Firefighter's Virgin

by Claire Adams

  Ian

  I was both surprised and relieved to see Daisy show up the next morning. After she’d left yesterday, I had wanted to call her, but I knew that it would be better to give her some space.

  “Hi, Daisy,” I said.

  “Can we talk in your office?”

  “Sure, of course.”

  She pushed the door shut behind her. “I’m giving you my notice,” she said. “I’ll work here for another two weeks.”

  I nodded. “Okay. I hate to see you go, but—”

  She shook her head. “Don’t. Just don’t, okay? Don’t tell me how it’s going to pain you so much to see me go, because I know that’s all just a bunch of bullshit. That basically anything that comes out of your mouth is going to be total bullshit.” She rolled her eyes. “I hate to see you go.”

  It did sound trite, her saying it like that. “I just meant that . . . I wish things could have worked out differently.”

  “You don’t even know what that means,” she said.

  “Yes, I do. I wish that this wasn’t going to end up hurting you. I don’t want to see that.”

  “Well, you sure have a funny way of going about it. Generally, when people don’t want to hurt someone they allegedly care about, they don’t go around acting like they think they’re the greatest person on earth when really they feel the complete opposite.” Her chin trembled a little, but her eyes stayed dry. Which was good, because I didn’t know if I’d be able to handle it if she started crying.

  I had to just turn it off, though. Any feelings that I had for her, any desire, it all just had to go. I had to see her the way I’d seen pretty much every other woman that I’d ever been with: fun to hang around with, but ultimately, dispensable. I couldn’t let myself think that she was anything more than that, because if I did, I wouldn’t be able to let her go.

  “If it’s going to be that awful for you, you don’t have to stay the two weeks,” I said. “I don’t want to make things any more difficult for you than they already are.”

  “It doesn’t really matter,” she said. “You’ve already made things completely awful for me—why the hell should you start caring about that now?”

  “I do care, Daisy. I actually care a lot.” I knew I should shut the fuck up, but at the very least, I wanted her to know that I still cared about her.

  But the look on her face got even more pissed off. “You know what?” she said. “I think I will take you up on that offer. I’m not coming back after today—I don’t think I can handle listening to more of the bullshit that is coming out of your mouth.”

  She turned and left before I could say anything else. Though really—what else was there to say?

  Jonathan, though, had plenty to say. He’d come in right as she was leaving. I think she had planned to spend the day working, but after our conversation in my office, it quickly became clear how bad of an idea that would be. She stiffly said good-bye to me, and then gave Jonathan a tight smile and a nod as she made her way out.

  “Thanks for getting me the job here,” she said, “but I don’t think it’s going to work out. Maybe I’ll see you at the gym.”

  “Is everything okay?” he asked.

  “I don’t really feel like talking about it right now. But yeah, everything will be fine.” And then she left. She didn’t bother to turn and look at me, just kept walking until she was out of my sight. I wondered if that would be the last time I’d ever see her.

  “What the hell happened with Daisy?” Jonathan asked.

  “Not now,” I said. “I really don’t feel like getting into it right now.”

  He gave me a sour look. “That’s exactly what she said, too. But I don’t think it’s unreasonable for me to know what’s going on around here. She’s leaving? She quit? So we have to hire someone else?”

  “Call Lynn,” I said. “Her resume’s still on file. See if she’s still available. Hey, I have a question.”

  “What?”

  “Did you know that Seamus McAllister was the one who got Pete to stop kicking my ass? Remember how Pete just stopped all of a sudden? Like he’d lost interest or something?”

  “Yeah,” Jonathan said slowly. “You were finally big enough, and he realized one of these days you were going to fight back.”

  “I should’ve done it a long time ago. He was right—I was a total pussy.” I thought about that meeting with Seamus, agreeing to stop seeing the girl I loved just because he was telling me to. “I still am, actually.”

  Jonathan looked at me closely. “Errr . . . you all right, man?”

  I wanted to punch the fucking wall, but I was afraid if I started, I wouldn’t be able to stop.

  Chapter Thirty

  Daisy

  I didn’t know what my plan B was supposed to be. I hadn’t gotten any call backs from any of the resumes I’d sent out, and now I was officially without a job. I spent the day on as many different jobs sites as I could, sending out my resume, trying to come up with a cover letter that would get me noticed. It was a lot harder than I thought it would be because everything I seemed to write sounded inauthentic or ridiculous.

  I jumped when I heard my phone ring. I looked at it and saw that it was my mother.

  “Hi, Mom,” I said when I picked up.

  “Hello, Daisy. I was just taking a break from my book and I thought I’d give you a call. How are you?”

  “Not great, actually.”

  “Why? What’s the matter?”

  “I quit my job.”

  There was a pause. “Oh. How come?”

  “It just . . . it wasn’t turning out to be the best work environment for me.”

  “I’m glad that you’re self-aware enough to know when it’s time to leave a toxic environment.”

  “Well . . . thanks,” I said, surprised that she wasn’t going to start giving me a hard time.

  “This might be a good time to work on your writing, Daisy,” she said. “I know that you’ve been resisting the idea in the past, but really, that’s what you went to school for, so don’t you think you should put it to some use? There are grants you can apply for. Fellowships. All sorts of programs.”

  “Right, but it takes a lot of time to apply and hear back from those things. And they’re all really competitive. And I haven’t really published anything, so I’d probably get looked over.”

  “With that kind of attitude, you certainly would. Do you have any money saved?”

  “I’ve got a little.”

  “I’m not suggesting that you exhaust your savings, but maybe it would be a good idea to look into some grants, take a little time to work on your writing—perhaps while you’re looking for another job—and see what pans out. I have another colleague who runs a well-known blog, and she’s looking to feature some articles written by younger people, you know, someone like yourself. I told her I’d mention it to you. She knows Carl, too. He said he had a very good interview with you, and that you’re a lovely girl, which of course made me proud to hear.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “He was nice. And very helpful. What does your colleague want the article to be about?”

  “Anything, really. Any relevant topic to someone your age. She’s thinking between eight hundred to fifteen hundred words. And it will pay, too. Honestly, Daisy, you might just want to think about starting a freelance career, and writing articles for people. I’ve read your writing before and I know you’d be very capable of doing that. Plus, you’d be good at meeting deadlines.”

  “Maybe,” I said. There was a certain appeal to that sort of thing, but the writing world seemed like it was highly competitive and hard to break into. “I’m just sending out resumes now, and it’s kind of depressing.”

  “Don’t get too down on yourself. Are you at home?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Maybe you should take your laptop and go to a café. A change of scenery always helps me. Send out a few more resumes, then see if you can get something written for that article. It’d probably be good to get
your mind on something else, too. And if you can’t get it written, that’s fine, but when she mentioned it to me, I immediately thought that it would be something you’d be interested in.”

  “Thanks, Mom,” I said. “I’ll at least give it a shot.”

  And when we got off the phone, I did take her advice. I packed up my laptop and walked a couple blocks away to Café Paris, where I sat at one of the outside tables, under the awning, and drank iced coffee and sent out some more resumes. I also opened another blank document and stared at the screen for a while, trying to come up with an idea of what to write.

  I thought when I graduated from college, I’d have my whole life figured out.

  I stared at the sentence for another minute, reading the words over and over in my head. Then I started to type.

  By the time I finished typing, it was late, and my article was about three times the length that my mother had said it should be. It would need some serious editing, but I left the café feeling productive, like I had done something right. I walked back home, encouraged that maybe things would work out after all.

  There was something happening outside my apartment building; I could see that right as I turned the corner. At first I thought it was a couple of guys just horsing around, maybe they’d had a little too much to drink. But as I got closer, I realized that they weren’t just having fun, and that one of the guys—Noah—was being restrained, by Ben and another guy I assumed was Kevin.

  “Daisy!” Noah yelped when he saw me. There was a little trickle of blood coming out of his left nostril, and Kevin was standing behind him, both Noah’s arms pinned behind his back. His eyes were wide, and for the first time, he looked scared. “Daisy, who are these guys?”

  “We’re the guys who are around to make sure creeps like you don’t get to do whatever fucked up shit is running through their heads,” Ben said. He looked at me. “Hi, Daisy. Looks like it was a good thing that we were out here. We finally caught him trying to get into your building. He actually snuck in when someone was coming out, and was trying to break into your apartment.”

  “I just wanted to leave you those,” Noah said, looking woefully down at the ground where a tattered bouquet of flowers lay. “I was just going to leave them for you on the table and leave.”

  “But he couldn’t pick the lock. So that’s how we found him when we got in—standing at your door, trying to jimmy his way in with a bent paper clip.”

  “How did you get in, though?” I asked Ben.

  The tiniest of smiles appeared on his face. “I picked the lock.” He looked back at Noah. “So. Should we take your ass down to the police station and have them throw you in jail? Bet you didn’t think that’s how your night was going to end.”

  “I wasn’t doing anything illegal!” Noah said, looking truly distraught. “I just wanted to leave those for you—I wasn’t going to stay. I knew you’d know who they were from when you saw them.”

  “Stalking is a criminal offense, you know,” Kevin said. “You feel like spending a couple years behind bars?”

  “I have done nothing wrong!” His voice cracked, and he struggled against Kevin’s grip, but got nowhere, his feet scrambling underneath him. He looked at me, his eyes wide. “Daisy, please. I would never hurt you. You’ve got to know that, don’t you? Have I done anything to harm you?”

  “No, but you haven’t listened to me when I’ve repeatedly told you to leave me alone. When I told you that I wasn’t interested. You just seemed to think if you were persistent enough that I’d eventually give in, which isn’t going to fucking happen! So why shouldn’t I let them take you down to the police station? Why shouldn’t you get locked up for a while?”

  I could see the realization dawning on him slowly, just how much trouble he could be in for these actions of his that he’d originally thought were so innocuous. It was like spilled ink spreading on a linen cloth, the way his expression changed.

  “Hold on one sec,” Ben said to Kevin. “Let me talk to Daisy for a sec.”

  He motioned for me to follow him, and we walked a few paces away.

  “So,” he said. “This asshole has clearly been following you around. We noticed him a few night ago, but he wasn’t really doing much more than just lurking, making it look like he was waiting for someone.”

  “I don’t know if I think he’d actually do anything to hurt me,” I said, “though I do know I have told him dozens—if not more—times to leave me alone, and he just hasn’t gotten the message. And he hasn’t tried to get into my apartment until tonight.”

  “That you know of.”

  “Right—that I know of.”

  “So we could haul his ass down to the station if you wanted. Though if he’s going to deny everything, there’s a good chance he’ll get off with a fine, maybe a little jail time, no more than a year.”

  I glanced back over at them. Noah looked like he’d given up; he was just standing there, arms still pinned behind his back, shoulders slumped, head down. I was starting to feel a little bad for him all of the sudden, which was the last thing I wanted to be feeling for him right now, but I couldn’t help it. If he would just promise to leave me alone now, then I’d be okay with that—that’s all I had wanted to begin with.

  “Say he ended up having to go to jail,” I said, “and he gets out, and he’s even more pissed than before? What if he comes back and tries to kill me or something?”

  “I’d say that’s something that would more likely happen in a movie, but it’s always possible,” Ben said. He leaned toward me. “There have been a few instances in the past where we could’ve taken people down to the police station, but in those cases, too, there probably would’ve ended up being a court hearing, and we’d have to testify, and Ian prefers if we can avoid getting involved with that sort of thing. So we . . . handle things our own way. We could do that now, if you wanted.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Well, in this case, it means we kick his ass—not enough to permanently disable him or anything, but enough to make him realize that if he does this sort of thing again, it’s not going to end well for him. And trust me, Daisy—the message will get through. He’s in way over his head now; he doesn’t actually realize what he’s fucking with here. Some guys are hard and can take a beating and just brush it off. Not him. We won’t even need to hurt him that badly.”

  I nodded slowly. It felt strange to be the one in the position to be making this sort of decision. There was a part of me that wanted to just say to let him go, so long as he promised that he wouldn’t come around anymore. But I’d told him that before and he hadn’t listened, so it seemed like he did need something a little more . . . memorable.

  I followed Ben back over to where Kevin and Noah were standing. “So, Daisy,” Ben said. “You think we should bring him down to the station? And don’t worry—if he tries to deny anything, both Kevin and I will happily testify that he was trying to break into your apartment, and he’ll probably be going away for at a couple years.”

  “I’m thinking more like five,” Kevin said. “Especially if Judge Carter hears the case.”

  “Kevin knows him,” Ben said to Noah. “Judge Carter. And while it’s true that judges try to be impartial, the judge is going to believe Kevin over you. Trust me. So what do you think, Daisy?”

  He was talking loudly, almost in a theatrical voice, and I realized that he wanted to make Noah understand that whatever happened next was solely up to me.

  “I’d like nothing more than to see an asshole like this locked up for a good long time,” Kevin said, playing right along. “A guy like you in Suffolk County Jail? You’ll get to know real fast how it feels to be the one getting preyed upon.”

  Noah had started to cry, tears silently running down the sides of his face, a sniffle escaping him every now and then.

  “I don’t think we’re going to do that,” I said. “I think it’d be better if the two of you took care of it.”

  But instead of looking relieved
, a look of horror exploded across Noah’s face. He thought that meant they were going to take him out back and kill him or something. He started to open his mouth to say something, but no words came out.

  I walked over to him, stopped when I was about an arm’s length away. “Noah,” I said. “They’re not going to kill you. But if you ever come back here again, they will.”

  There was a little alleyway between two buildings near the other end of the block, and they brought him down there. I stood there, not sure what I was waiting for, but it seemed as though a very short amount of time passed when they reappeared again, all three of them walking, Noah no longer being restrained. He was lurching a little, and I could see as they got closer that he was going to have quite the black eye tomorrow, but other than that, he didn’t seem too bad off.

  “Noah has something he’d like to say to you,” Ben said, “and then I’m going to drive him to Dorchester, and he’s going to have to find his own way back to Mission Hill.”

  “I’m sorry, Daisy,” Noah said. “And you have my word that I’ll leave you alone from now on. This is the last that you’ll ever see of me.”

  “Good,” I said. “I hope you mean that.”

  “He means it,” Ben said. He nudged Noah toward his SUV. “All right, champ, why don’t you hop in. You can ride shotgun; Kev will sit in the back.” Ben turned to me. “You want me to walk you inside?”

  “No, I’m fine,” I said. “Thank you though. I . . . I’m not sure what I would’ve done if I got home and he’d been in my apartment.”

  Ben smiled. “Just doing our job. Have a good night.”

  I stood there on the sidewalk and didn’t go in until the SUV disappeared around the block. It felt as though a weight had been lifted off my shoulders; I was pretty sure that I would never see Noah again. I went inside, tossing my purse on the table as I went over to sit on the couch.

  It dawned on me then that Ian hadn’t told Ben and Kevin to stop watching out for me. So even though he was telling me that it was over between us and we couldn’t see each other anymore, he’d left them out there. Didn’t that mean he did in fact still have feelings for me? Or was that just wishful thinking?