The women he went out with were fuss-free, had no problems with casual sex, and didn’t expect him to make breakfast when he said goodbye in the morning. At least that’s how they were supposed to be. They shouldn’t be bitches, tie him to the bed, or have a bigger mouth than he did.
It was that simple.
“Can you promise me Father MacCallahan won’t show me another video of another sexual lapse of yours in the future?” His mom demanded, making sure he got his attention by putting another slice of meat loaf on his plate. She gave him a look that demanded an affirmative answer, too.
Ryan stared at his plate for a second and then gave his mother a melting smile, the kind he’d used to wheedle pocket money from her when he was a kid. “No need to worry, Mom. I can promise I’m not going to let another woman tie me to the bed any time soon.”
Heath cleared his throat and reached across the table to grab the salt shaker. “I take you at your word, Ryan. You were close to traumatizing my new recruit.”
Ryan hadn’t gotten the impression that his nakedness had traumatized Jordan Esposito. At least, he’d never met a woman who could have stood as calmly next to a cuffed, naked man and then cut through the handcuffs with a bolt cutter. She had appeared so nonchalant about it, as if she did stuff like that all the time. She’d also turned a deaf ear on his attempts at flirting and had breezed out of his bedroom with a cocky smile on her lips.
“Naw, your new recruit didn’t seem traumatized at all. Other than Kayleigh, I’ve never seen a woman with such a big mouth.”
“If that’s the case, I like her already,” Kayleigh said, her mouth full.
“Your new recruit is a woman?” Ellen Fitzpatrick blinked in surprise and leaned forward. “Have you ever had a woman on your squad before, Heath?”
“Nope.” Heath had gone to the academy fresh out of high school and, thus, had been heading his own squad for a few years already. He shrugged and glanced around the table. “Esposito is the first woman, and she’s doing a good job. Some of the guys aren’t sure how to treat her yet, but that’ll sort itself out. The boys from the technical squad are a little more skeptical, but I’m not worried. She’s rather tough.”
“Esposito?” Ellen knit her brows. “You’re calling her by her last name? Don’t you think that’s a little … rude?”
Her oldest son grinned cheerfully. “Even Dad called me Fitzpatrick on duty, Mom. You know what it’s like on the job.”
“Still.” She shook her head and then decreed with her usual motherly authority, “I want you to be considerate and extra nice to the girl, Heath. A woman in such a male environment, she needs all the friendliness she can get.”
“I can take care of that, Heath,” Ryan chimed in, his cocky grin firmly in place again. “I’m going to be extremely nice and make sure she feels right at home at the station.”
His brother threw an ironic glance across the table. “And how do you intend to pull that one off, baby brother?” he asked, sounding mildly curious. “You’re a cop with no business hanging out at the fire department.”
“Oh?” Ryan waved a dismissive hand in front of his face. “You forget I spent half my childhood in that department. Maybe I’ll start dropping by more often again …”
“If you’re planning on trying to get into my recruit’s pants, I should warn you. You saw how she wields a bolt cutter, didn’t you? Wouldn’t it be a shame if she fixed you and you could no longer screw half of Boston’s female population?”
While his mother sent another prayer to the heavens, Ryan leaned back and watched Kyle and Kayleigh fight over the last piece of meat loaf.
Chapter 4
“Jordan, do you remember my friend Mark?”
Jordan looked up from her turkey breast and met her father’s gaze across the round, polished dinner table. Her dad sat across from her and had been dissecting his baked potato like a vascular surgeon for several minutes now. He was the glutton of the family, so if he was picking at his wife’s wonderful food like that, something had to be afoot.
Of course Jordan remembered his old pal Mark, who played cards with her dad once a month and who used to bring her and her brothers chocolate bars when they were little, but she just shrugged and pretended not to know where this was going. Her mom’s fussiness, apparent from the moment Jordan had stepped into her parents’ house, should have been a warning. But now that her dad had mentioned the arson investigator he’d been friends with for over twenty years, she knew what was coming.
A quick sideways glance revealed that her brother Logan was staring at his food in the same ostensibly preoccupied fashion as their mom. He didn’t look back at her.
Just great!
Apparently her family had teamed up again to try to dissuade her from being a firefighter. It wasn’t the first time Jordan had found herself smothered by the allied forces of her parents and her brothers. But after an exhausting week, an utterly superfluous fight with Gary on the phone, and a leaking washer in her apartment, she had been looking forward to a hearty and, above all, peaceful meal with her family. Instead, she was struck with a premonition that they were going to line up like the four horsemen of the apocalypse once she finished her turkey and Jell-O and once again berate her for choosing such a dangerous job.
She was probably just lucky that her brother Luke wasn’t there to join in. Logan and her parents were bad enough. Her ears would be bleeding by the time they were done with her.
She assumed her dad had prepared a lengthy argument, and she didn’t want to spoil his fun, so she continued to act oblivious. “Mark? Which Mark? Oh … you mean your friend with the shopaholic wife?”
“No.” Her father shook his head mechanically. “That’s Harold you’re talking about. And his wife is not a shopping addict—at least that’s what he claims.”
Her mother snorted so loudly you could probably hear her in Canada. “Oh, please, Frank! Of course she’s an addict!”
Her mother was easily sidetracked by gossip, as Jordan observed with great satisfaction. She continued to eat her delicious turkey while watching her dad throw his wife a meaningful look and assume his authoritarian, I’m-a-police-officer tone as he chastised, “Judy!”
But as soon as she sensed an opportunity for gossip, Jordan’s mom seemed to forget the point of the conversation. She leaned forward. “Every single day, some post office or UPS van stops at their place to deliver at least one package,” she said confidentially. “In the beginning, the neighborhood suspected her of having an affair with the mailman, but the poor guy never stayed inside longer than two minutes, so they eventually figured her out.”
“Two minutes?” Logan, who was barely a year older than Jordan, giggled. “The man deserves either our respect or our pity.”
Jordan stabbed a piece of potato with her fork and pointed it at her brother. “At two minutes, I think we should pity the woman in question. But I’m not surprised you don’t think about the woman, you egotistical—”
“If a guy’s any good,” he stated patronizingly, raising his fork as if he meant to duel her, “two minutes is long enough.”
“Oh, and how would you know that? Last time I checked, you hadn’t gone through a sex change, Logan. But if you’re trying to tell us something …” She shrugged one shoulder and stretched her legs under the table. “It’s all in the family. If you wanted to tell Mom and Dad that your boyfriend’s name is Clive and that you’re a mega fan of Barbra Streisand, this would be the perfect opportunity.”
Logan, the happy-go-lucky one in the family, threw his head back and laughed raunchily. Unlike Brad, Luke, and herself, Logan took after their mother, who had Dutch genes, visible in her blond hair and unbelievably blue eyes. Jordan, on the other hand, looked much more like her dad, with her dark hair, olive skin, and brown eyes. His great-grandfather had come from Italy and, according to family lore, meant to emigrate to South America but got on the wrong boat. Though Jordan doubted the veracity of the story, she kept her mouth shut when her dad
got tipsy and told the tale, bragging proudly that his ancestors were among the first Italian immigrants to land in Boston. Jordan understood why he liked to brag about his Italian roots, though; after all, he could order an entire pizza–though just the one kind–in Italian.
Except for her last name and her dark features, Jordan had no connection to her supposed ancestors. She felt as American as Coca-Cola and didn’t think the story about her great-grandfather was worth bragging about. Wasn’t it rather embarrassing to get on the wrong ship?
The only brother who didn’t look the least bit Italian piped up again with a fake dreamy smile. “My partner, Clive, would get along great with your lover, Max, the lady with the crew cut, whose hobby is organizing dogfights.”
She rolled her eyes at Logan’s twisted idea of what a lesbian had to be like and leaned over to smack him on the arm.
“Ouch! What was that for?”
“Your awful discriminatory image of lesbian women!”
“What?” Logan rubbed the spot where she’d socked him. “But it’s fine when you claim all gay men like Barbra Streisand?”
“Sure it is. Because they do,” Jordan insisted, opening the topmost button of her blouse. “There’s an official Barbra Streisand fan club exclusively for gay men—just so you know. Not all lesbian women shave their heads and organize dogfights, though.”
“Then why does Hollywood keep insinuating as much?”
“Insinuating?” she echoed, surprised. “Have you been memorizing big words from the dictionary again in an attempt to impress some new woman? Here’s a tip, Logan: it might be helpful if you don’t ask your date to split the bill next time.”
“Logan,” their mother piped up, “why haven’t I heard about this date?” She shoveled another piece of turkey onto his plate, which he ignored.
Instead, he blushed furiously. “Goddammit, Jordan! It was a misunderstanding … I didn’t even mean it that way. Can’t you talk to Maya and tell her—”
She interrupted her brother with a determined shake of her head. “I orchestrate a date between you and my friend, and what do you do? You embarrass the entire family by telling her you want to split the bill!” She looked at her dad, who was chewing his lower lip and staring at the tablecloth like some paralyzed hamster. “Couldn’t you have taught Logan that this is not the way things are done, Dad?”
“What?”
It was so obvious he wasn’t listening that Jordan wanted to laugh out loud. Instead, she summarized it for him. “Your son went on a date with my friend. At the end of the evening, he seriously asked her whether they could split the restaurant bill. Isn’t that inconceivable?”
Her dad looked at her as if she were speaking a foreign language. He blinked in confusion. “What?”
Jordan sighed and went on to explain once again, sounding like a very patient tutor for slow children. “Okay. Your son Logan went on a date with my friend Maya, and—”
“God, Jordan!” Logan cut her off in exasperation. “You weren’t even there!”
“But I know what Maya told me afterward.” She grinned. “You must have acted like an insecure teenager who’s never made out at the movies before. Maya said she felt like a pedophile!”
Her brother sat up very straight, and his cheeks turned beet-red. She felt a little guilty for teasing him so mercilessly, since she thought he was maybe hopelessly in love with Maya. But the Esposito children had always given each other a rough time, so she couldn’t stop herself.
“A pedophile? Excuse me, but I am one year older than her!”
“But you must have acted like a prepubescent teenager. Maya even asked me if you were a virgin.”
Of course Maya hadn’t actually asked that, but Jordan thought it was hilarious to see her brother’s eyes bug out and his mouth gasp like that of a fish out of water. He turned abruptly to their father. “Dad!” he protested. “Could you tell your daughter—”
“Dear God!” her dad cut him off in a tone that sounded just as upset. “What the devil are you talking about?”
“Frank,” his wife chastised him. “Don’t swear—not on the Lord’s day!”
Jordan hid her grin behind the rim of her glass as her father flinched and her chubby mother gave him a scowling look that she normally reserved for when he criticized her food. It was great to know exactly which buttons to press to elicit the desired reactions in her family.
“Could we please come back to the important subject?” her father asked grumpily, evading his wife’s glaring eyes.
“The important subject?” Jordan blinked, as if wracking her brain for what her father might be talking about.
“Yes! I was talking about my friend Mark, and—”
“Ohhhh,” she interrupted, making a face. “That subject!”
“Jordan.”
Her saccharine smile stuck to her lips like syrup. “Okay, Dad, let’s talk about your friend Harold and his shopaholic wife having an affair with the mailman.”
The grumpy expression on her father’s face didn’t lift for a second. “Harold’s wife does not cheat on him … but that was not the subject!”
Jordan’s tactic had always been playing ignorant—whether she had forgotten her math homework in school or came home after curfew as a teen. So she gave her father a look of confusion and protested, “But, Dad! Mom said she—”
“Jordan!” Her father shook his head with finality. “I wanted to talk about my friend Mark, not about Harold!”
“I’m sorry, Dad.” She threw up her hands as if she couldn’t be bothered. “You just have too many friends to keep track of. Mark, Harold, and so on …”
“Are you bullshitting me?”
She stared into his eyes and cocked her head to one side, crossing her arms in front of her chest. “No offense, Dad,” she said with a sigh, “but when I come home to a suspiciously silent Mom and a Dad who’s lost his appetite, and then you suddenly bring up your friend who happens to be an arson investigator, I don’t need to be a genius to know what’s cooking. So I think you’re the one who’s trying to bullshit me.”
Her dad looked surprised for a moment.
Mom and Logan seemed to hold their breath, as if waiting for the storm that would erupt between the two hotspurs of the family. Both Jordan and her father were notorious for exploding without warning and then taking ages to calm down again. Once Jordan got livid, she was like an angry volcano, and everyone scrambled to give her a wide berth.
But her dad’s tone become placating. “Okay, listen to me for just a moment, Jordan,” he said. “Mark and I were just chatting about you starting work two weeks ago. Since Mark is looking for someone for the arson department, I—”
“Dad,” she cut him off sharply, “I’m not stupid. It’s not a coincidence your friend told you he’s looking for someone to work with him. And in case you’re setting all this up to ask me if I’m interested in this fabulous job offer: No, I’m not interested!”
He frowned. “Jordan, please think about it for a minute!”
“For a minute?” She closed her eyes briefly, took a breath, and opened them again. “Alright, I’ve thought about it for a minute, and much to my everlasting surprise, I’m still not interested.”
Offended but resigned, her father pushed his chair back with a loud creak and threw up his hands. “You’re being unreasonable again!”
“And you’re being awfully tyrannical,” she replied, pushing her chair back as well. They glared at each other. “I’m an adult, and I make my own decisions, Dad. How many more times do we have to have this kind of discussion?”
“That’s what I keep asking myself,” he snapped. “When will you finally see reason?”
“WHEN WILL YOU FINALLY ACCEPT THAT I WORK IN THE FIRE DEPARTMENT?”
“You don’t need to prove anything to anyone!”
“Why do you think you can tell me what to do?”
“At least consider for a moment what you’re doing to your mother!”
“I’m not
doing anything to her; I’m simply doing the job I want to do!”
“Why did you go to college at all then?”
“Why did you think this stupid college degree would keep me from going to the academy afterwards?”
They were a little out of breath, sitting at opposite ends of the table and stabbing each other with their eyes. Silent, they focused on breathing evenly, but their anger was still in the air. Mom and Logan watched quietly, their heads lowered.
“You didn’t even ask what my first few shifts were like,” she accused her dad. She couldn’t hide how much his dismissive behavior hurt her. Because she remembered all too well how her dad had asked a myriad of questions when Brad, Luke, and Logan had worked their first shifts. It had been the sole topic at the dinner table for weeks, but so far, no family member had bothered to ask what Jordan’s new job was like. If she’d been even slightly sensitive, she’d have burst into tears by now.
Instead, those thoughts only fueled her rage, and she pointed an accusing finger at her dad. “Damn it, Dad, I’m a firefighter, and I save lives! You could at least pretend that’s something to be proud of. Would you really think me a better person if I spent all day helping people doctor the books and save on their taxes?”
“This is not about me not being proud of you!” Her dad made a perplexed sound, clicking his tongue. “Of course I’m proud of you! But I don’t want you to—”
“Then why don’t you fucking show it?” she interrupted. “And let me make my own damn decisions?” Under normal circumstances, her mother would have reminded her not to swear. But not now.
Dad pounded his fist on the table. “You are my daughter, Jordan. I can’t just sit back and watch you do this dangerous job.”
All Tied Up (The Boston Five Series #4) Page 4
