by Amy Briggs
“Sounds good. Be careful out there.” I waved.
“Always, darlin’!” he called out and disappeared.
I let out a huge sigh that I guess I’d been holding in, when a small older lady next to me gave me a little elbow and said, “Well, that was a handsome bunch, wasn’t it, dear? Makes me want to start a fire.”
I laughed and agreed, “It sure was, ma’am. It sure was.”
I smiled during the rest of my little grocery trip before I got home to meet up with Jess and tell her about my encounter. She’s gonna love this story.
That Vivian is fucking gorgeous. She looked so mortified, which made her that much more adorable.
“Who was that little beauty queen, Jax? Another one of your conquests?” Brian teased me on our way out of the grocery store.
Before I could even answer, Matt jumped in. “That was my realtor. It seems Jax has been talking to her on the sly?” He looked at me out of the corner of his eye with a sneer.
“Ok, hold up. Number one, not a conquest; I’m not a total dirt bag, fellas. Number two, I contacted her to get an appraisal on my house, that’s all. We’re going to discuss it over dinner tomorrow. You know, like civilized human beings? You’ve all heard of going out to dinner.” I was being sarcastic, overly so, and trying to cover up the fact that yes, it was a shady-ass way to ask a girl on a date, but I did it anyway. I had no idea what the hell I was doing. It was the best I could come up with, and she agreed to it, so they could all fuck off.
“Why would you want an appraisal on your house? Are you selling it? Going somewhere?” Brian asked, looking a little concerned.
“No, but I wanted to find out what the property value was.” There was really no good explanation for my bullshit, and I’m pretty sure we all knew it was bullshit.
“Uh huh. I see,” was Matt’s reply. “Well, don’t be messing around with my realtor before my deal is closed, for Christ’s sake. Isabel will fucking kill me. And you for that matter, she knows how. She literally knows like a hundred different ways to kill us,” he said rubbing his chin thoughtfully.
“Jesus, gentlemen, it’s dinner…and a discussion about real estate. Settle yourselves, you hound dogs,” I teased them all.
Scotty, our driver, just chuckled, never chiming in. He was a bit younger than us, kind of quiet, but seriously great at his job and becoming one of us. He hadn’t grown up in the same town as us, so he was relatively new to the fold in terms of longevity, but he’d proven himself time and time again on a scene, so it didn’t matter. The truth was that we could be a little bit of a clique sometimes, and new guys—or girls for that matter—sometimes had trouble fitting in, simply because we’d all known each other for so long.
We piled into the truck, and I pulled my phone out. I decided to text her now. And probably later too. She was on my mind, and thinking about her the past couple of days had kept a lot of the darkness away somehow. Maybe I was getting better, maybe it was her, but the coincidence was certainly there. I sent her a quick text before I put my phone back in my pocket and looked across the truck at Matt, who was giving me the stink eye.
“Oh, settle down, I’m not gonna do anything. It’s just dinner.” I flipped him off and rested my head back against the seat. I was already seriously attracted to Vivian; even the sound of her name was sexy. I couldn’t wait to say it out loud again. It rolled off the tongue. It sounded fancy, like a special treat or something. There it was, my dick started to twitch again, thinking about her, what it would feel like to touch her again for more than a lingering moment. I was going to need to get that shit in check. Dr. Rosen said no sex. I mean, not forever, I hoped, but certainly not right away. I’m supposed to get to know her. My cock certainly wanted to get to know her all right.
When we got back to the station, we piled into the kitchen area to eat our dinner, and I checked my phone. She hadn’t replied yet, and I immediately wondered why. Usually, I wouldn’t care, so I didn’t really know what the difference was, but for some reason I was feeling antsy about it.
I must have made a face, because Scotty nudged me and asked quietly, “Waiting to hear from your girl?”
“Sort of,” I mumbled to him. “I don’t want to discuss it.”
“You’re allowed to dig a chick. Fuck them.” He gave me a smirk and we continued eating. I didn’t say anything back, but I gave him an appreciative nod.
The thing about the firehouse is that yeah, we’re all brothers, and we’re all family, but with that came the ribbing and giving each other a hard time that was usually fun, but not always if you were on the receiving end. I really wasn’t up for getting a hard time about Vivian. I didn’t even know her, and all I wanted to do was try like I was supposed to. Scotty never cared about that kind of thing; he just said and did what he wanted when he wasn’t being quiet. He was a bit younger than the rest of us, and an awesome addition to our team.
We ate and gave each other some shit like usual, however the darkness started to creep into my thoughts. I was doubting Dr. Rosen’s advice, and with that, I also realized I had become the kind of guy I wouldn’t want my sister to date. Letting those feelings in brought me lower, and realizing that I’ve been a douche was frustrating. My “date” with Vivian was supposed to help this, but fuck if I wanted to wait. I knew that this dating shit wasn’t supposed to fix me per se, but since my discussion with the doc, I had been feeling better, more optimistic. I had been becoming a moody dickhead; I needed to get that shit squared away, or at least not let Vivian see it.
We went out after dinner to do some truck checks; testing all the equipment on the trucks to make sure they had fuel and were working properly. Plus, it was fun to play with the stuff we had. Once we had gotten through all of that, a few of us settled on the benches outside. It wasn’t that hot out, and there was a nice breeze.
Matt came over and sat with me, which was completely normal, but of course I was defensive out of the gate and gave him a don’t-give-me-a-hard-time look. Recognizing it immediately, he put his hands in the air. “I’m not gonna give you shit, I promise.”
“Uh huh, sure.” My reply was laced in sarcasm.
“I swear. I did want to ask you about the test, though. Have you talked to Brian yet? I didn’t tell him yet I wasn’t taking it; I was kind of thinking we could talk to him together, you know; we could spring it on him, because he loves surprises so much.” Matt chuckled.
Laughing as well, I said, “Honestly, I hadn’t given it one bit of thought. I’m going to take the test like I said before; I just haven’t done anything about it since we talked last. It’s the next logical career move for me, and the position is vacant since Brian finally got the official promotion to chief. You’re absolutely sure you don’t want it?” Just then, I felt a buzzing in my pocket from my phone, so I pulled it out to check while we talked. It was her.
“Yeah, I’m sure. I’m not a keep-rising kind of guy. I’m a branch-out kind of guy. I am super pumped about this next adventure with Isabel, and it’s not like I’m leaving the department or anything. Hey, are you listening?” he asked.
“Oh shit, yeah, sorry. I just wanted to reply to this text.” I shoved my phone back in my pocket.
“You know, you’ve been really secretive lately. Everything ok?” he asked me.
“Yeah, of course everything’s ok. I’m not being secretive. I just don’t really have much to share most of the time. I’m not that interesting, man, you know this,” I said. In all honesty, that was truly how I felt at the time. I obviously wasn’t telling anyone about my arrangement with the doc, and they all knew I went to Veteran’s Affairs regularly for a variety of things. It was part of my benefits after all, and even if I got the runaround at almost every turn when I was there, the one place I did actually get help was from Dr. Rosen.
“Ok, well, what’s up with you and little Miss Real Estate? She’s pretty, but she’s not your usual type; and since when do you ‘do dinner’? Be honest, is this a date?”
he as
ked just as Jo walked up.
“Who’s got a date?” She smiled as she chimed in, plopping herself down right next to me.
“Now you have to tell. Nobody can lie to Josephine Meadows, soon-to-be Cavanaugh,” Matt said, causing a huge smile to spread across Jo’s face. Her smile was infectious, and I felt myself smiling again right away too.
“Who says I’m changing my name?” she said jokingly. Everyone knew she’d change her last name. Brian was really traditional when it came to that kind of thing, and it was important to him. I heard them arguing about it one night in his office with the door shut. We all generally worked the same shift, and for the most part, Brian and Jo were completely professional; you wouldn’t know they were engaged at all if you didn’t know them. Sure, there was an exchanged glance here and there, but professionalism was important to both of them, and they went out of their way to not make their relationship a thing, unless it was just amongst us friends, or outside of work.
“Oh, please, Jo, everyone knows you’re changing your last name. That way there can be little Cavanaughs running around the firehouse,” I said. I could totally picture a whole brood of little dark-haired babes with light eyes playing on the fire trucks and running around the station. It made me happy to think about that future for them. To see them finally planning this wedding was really cool.
“Oh, lord. We’re a ways off from that, bitches. Now…who’s got a date?” she said in a sing-song manner. “It couldn’t be Matty here, because he’s busy getting put in cuffs every night by Izzy, so it must be you.” She pointed at me.
“Good God, woman, put that finger away. I’ll have you know it’s not a date. Your bestie over here is giving me shit because I asked his realtor, who, yes, is a total fucking fox, to dinner with me so we could talk about real estate. Nothing more, nothing less. He’s just giving me a truckload of bullshit about it, because it seems he thinks that I do not eat with women. So, tell him, we eat together all the time,” I winked at her.
Raising her eyebrow at me skeptically, she replied, “Well, that is true. We do eat together all the time. Sounds to me like Matty is just being a pain in the ass.” She laughed. She totally covered for me. She’s a cool fucking chick. She knew. She’s not an idiot and I was appealing to her sweet spot. Jo was all about love. Once she fell in love, she wanted everyone to be in love; it was both annoying and sweet at the same time. I completely took advantage of that in this conversation to shift the focus from myself.
Rolling his eyes dramatically, Matt said, “Oh, whatever, you two. I call bullshit. But in the meantime, let’s go watch a movie. It’s getting late.”
“Sounds good,” Jo and I both agreed.
I tried to restrain my grin as I felt my phone in my pocket vibrate again.
We had been texting back and forth throughout the evening, of course with me showing Jess just about everything. Immediately after the incident when I ran him down at the grocery store with my cart, he texted me.
You look beautiful today, even when you’re trying to kill me.
I’m so, so, so sorry about that. I really am.
I’m just teasing you, darlin’, except you really are beautiful.
Thank you. That’s very sweet of you to say.
Well it’s the truth ;) What are you doing?
I have a girlfriend over, drinking wine mostly. What about you? Are you working now?
I am. I work until 7am tomorrow. We do 24-hour shifts here.
Oh, wow. That’s a long day. Were you busy?
Not even a little bit. It’s been very slow, but that’ll probably jinx it. lol.
Well, if you do have to save lives tonight, be careful.
I really didn’t know what to say; he was so flattering, and I was terrible at taking a compliment. I also didn’t know that much about firefighters, except for their unbelievable hotness that I’d just come to learn about, and you know, the obvious, that they fight fire.
Oh, I’ll be careful. I have important dinner plans tomorrow.
Haha, ahh yes. I’ll bring my laptop so I can show you some comparable listings to yours to give you an idea of the property value.
You can leave the laptop at home.
Are you sure?
You don’t need the laptop. I promise.
I was starting to think that this was not about real estate at all, and I was one hundred percent ok with it.
“Jess, he told me not to bring the laptop!” I squealed at my friend, who had been sitting two feet away from me on the couch almost the entire time.
“Well, no shit, Viv. Because it’s a date. DUH. Nobody brings laptops on dates; ok, maybe nerds do, but whatever. He’s a hunky fireman. By the way, did you know that his picture is on their department website?” she asked me.
“Uh, what? Is it? Get the hell out of here,” I said.
“Uh, you heard me. That is a goddamn good-looking bunch, Viv. Like a superior race of hotness. I’m about to touch myself, not even kidding.” She laughed.
“Oh my God, shut up. He’s really good-looking, right?” She showed me her phone, where every firefighter belonging to District 23 was listed with a picture and their rank. Ooh, he is a Lieutenant. That sounds important.
“Yeah, he is. Your babies would be little super blond, blue-eyed smarty-pants heroes. It would be amazing.” She loved teasing me. I couldn’t stop laughing. She was such a nut.
“Stop it! There’re no babies. There’s just talking and dinner.” I was hoping for more than that, like making out would be nice. Just the idea of his touch had my libido going into overdrive.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever. So, what are you going to wear? Besides ridiculously high heels? A dress?”
“I don’t know. To tell you the truth, I’m not sure exactly. Let’s go to my room and go through some stuff. I don’t have any idea where we’re going, but yes, I’m definitely going to wear heels. If you saw how tall he is in person, you’d wear heels too.”
“Alright, let’s find you something that says, ‘I’m conservative and a smart, independent woman, but you can grope me on the first date, because it’s been a while. But I’m not going home with you tonight. You’ll have to take me out a couple more times’,” she said.
My eyes got huge, and I started laughing so hard that I had tears streaming down my face. “Jess! You are so messed up! But also, so right. That’s exactly what I want my outfit to say.” I was squealing with laughter getting the words out.
We ended up doing a fashion show that entailed me trying on almost everything in my closet and modeling it for Jess; we should have had a soundtrack for it. We were like teenagers. I had a moment where I found myself happy, just happy. I couldn’t remember the last time I had felt excited and optimistic like that without the darkness of my brother’s death being just around the bend.
We settled on black skinny jeans and a sparkly tank top. I made a mental note to remember a sweater or something in case it got chilly at night, which it was starting to. We agreed the shoes of choice would be my Louboutins. I mean, every girl deserves a pair the moment she can afford them, and they should be worn often, especially on first dates.
We spent the rest of the evening laughing and drinking wine, and talking about men. It had been such a long time since we had a good old-fashioned slumber party. It was a Thursday night, but neither of us had particularly busy days that Friday, so we stayed up doing our nails and plotting life without any darkness encroaching at all.
The next morning, I woke up with butterflies. I felt like I was on a countdown to the date, and I was super fussy. Jax and I had been texting, but then he’d stopped abruptly. I assumed he had fallen asleep or something, but really had no idea. Jess walked into the kitchen rubbing her eyes.
“You hear back from lover boy?” she asked.
“Nah, but for all I know he was out saving lives all night, ya know, being a hero,” I joked.
“Probably. Or he fell asleep in a chair with his phone in his pocket. That seems pretty likely if you
ask me. You’ll hear from him, though,” she replied.
Just then my phone vibrated on the counter with an incoming message, immediately bringing a smile to my face. I needed to tone that down; I was getting nervous I was a little too excited. It was a “sort of” first date, but nobody ever said it was a date. Whatever, I checked the message and it said,
Good morning, beautiful, sorry I crashed with my phone literally still in my hand last night.
Well, how cute was that?
Jess made herself some coffee and started getting her things together to go home before work. It was early, around 6:30am.
No worries, my girlfriend was here hanging out and we ended up crashing too. Hope you slept well.
Better than I have in a while. I’m looking forward to seeing you tonight.
Me too. 7 still good?
I asked.
Sure is. I’d like to pick you up, is that cool?
That would be great.
I sent him a little smiley face, because I’m a total dork.
I’m about to get off work and have some stuff to do, but I’ll text you when I’m on my way, ok?
Sounds good. I’m off to work soon myself.
Have a really good day. See you soon ;)
I felt little butterflies. I decided to not ruin it by overthinking it any more. Everyone loves a flirtation, and especially a flirtation with an insanely hot firefighter.
