckered Erik into doing for him. At least that’s what he let Dozer think. Truth was, Erik felt so useless without his job that he was grateful for the chance to sink into the tedious task.
Now that he was done, he planned on getting in a workout with the guys, and hopefully no calls would come in until after he left the station. Any time the tones sounded, it dumped a pound of salt into his suspension wound. Inactive wasn’t a good look on him, and it threatened his sanity to watch his brothers suit up and ride out without him.
Just as he stood from his desk, his office phone rang, the caller ID showing his parents’ number. Erik muttered a curse as he wondered if he should answer or check the voicemail later. He’d been avoiding calls from home, or making them as short and sweet as possible, to prevent his mother from sniffing out what she would consider problems that needed solving. Like him being suspended.
Norma Grady was like a bloodhound when it came to her children. No matter how hard he, his brother, and two sisters tried burying any issues they had growing up, their mother saw right through their bullshit and kept at them until she dug it all up.
Tom Grady, on the other hand, left the digging to his wife and then stepped in afterward to offer unsolicited advice on how to deal with things like a man—even when talking to Erik’s sisters. Force of habit as a former ranger. The only saving grace he and his siblings had was that their mom wasn’t as effective over the phone. Her talent was all in the eyes. They saw everything.
Sending up a silent prayer he could make this quick and painless, Erik punched the speaker button and braced his hands on the desk. “Hey, Mom, how’s it going?”
“Don’t you ‘hey, Mom’ me, Erik Nathanial,” she scolded, her strong Georgian accent warming him despite the chill in her voice. “You should start out by apologizing for not speaking to your mother on a more regular basis. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were dodging me.”
Erik winced. As the youngest, he’d always had a special bond with his mom, and though he hated doing it, he knew how to exploit it when it served him. Justifying his reasons by promising himself that he’d find a way to make it up to her, he let his now nonexistent native accent slip into his speech. “Come on now, Momma, you know you’re the last person I’d ever wanna dodge.” Truth. But wanting didn’t equate to doing. “I’m sorry I’ve been so scarce lately; I’ve just been keeping real busy here, but I plan on coming down for a nice, long visit just as soon as I can get away. I miss you lots, and Pop, too.”
“That’s because you know what’s good for you,” she said, her smile evident in her voice. “Oh, speak of the devil, your father just walked in the door. Let me get him.”
“Actually, I—”
Norma didn’t hear his protest because she was too busy yelling across the house for her husband to pick up the phone in the kitchen. He sighed, knowing there was no way out of the parental tag team conversation about to happen. Raucous chatter echoed in the hall outside his office a few seconds before his crew barged in without so much as a knock.
“Come on, Wolf, let’s go. Time to get in some PT before we hit up the PC,” Smoke said as he leaned against the back wall, then made a show of grabbing his junk, “’cause I got women wantin’ my special gift of TLC.”
“Sounds nice, Edgar Allen Smoke.” Preacher dropped his tall and lanky frame into one of the guest chairs and propped his crossed ankles on the desk, despite the glare of disapproval from Erik. “But I think the acronym you’re looking for is STD.”
Bowie, who’d taken up residence in the other chair, fist-bumped Preacher, and the men laughed and jeered in easy camaraderie for a few seconds before Dozer flung the shit in Erik’s direction. “How ’bout it, Grady? You coming to Phoenix Club tonight or is your dick still broken?”
Erik opened his mouth to retaliate, but his mother beat him to it. Too bad for Dozer, his gravel-rough voice was so distinctive. “Gavin! I’m not sure whether to blast you for your language or the inference that my son’s equipment is faulty.”
Four sets of wide eyes whipped to the phone’s speaker box, and Erik couldn’t keep his laugh at bay. Dozer leveled him with a fuck you glare and matching hand signal as he responded to the woman who’d treated him like one of her own for more than fifteen years. “My apologies, Mrs. Grady. Had I known you were on the line, I would have curbed my tongue.”
“Damn straight, you would have,” she said. “Are all the boys there? It’s been forever since Tom and I’ve heard from y’all.”
“Yes, ma’am, they are.”
As Smoke, Bowie, and Preacher offered hellos to his mother and answered her questions, Erik noticed his cell’s screen light up with an email notification. Seeing the name he’d given her pop up had his face splitting into a wide grin.
Tuning out the others, he quickly swiped into the message, unable to wait a second longer to see what she had to say.
From: Sexy Livvie
Subject: My panties
Dear Lieutenant Grady,
The next time you leave a message with my assistant like the one this morning about my panties, I will “accidentally” dial the wrong extension and leave a voicemail on Chief Marshall’s phone expressing my joy in discovering that you love wearing sexy lingerie every bit as much as I do. Then I’ll sign off by confirming our weekend plans for the Victoria’s Secret shopping spree you suggested.
Respectfully,
O
P.S. I’m reluctantly including my cell number so that I may reclaim my inbox for work purposes. Please use sparingly.
Erik chuckled as he lowered himself into his chair again and opened a new text message. Remnants of the man he was only a few weeks ago tried suppressing the elation swelling in his chest, calling his strong reaction to a mere email from a woman unnatural and dangerous, but it didn’t stop his fingers from flying across the keys as he responded.
Does this mean you’ll finally commit to our first date if it’s a trip to VS? I’m very OK with this plan.
“Erik.”
The booming voice of his father snapped Erik to attention like a drill sergeant to a private. “Yes, sir, I’m here. How are you, Pop?”
“How am I?” The old man grunted. “I get heartburn if I even catch a whiff of acidic foods, my knees seize up at the smallest hint of rain, I can’t shit for a week unless I force muffins that taste like sawdust down my gullet, and yesterday a proctologist got so intimate with my prostate I made him buy it dinner afterward.”
A gasp came through the phone loud enough to hear over Erik and the guys as they practically doubled over in laughter. “Thomas Grady, that’s more information than anyone outside this house needs to know,” his mom scolded. “A simple ‘I’m fine’ would have sufficed.”
“The boy asked a question, Norma, and I answered…”
Erik’s phone vibrated in his hand. Keeping one ear on the conversation, he glanced down at her response.
Your talent for selective “hearing” is astonishing. But yes, we can make that a date, on one condition.
He smirked, anticipating an answer he’d no doubt hold issue with.
Which is?
Anything I try on, so do you.
The image of him wearing a skimpy teddy in
a Victoria’s Secret dressing room for the sheer pleasure of seeing Olivia’s lithe body in the same thing made him laugh out loud at the exact moment the phone conversation experienced a brief lull. Four sets of shrewd eyes nailed him to his seat.
“What’s so funny over there?” Erik’s dad asked. “Did Preacher drop another one of Bowie’s toys on his toe again?”
At that, the entire room howled with laughter, though Preacher was defending himself more than actually laughing. “I didn’t drop it,” he yelled over the others. “Damn thing ricocheted off the target and speared my foot like a fucking kebab.”
Bowie leaned over and smacked the back of Preacher’s head. “Language,” he admonished as a reminder that Norma was still present. “And don’t go blaming my throwing knife for your incompetence, jerkwad.”
In all the commotion, Erik didn’t notice Dozer adjust his position to stand behind his chair. “Sexy Livvie wants to know if you have a deal,” the big man announced.
Erik glanced down just in time to see the text notification on his lock screen before it went dark. He pushed up to his feet and pocketed his phone, making a mental note to change the settings so the actual message didn’t appear for anyone to see.
Norma gasped. “Sexy Livvie? Who is she and what sort of deal are you making? Erik Nathanial, do you have a girlfriend you haven’t told us about?”
The interest and excitement in his mom’s voice registered somewhere in the range of When’s the wedding? and I want more grandbabies. He needed to nip this shit in the bud before she got carried away and posted something on Facebook about his pending engagement.
“Of course not,” Erik said to the speaker box. “Dozer’s just talking out of his a—er, rear. Mom, Pop, we gotta go. There’s a call coming in, but I’ll talk to you soon, all right? Love you guys.”
The men called out their good-byes, but Erik punched the button to disconnect the call before either side got them out completely. He didn’t want to risk one of these jokers suddenly saying it was a false alarm so the conversation could continue. In reality, the alarm didn’t even exist, but it couldn’t be considered an outright lie if it eventually came true. That was his rationalization anyway.
“What’d you do that for? I wanted to tell Norma the good news,” Smoke complained.
Erik folded his arms across his chest and narrowed his gaze. “What good news?”
“That now she has three daughters, since her baby boy seems to have grown a vagina recently.” Erik settled back against the wall while the guys did the usual shtick of obnoxious laughing, pointing, and high-fiving at the expense of one of their own. “Don’t worry, Wolf—I mean, Wolfetta—we’ll always be your brothers, no matter what. Besides, I always wanted a sister.”
Bowie chimed in with, “They’ve probably shared Pinterest beauty tips and a crying jag to the movie Beaches. That right, LT?”
“All of this because I’m talking to a woman? Careful, boys, your skin’s looking a little green.”
“Talking,” Dozer countered. “Your thumbs are showing signs of early arthritis for as much as you’re on that phone ‘talking’ to her.” He’d thrown air quotes around the word talking that time. “Do you force yourself to wait a whole minute before you text her back so you don’t seem too eager? Or are you already at the stage where you’re letting her glimpse ‘the crazy’ and hoping she finds it endearing and romantic?”
Try as he might, Erik couldn’t keep a straight face. They might be assholes, but they were his assholes. Though he smiled—and maybe chuckled a little—at their antics, he balanced it out with a double-fisted middle-finger salute. “All right, all right,” he said, “let’s get the fuck outta here and head to the gym. I’ll show you who the real pussies are in this outfit.”
…
The third week after the awkward office visit, Erik went radio silent. It made Olivia even more anxious than when she’d counted on hearing from him several times a day. If she had a dollar for every time she dialed into her voicemailbox (regardless of if the light was blinking or not), checked her phone notifications, and refreshed her email, she’d have enough cash for a trip to Fiji.
The absence of his silly notes also made her realize how much she’d looked forward to them every day. They brightened her mood, made her smile, and she even laughed out loud in public a few times, causing her to slap a hand over her mouth and flush red with embarrassment.
She’d cursed his persistence at least a dozen times while fighting the urge to answer an email or return a call. In the beginning, all she’d turned down was one hell of an amazing sex partner because that’s the only interaction she’d had with him. But with every message he sent, he revealed something new about himself, until what once was merely a crude drawing of a stick figure turned into a beautifully detailed sketch. And damn it all, she liked what she saw. A lot.
Olivia sighed, frustrated that this man had her so off balance and grateful it was Friday. Tonight she had plans to hang out with Angie, and she couldn’t wait. She hadn’t seen her best friend since before “the night that shall not be named” and desperately needed the girl time.
The train’s brakes screeched and echoed in the tunnel as it pulled into the Park Street Station. Once the doors opened, the Red Line morning commuters spilled into the underground station like water from a dam. Commuters like Alvin the Elf, whose unnaturally pointy ears framed perpetually rosy cheeks that highlighted his ever-ready smile for everyone he passed. Frail and shy Madge the Mouse, who made drawing into oneself an art form and never made eye contact with anything other than the ground between her feet. And the always upbeat Dan the Drummer, who bobbed his head to whatever music pumped from his earbuds while drumming out the beat on his briefcase.
Of course, those weren’t their real names but rather silly monikers she’d given them. Because, for as often as she saw the Red Line patrons—along with those on the Green Line that took her the rest of the way to her office at the Prudential Tower—she only knew as much as she’d observed of their habits while on the train. Still, if she thought of the people in her life as rings that encircled her, with her family in the nearest ring and moving out from there, the people who shared her daily commutes fell after her coworkers but definitely before random strangers.
“Good morning, Jeremiah,” Olivia said to the man behind the counter of the Herald & Globe newsstand. She stopped there every morning on her way to work to grab her first coffee of the day from Old Jeremiah. He was a man of few words, and their quick exchanges never failed to amuse her. He was like a man bound by the laws of Twitter. Not a single thought expressed was longer than 140 characters.
“Miss Jones,” he said with a grin and a dip of his head. “Sure hate to see how troubled those pretty eyes of yours are lately,” he added, his gaze trained on the coffee filling the cardboard cup.
Olivia blinked at the odd statement. “Troubled?”
“Only three kinds of trouble I can think of that would be cause for them clouds.” She opened her mouth to reassure him she was fine, but apparently the old man wasn’t finished. “Family trouble, work trouble”—Jeremiah’s gaze finally locked on Olivia—“or man trouble.”
She laughed nervously and forced herself not to glance around at the herd of people milling in the area to see how many were suddenly curious about her emotional state. “I’m not even sure what to say to that.”
He gave her a wink and set the cup of coffee and a newspaper in front of her. “One black coffee to go.”
“What? I never take my coffee black.”
“Nope.” The man looked off to the right and squinted slightly. “But Trouble does.”
Following his gaze, Olivia realized what the old shopkeeper had been trying to convey. Trouble, indeed.
A rather sizable man holding a to-go cup from Jeremiah’s was heading straight for her, parting the sea of people with his broad shoulders and confident stride. Wearing black athletic shorts and a white army muscle shirt, he looked like a warrior on casua
l day mixing it up with the corporate folk to see how the boring half lived.
The closer he got, the more Olivia’s body sparked to life, as though his proximity controlled the speed in which the blood flowed in her veins and the air filled her lungs. It reacted to him before he was even within reach, and knowing he had that kind of power over her was both unnerving and exhilarating—the latter being the cause of the former.
Erik stopped directly in front of her and pinned her in place with an imposing stare.
And just like that, twin pools of amber had set fire to the walls she’d so carefully erected between them, crumbling them like so much ash. His eyes spoke a truth. That he could have her anytime and anyplace he wanted, that the freedom he’d afforded her thus far was a kindness he didn’t have to give. Because with nothing more than a look—this look—and a gruff command, Olivia would happily give herself over to him.
Her breath caught in her chest and the need to retreat battled with the need to jump his bones where they stood, public audience be damned. Fortunately, she was spared the embarrassment from either “need” winning when his lips curved into a slow smile and rendered her completely immobile. Then he hit her with his deep voice that made everything he said sound like wanton sex dipped in Godiva chocolate.
“Good to see you, Livvie. How’ve you been?” He only waited a beat before turning to Jeremiah and grabbing the black coffee. “Thanks, man. I managed to get that lady’s wallet back to her for you, but it was a close call. She was almost through the turnstiles by the time I caught up with her.”
Finally, her tongue unfroze. “Erik, what are you doing here?”
He lobbed one of his sexy half grins at her. “Buying you coffee on your way in to work. Here, this one’s yours. Cream, two sugars.”
She accepted the cup he’d been holding and simply stared for a few moments, then pulled herself together. “My assistant sneaks you way too much intel, Lieutenant.” Olivia stepped around him and made her way toward the flight of stairs that would take her up to the Green Line platform. Of course, Erik matched her step for step. “So now you’re stalking me, is that it?”
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