Set the Night on Fire: A Bad Boy Firefighter Novel

by Parker, Weston

  “Okay. Whatever. Fine. We fucked.”

  “How was it?”

  “Emily! That’s private.”

  “No, it’s not. I’m not asking for his dick size, or whether or not he’s circumcised. I just want to know if it was any good. Something tells me it would have been really good.”

  I hung my head as heat rose up my cheeks. There was no escaping this now. Might as well get it over with. “Yes. It was really good. Amazing, in fact. He definitely knew what he was doing.”

  Emily nodded. “And?”

  “And what?”

  “That’s it? That’s all I get? ‘It was really good’?”

  “Well. Yeah. What else do you want to know? I thought you said you didn’t want the details.”

  “I don’t. I want the sexy synopsis on the back of the book cover kind of deal. Where did you do it? How did you do it? Did he make you, you know, make your ‘O’ face?”

  “Oh my God,” I breathed, burying my face in my hands.

  Emily pulled my hands down and giggled. “Nobody can hear us. It’s just me.”

  I bit my bottom lip. “Fine.”

  Emily squealed and clapped her hands together.

  “He walked me to my door after dinner, and I made the first move.”

  “You did?”

  “Yeah. I kissed him. And then it just sort of went from there. We made out in my entranceway, and then he carried me to the bedroom, where we both stripped. His body is insane, by the way. Insane. We kissed a little more, and maybe I let him… go down on me.”

  Emily gasped. “Hell yes, you did.”

  “It was pretty great.” I giggled.

  Emily patted my knee. “Good. You deserve a man who’s not afraid to eat you out.”

  “I guess.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “What do you mean? We fucked.”

  “Uh huh. What position?”

  “I thought you said no details, Emily!”

  Emily shrugged. “Don’t play coy now. Tell me.”

  “I rode him.”

  “Cowgirl style?”

  I nodded. “Cowgirl style.”

  Emily blinked. “No wonder he keeps gawking at you every time he comes in here. You probably rocked his world. The poor bastard is going to want more, and you’re not going to let him within a yard of your hoo-ha ever again, will you?”

  I shook my head. “I can’t. We have to work together. It would be a mistake.”

  “No.” Emily stood up, shaking her head. “A mistake would be not giving him another date.”

  “It’s not professional,” I said. “And you know I’m not looking for a guy.”

  “Katie. Stop with that. I never said you had to be looking. But if you find one who makes you happy and who treats you right, you shouldn’t let him go. Not every guy out there is like your dad.”

  I blinked at her. She opened her mouth to say something else—probably sorry—but then she turned around and walked out of the break room, leaving me sitting by myself with a coffee I didn’t want and my new patient report.

  I sighed. She was right. Not all men were like my father, but some of them were. And I’d already wasted a lot of time on assholes like that. I wasn’t interested in falling into a trap with another one.

  But it also wasn’t fair for me to carry my baggage from my old relationship with me so I could put it down on someone else. Derek didn’t deserve that.

  After a little mental pep talk, I walked out into the ER, report in hand, and went to bed fourteen where Mr. Harbour and his son were waiting. Mr. Harbour had friendly brown eyes, a gray beard, and a receding hairline. Well, a receded hairline. He was hanging on to a patch on top, but it would probably be time to shave it all off soon. His son was sitting in the chair beside him and had the same friendly brown eyes, but they were worried. Strained.

  “Hello.” I smiled at both of them. “I’m going to be your nurse this afternoon. My name is Katie. If you need anything, please don’t hesitate to let me know, and I’ll do my best to accommodate you. The ER can be a bit of a circus, but I promise if you haven’t seen me in a while, I haven’t forgotten about you. Some idiot probably just came in with a sawed-off thumb or something, and I’ve rushed to put it on ice.”

  The kid laughed. Good. We were headed in the right direction.

  “If you don’t mind, I’d like to go over the report you filed with the paramedics—”

  “Firemen,” Mr. Harbour corrected me.

  “Yes. Firemen. I just have to make sure that all the information is correct, and then you’ll be ready to see the doctor when he becomes available.”

  Mr. Harbour nodded, and we went through his report together. His son offered up a few more details that Mr. Harbour himself seemed to have forgotten, and I scribbled them down in the side bar while nodding for them to continue. “All right. Very good. I’ll input this into the system. You just sit tight. The doctor shouldn’t be too long.

  “Um, nurse?” the kid asked.

  “Yes?”

  “What do you think is wrong with my dad?”

  “Lucas, don’t worry about it,” his father said. “We’ll wait for the doctor and find out. I’m sure everything is just fine. Forcing the poor girl to speculate would be a waste of her time.”

  I went to the end of Mr. Harbour’s bed. “I don’t mind.”

  They both looked expectantly at me, and I could see the same thing in Mr. Harbour’s eyes that I saw in all of my patients: fear. He didn’t know what was wrong with him. He didn’t know what the diagnosis would be. He didn’t know if he’d be staying here for hours, days, or maybe even more. Neither did his son.

  I slapped on my best nursing school smile. “A lot of the times, symptoms like what you’re having point to a problem that needs fixing.”

  “Like his heart?” Lucas asked.

  I nodded. “Yes. Like his heart. Now I know that sounds really bad and scary, but trust me. We get people in here with the same issues you experienced this morning all the time. Daily, even. It’s very common. If I were to venture a guess, which I shouldn’t because the doctor would be upset, but I will anyway, I suspect you have angina.”

  “Angina?” Lucas asked.

  “Yes. It’s just a fancy word that encompasses a variety of situations where there is decreased blood flow to the heart. It could be a calcium build up, a narrow vein, all sorts of things, really. In some cases, it’s as simple as taking an aspirin a day to prevent something like what happened today from happening again.”

  “And in others?” Lucas asked.

  “In others, it’s blood pressure medication, or a stent, or in some cases heart surgery. I know heart surgery sounds daunting, but your father is a very healthy man. It would be very, very low risk. And the doctor will cover all of this with you. I promise. You’re in very good hands here.”

  “I can tell.” Mr. Harbour smiled. He looked a little less frightened. “So far, everyone has been very kind and accommodating.”

  “I’m happy to hear it,” I said.

  “The firemen were very friendly. Especially the one who rode in the back with us.”

  “Allen?” I asked.

  Mr. Harbour shook his head. “No. What was his name, Lucas?”

  “Derek,” Lucas and I said in unison.

  I nodded. “Yes. Derek is a good one.”

  Mr. Harbour nodded. “Thank you, nurse. Don’t waste any more time here. You have people to tend to, I’m sure. Thank you for easing our minds.”

  “I’ll be back to check on you in a bit,” I said.

  And then I went to get my phone in the break room and texted Derek.

  Hey. I’m sorry. I’d like to talk if you’re willing to. Tomorrow?

  15

  Derek

  There was a single stripe of orange in the sky where it met the ocean on the horizon. The water was dark, and the sky was purple and streaked with dark blue, where stars were starting to appear like pinpricks in the darkness. Sunsets in Searing
had always been unbelievably beautiful.

  I was standing at the end of the pier with my elbows on the railing. The wood was still warm against my skin from the day. I happened to glance over my shoulder as Katie came to the end of the pier. She stopped a few feet from me.

  She was wearing blue jeans and a loose gray T-shirt. Her hair was up, and there wasn’t a single bit of makeup on her beautiful face. She gave me a tight-lipped smile. “Thanks for meeting me.”

  I didn’t say anything as she came up and stood beside me. She copied my stance and let her hands hang in front of her as she leaned over the railing to peer down at the small waves that lapped at the pillars of the pier beneath us. “You know, I’ve lived here my whole life, and I think I’ve only come to the end of this pier three or four times.”

  “Including tonight?” I asked.

  “Including tonight. A little sad, isn’t it?”

  “Not if you’re afraid of water. Or sharks.”

  Katie laughed. “Well, I’m not afraid of either. I just never made time to come out here.” She frowned and looked down at her hands.

  “What’s the matter?” I could sense that something was wrong. She wasn’t her normal self, the version of her that would either call me an asshole or make fun of me. She was quiet and a bit withdrawn.

  “I don’t know how to do this,” she said.

  I looked around. “Do what?”

  “This,” she said, gesturing frantically back and forth between us.

  I arched an eyebrow at her.

  Katie looked up at the night sky as if she were searching for help up there. Then she shook her head and blew out a big breath. Her cheeks puffed out like a puffer fish, and I tried hard not to smile. “I haven’t spent time with a man in a really long time. It feels like I’m in open waters, and I have no idea what I’m doing. All I know is ignoring you all week and wishing it would just go away probably wasn’t the best decision to make.”

  “That sounds to me like you’re saying sorry.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Don’t make me regret it.”

  I grinned. “Sorry. Sometimes I can’t help myself.”

  “I’ve noticed.”

  I straightened up a bit and leaned one elbow on the railing so I could face her. “So, what does this mean? What do you want?”

  Katie turned her gaze back to the water. “I don’t know. All I know is I had a really good time with you the other night, even though it defied all sense of logic. And I know we have to work together, and that makes it complicated.”

  “Well,” I said slowly, “I had a good time too. We can take it slow. I mean, I like you, Katie. I’m willing to go at whatever pace you need.”

  She licked her lips. “Really?”

  I shrugged. “Why not? We can just get to know each other.”

  Katie smiled. “That sounds good to me.”

  “Come on,” I said, tipping my head back down the pier. “Let’s go grab a coffee or something.”

  “Okay.”

  We walked halfway down the pier until we ended up at a little coffee shop called The Pier’s Brew. It was a quaint little coffee shop with incredibly slow service because of the old-fashioned espresso machine they worked with. While we waited for our lattes, we took a table by the window. None of the furniture matched. It was all different colors and materials, and every chair had a multicolored patterned pillow on it. It was very bohemian and cozy.

  When one of the baristas brought out our coffees, Katie and I thanked her. Katie took her first sip and wiped foam from her upper lip with the back of her hand. “So, I probably shouldn’t tell you because of patient confidentiality, but Mr. Harbour thought you were super helpful today.”

  “Why shouldn’t you tell me that?”

  “Technically, I can’t tell you anything a patient told me.”

  I shrugged. “Fair. He was a nice guy. I hope he’s all right.”

  Katie took another sip of her latte. “I think he’s going to need a stent is all.”

  “That’s good to hear.”

  She nodded. “It is.”

  “Come on. Tell me something about you that doesn’t have to do with work.”

  “Oh. Um. I don’t know.”

  She was staring down into her coffee cup. I could see the wheels turning as she tried to decide something to tell me. I straightened up a bit in my chair. “Here, I’ll go first. I ride a motorcycle.”

  “That doesn’t count,” she said. And then she was smiling. It was a big, genuine, bright smile.

  “Sure, it does.”

  “No, it doesn’t. I thought you meant something big. Something more important than riding a motorcycle.”

  “Like what?” I pushed.

  “Like,” she said slowly, pressing a finger to her chin thoughtfully. “Like I haven’t been able to eat a cheeseburger since I was sixteen and got terrible food poisoning from one.”

  I laughed. “Was that supposed to be deep?”

  She shrugged. “It’s better than ‘I ride a motorcycle’.”

  Chuckling, I said, “Okay, okay. I used to be deathly afraid of heights.”

  “Used to be?”

  “Yeah. Sort of had to get over it when I joined the academy. Training forced me to get over it pretty quickly. I’m still not a fan of insane heights, but I can handle it way better than I used to.”

  “How did you handle it before?” Her eyes sparkled deviously.

  “I didn’t handle it. I’d cling to something immovable. Like a wall.”

  Katie snorted and clapped her hand over her mouth. “I shouldn’t laugh. That’s rude. But it’s a pretty funny visual to picture you clinging to a wall for dear life somewhere up high. Like a rooftop?”

  “Yeah. I couldn’t help it. Also, it was a long time ago. When I was under twenty.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Tell me something else.”

  Katie smirked. “I’ve never been on a motorcycle before.”

  I took three big mouthfuls of coffee. “Drink up, buttercup. We’re going to fix that right now.”

  We both drank our coffees and probably scalded our mouths, but it didn’t matter. As soon as we were done, we hurried down the pier to the parking lot where my bike was parked. Katie walked around it. “I don’t know anything about bikes, but this one is nice.”

  I chuckled as I plucked my helmet off the handlebars and handed it to her. “Put this on.”

  She did as I said and pulled the helmet on. I helped her get the strap done up and flipped the visor open for her. “What are you going to wear?” she asked.

  “I’ll be fine. We’ll just go for a quick ride. Ten minutes, tops.”

  “Okay.” I could tell she was smiling from how her eyes crinkled at the corners.

  I got on the bike first and told her to climb up after me. She swung her leg over and wrapped her arms around me. “Is this okay?”

  “Yeah. You can hold onto my waist or my belt loops.”

  “Your belt loops? Are you insane?”

  I laughed. “Once you do this a few times, you might be comfortable enough to do that. Just stay in line with my back when we take corners. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  I started the bike up. I could hear Katie giggling nervously over the roar of the engine as she tightened her grip around my waist. I kicked up the stand and pulled out of the parking lot. She held me tighter.

  It felt good to have her arms around me. Really damn good.

  I didn’t ride the way I usually did. I cornered gently and didn’t lean too far. I didn’t pass any other cars, even the ones going the speed limit or under, and I didn’t open the throttle when traffic lights turned green.

  I took it nice and easy. Slow and steady. Like how Katie and I were going to try to make this work.

  What a weird thing to think about. I’d never wanted to date a woman before. My history was a revolving door of a few girls who didn’t want anything serious either. It had worked for a while.

  Until I met Kat
ie.

  Then that impulse disappeared, and I was left wanting the sexy red-haired nurse.

  When we came to a stop sign, Katie tapped on my shoulder. When she spoke, she was almost yelling so I could hear her through her helmet and the engine. “Go left. And then to Searing Park. The night isn’t over.”

  “What’s there?” I asked over my shoulder.

  “I’m starving!”

  I wasn’t going to argue with a hungry girl, so I took a left and drove straight to Searing Park. It was located in the middle of downtown and was a well-maintained, lush park with gardens packed full of flowers. Second to the pier, the park was where Searing hosted many of its town events, like Sunday markets and job fairs.

  I parked the bike across the street, and Katie hopped off first. She tried to take the helmet off but struggled with the chin strap again, so I helped her get it off. When I pulled it off her head, her hair was a little wild. She fixed it, and we hurried across the street.

  Katie pointed to the other side of the park. “See that food truck?”

  “Yep.”

  “Have you ever eaten there before?”

  “Nope.”

  “Seriously? It’s the best crepe you’ll ever have.”

  “Crepes?” I laughed.

  Katie nodded. “They’re gamechangers. So good. The perfect treat. Just trust me.”

  “All right.” I laughed as she took my hand and pulled me forcefully across the park. The grass was dry and in need of some rain. Hopefully, we’d get some in the next few days.

  When we got to the Crêperie truck, I noticed there were three different sets of tables and chairs set up. They were each covered in a red and white checkered table cloth that matched the decor on the side of the food truck. Little white lights strung from the canopy off the side of the truck lit up the little space.

  It was quite cute, and the exact kind of space I’d like to sit and enjoy more of Katie’s company in.

  It was almost, dare I say, romantic.

  16

  Katie

  Derek was standing beside me with his hands tucked into his pockets. I could feel him looking at me out of the corner of his eye as I read the menu board propped up beside the Crêperie food truck. I was torn between banana and chocolate or strawberry and chocolate. When I told Derek my dilemma, he chuckled at me.