I could feel the end-of-summer heat rolling off the street, and the air was heavy and humid. Sprinklers chirped in the distance, spitting out clouds of water into the already-damp air. Even further in the distance, I could hear cicadas buzzing rhythmically.
Even with my eyes pressed shut, there was already something that felt so familiar about this place...
“Alright,” Rory said finally. “You can open your eyes.”
I blinked. After keeping my eyes shut for so long, it took several seconds to adjust to seeing again.
First I saw the harsh yellow glare of a street lamp overhead, illuminating millions of fuzzy white dots of moisture that hung in the air like tiny slow-motion raindrops. Then I saw the street, shiny and wet. And then, I saw…
“The park,” I croaked in a raspy choke. I swallowed heavily as my eyes skirted around the old neighborhood park.
Ever since I moved out of my father’s house, I had seen a lot less of this place. When he passed away, I had even less reason to see it. I still drove by on occasion -- when I needed to use the old neighborhood road as a shortcut to get through Hartford -- but I always found myself making a conscious effort to avoid letting my eyes rest on it for too long.
It brought back too many memories. Even after Rory had left, the park had never stopped being our place. Seeing it just reminded me of the mystery I couldn’t solve; of everything that I had lost...
I hadn’t properly seen it in years… but now, I couldn’t look at anything but the park. I blinked several more times as I took it all in, the rusty metal playground covered in chipped paint and fresh graffiti, the bare spots on the ground where the rubber tire mulch had worn away and never been replaced, the swingset that creaked ominously in the wind.
The park that lived in my memory didn’t have the same cracks and pockmarks; in my memory, the park was pristine and perfect.
I knew what was directly behind me, but even as I turned around slowly I found myself catching my breath and feeling a lump lodge itself firmly into the back of my throat.
“My old house,” I said, looking up at the house that I had called ‘home’ for the majority of my life. Now it belonged to someone else; a new family, who did the things my father never did, gave the peeling shutters a fresh coat of paint, fixed the cracks in the driveway, replaced the old wooden windows with fresh, factory-smooth vinyl.
A little pink bicycle was leaning against the garage doors, red mulch lined the driveway, and a stone had been placed in the landscaping that read, ‘WELCOME TO THE JOHNSON HOME.’
I felt a stabbing sensation in my chest. There was something bittersweet about seeing my old house inhabited by a new family. Somehow, it finally looked like a home… but it wasn’t my home.
I turned my attention to my old bedroom window on the second floor. The window was wider now, and the room was hidden behind new white blinds.
“Do you know how many nights I stayed up, just staring through that window and waiting for you to come home?” I said. Rory followed my gaze and blinked up at the window.
“Do you know how many nights I wished that my life in Boston was just one big, bad dream, and I would wake up on the picnic table?”
I glanced up at Rory. He had always stood a solid foot taller than me, but now he seemed to tower over me like a giant. Still, there was a gentleness about him. Underneath all of those tattoos and muscles, I could still see that vulnerable kid I used to know…
I turned back around slowly, facing the park. The picnic table was at the far end of the playground, looking weathered and tired in the yellow sheen of the streetlight.
“Have you ever thought about that night?” I asked. Then, realizing how vague that sounded, I clarified, “I mean… have you ever thought about what you would have done differently?”
“Every fucking day,” Rory said.
I pushed myself forward, crossing the park one step at a time. I heard the soft crunch of Rory’s footsteps following behind me as I made my way towards that picnic table.
The wood felt smooth and dull underneath my fingertips. The surface of the table was carved with names and phone numbers, some more faded than others. I traced the grooves and the woodgrain, as if I could find the secrets of that night engraved somewhere between the pocketknife hearts and initials.
Rory reached my side, then he swung his leg over the bench and climbed up onto the picnic table. He planted his feet on the bench, then patted the empty space next to him. I smiled faintly and took a seat by his side.
My stomach felt like a foil packet of JiffyPop over a campfire, sizzling and popping frantically. I had to remind myself to keep breathing.
Even in his crisp white dress shirt, I could see every bulge and indent of Rory’s frame; every muscle, every tendon and vein. He was inches away from me, and some wild part of me wanted to close the distance between us and see what it felt like to explore his body with my hands. Instead, I pressed my palms together and wedged them safely between my knees.
“You cold?” Rory asked, noticing my strange pose.
“No,” I sniffed quickly.
He smiled, then he shifted slightly closer towards me as he reached into the pocket of his black chinos. He pulled out his iPhone and clicked on the screen, then started to shuffle through his music library.
“Music?” I asked.
“Just setting the mood,” he grinned back. He tapped the screen with his thumb, and The Cure’s ‘Lovesong’ immediately began drifting from the phone’s tinny speakers.
I couldn’t stop the smile from spreading across my face, so I ducked my head down and hid behind a wall of black curls. A breeze shuffled through the park, and I found myself swaying gently to the music.
It’s just like that night, all over again… I realized.
I pinched my eyes shut, focusing on the sound of the music and the feeling of the night time air prickling at my skin. Rory set the phone down on the table behind us. My hands were still wedged between my thighs, but I could feel the vibrations from the speaker’s bass thumping through the wood and echoing into my skin, pulsing deep inside of me like a second heartbeat…
“So what would you do?” I asked, keeping my eyes shut.
“Huh?”
I opened my eyes and stared straight ahead, at the rays of golden lights and the tiny dots of dew in the air.
“If we could do that night over again,” I said. “What would you do differently?”
Rory was perfectly silent next to me. I dipped my chin low and rolled my head to the side, glancing up at him. He was looking directly back down at me. His eyes were dark, conflicted...
“You really want to know?” he whispered.
I nodded, and Rory’s eyes burned a hole straight through me. A shiver wiggled down my spine as the song’s chorus vibrated through the wooden table top. My legs quivered and my hands slipped lower between my thighs, moving underneath the hem of my pencil skirt.
“I would have kissed you,” he said.
I felt my cheeks burn and my mouth slip open, but I forced myself not to look away this time. I kept my eyes locked on his.
I’m not going to let this moment slip away again, I thought. I’m not that shy teenage girl anymore. I have to be brave...
“You should have,” I whispered.
“It wouldn’t have changed anything…”
“I wanted you to.”
“Don’t say that, Des--”
“I still want you to.”
That was all he needed to hear. In a flash Rory reached between us and hooked his knuckle under the bottom of my chin. He tilted my head towards his, and before I had a chance to suck in a breath I felt his lips press into mine.
It was the kind of kiss you read about in books; that lightning bolts and fireworks, bombs exploding, sliding-into-home, insides-turning-into-goop kinda kiss. It was the kiss I had been waiting for all my life… the kiss I had tried to imagine so many times before. But somehow, it was different than I had ever ima
gined it.
I wasn’t expecting his lips to feel so soft… especially when everything else about him was so hard. I didn’t expect him to be so gentle. His breath rushed between my lips and he held his head just slightly back so that I was the one leaning into him, willing him to go deeper; to give me more…
His hands wrapped around my waist, easily encompassing my ribcage between his two palms. I leaned even closer, and I felt a fire ignite between my thighs.
Holy shit, I’m kissing Rory McAlister…
As soon as that realization struck me, the music suddenly cut out on his phone. Robert Smith’s voice was replaced by the sharp wail of a siren, and Rory jerked away from me.
“Shit,” he grunted, glancing down at the phone screen. “It’s the firehouse…”
“You have to go,” I nodded, understanding.
“Des--”
“It’s fine,” I said quickly, trying to collect myself. I readjusted my blouse, smoothing out the creases and wrinkles that had somehow formed under the weight of his hands.
“Really,” I assured him. “I’ll just get an Uber. No big deal.”
“I’m not going to just leave you here…” he looked so conflicted; so… guilty.
“You don’t have a choice,” I nodded at his phone. “Duty calls. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”
I’ll be fine… I repeated the words in my head, over and over, as Rory disappeared into the night.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN | RORY
The alarm was still blaring when I pulled up. I could hear it from the parking lot, and it was even louder when I slipped through the back door and bolted into the vehicle bay. The wail was echoing through the brick walls, intensified by the hammering of rubber boots stampeding across the concrete towards an engine that was waiting at the front of the garage.
I let the crew pass me, then I thrust myself up the winding metal staircase that led to the upper level of the firehouse. I took the stairs two at a time, and when my foot reached the final step the alarm cut off. The firehouse was suddenly totally silent, besides the sound of my shoes clapping against the floor tile as I sprinted across the upstairs hallway.
When I reached the break room I skidded to a stop, catching myself on the metal doorframe.
The lights were off, but the room was lit up by the glow of the jumbo-sized flat screen TV. In the flickering digital light, I saw Charlie sprawled out on the couch. Despite the fire alarm, she was fast asleep. And she wasn’t alone, she was clenching Cooper against her chest in a death grip. The poor puppy blinked up at me without flinching, then made a heavy sigh, as if he dutifully resigning to his role as my daughter’s own personal teddy bear.
“Good boy,” I whispered to the dog, making a mental note to sneak him a piece of human food the next time I cooked something in the kitchen.
I glanced across the room at the TV. The guys usually kept the cable box tuned to some sports channel, but tonight the screen was filled with pastel animations. I recognized the movie right away, Frozen, one of Charlie’s favorites.
“She has watched that movie at least three times tonight,” a voice behind me remarked dramatically.
Startled, I jerked around to see Bryce McKinley. I had expected him to be fully geared up and on board the fire engine that was currently driving away from the station… but instead, he was wearing sweatpants and gnawing on an apple.
“What are you still doing here?!”
“Babysitting,” he said, pointing his partially-chewed apple towards Charlie.
“But you’re on-call… shouldn’t you be responding to that alarm with the rest of the crew?”
Bryce scoffed, shaking his head as he took another loud bite of the apple. When my face remained unchanged, he lifted his eyebrows in surprise.
“Wait… did you really think I’d leave Charlotte here, all by herself?” he asked. His voice sounded half perplexed, half hurt. “Rory, I would never do something like that.”
Shit. I had obviously offended him.
“I didn’t mean it like that…” I said. “I just figured that getting a 911 call would take precedence over watching Frozen with my kid...”
“No way,” Bryce shook his head firmly. “I told you I was going to watch Charlotte tonight. I’m not going to renege on that, just because someone’s cat gets stuck in a tree. The crew can handle this one without me.”
“Yeah, well I shouldn’t have asked you to watch her while you were on-call in the first place,” I grumbled. “This is all my fault.”
“You didn’t ask,” Bryce reminded me. “I offered.”
That was technically true. Actually, Bryce had done more than just offer. When I asked him for last-minute babysitter references, he had practically insisted that he look after Charlie himself while I was out with Des.
I had to admit, I felt a lot better about leaving my daughter with a crew of trained first responders than with some teenage babysitter I had never met before. And besides, there was something strangely comforting about knowing that Charlie would be at the firehouse.
I guess I hadn’t thought through the plan until that alert came through on my phone…
“Wait a second,” Bryce said, reading my mind. “Is that why you came back here? Because you thought I had just… left?”
“Well… yeah,” I admitted. “I saw the alert and I assumed everyone would hit the road. I just wanted to make sure Charlie wasn’t alone…”
I let my eyes drift across the room, back to Charlie. She shifted in her sleep, slinging an arm over her head and releasing her grip on Cooper. The dog lifted his head hesitantly, testing his newfound freedom. He craned his neck up in a weary stretch, then eyed me as if he was waiting for further instructions. Finally he licked his chops and nuzzled his head against Charlie’s shoulder.
“She’s not alone,” Bryce said from behind me. “She’s perfectly safe.”
I kept my eyes on my daughter. Bryce was right, she was perfectly safe.
So… why do I still feel so guilty?
“Come on,” Bryce clapped his hands together. “You need a beer.”
“I’m fine--” I started to protest, but Bryce wasn’t hearing it. He was already leading the way towards the kitchen. I rolled my eyes and sighed, then gave my daughter one last glance before I pried myself away from the door frame and followed after Bryce.
The kitchen looked like a cross between a 90s sitcom bachelor pad and a frat house. Blown up shots from the Firehouse 56 calendar decorated the walls. The cooking area was arranged in one corner, and at the opposite end of the room there was a long table flanked with twelve metal folding chairs -- one for each member of the crew. Behind the table, wedged in a corner, was a kegerator and a partially deflated blow-up doll.
“Don’t ask,” was the only explanation Bryce could offer when he caught me staring at the limp inflatable.
He popped open the fridge door and ducked down to survey the selection of beers, then grabbed a pair of brown bottles by their necks and let the fridge door slam shut behind him.
“So what sort of trouble did you get into tonight?” Bryce asked me as he cracked the cap off of a beer bottle and passed it towards me.
“Dinner,” I said vaguely, gripping the beer in my hand. The glass was ice cold, and the ice crystals coating the bottle melted under my palm.
“You’re gonna have to give me more than that,” Bryce said, popping the cap off of his own beer. He raised the bottle and clinked it against mine, then took a swig. “Who’d you go to dinner with?
I shrugged my shoulders. I liked to keep my personal life private. Bryce McKinley had done me a solid… but he was still a coworker, and I sure as hell wasn’t about to have a heart-to-heart with him.
“Must have been someone special, if you got all dressed up. It wasn’t that hot teacher from the high school fire, by any chance?”
“Not this again,” I groaned, remembering the heckles I had gotten in the weight room from the rest of the crew earlier that day. I rolled my eyes
as I tilted back the bottle and took a giant gulp of ice-cold beer.
“Well was it?” Bryce grinned eagerly.
I rotated the bottle around in my hand, prying up the corners of the label with the edge of my thumb.
“Yeah,” I admitted finally.
“Damn, McAlister!” Bryce whistled. “I’m impressed. You haven’t even been on the Firehouse 56 roster for a full month yet, and you’re already playing the hero and sweeping women off of their feet--”
“It’s not like that,” I cut him off. “She’s an old friend. We used to live on the same street when we were kids, so… we were just catching up.”
That’s an understatement.
“I see,” Bryce smirked smugly. “So… was she the childhood crush? The one that got away?”
I flicked my eyes up and glared at Bryce from under my brow.
“Come on, dude!” he prodded relentlessly. “I watched Frozen three fucking times tonight, I need some fresh material. What’s the story? Was she your first love? Did you come back to Hartford to finally get your girl and save the day?”
“No,” I said flatly. “That’s not why I came back to Hartford.”
“Ok. So why did you come back?”
“For my daughter,” I said. “Things were getting complicated back in Boston.”
“Let me guess,” Bryce smirked. “Baby mama drama?”
“Basically.”
“Been there, done that!” he whistled, taking a long swig of beer and sighing.
“Yeah,” I nodded, taking a sip from my own bottle. Despite my reservations, I was starting to relax. My shoulders were loosening up, and I started to feel less like I was with a colleague, and more like I was with an old friend.
“So you came to Hartford for a fresh start,” Bryce said. Then, with a grin, he added, “And then you got a little unexpected blast from the past!”
“I’m not so sure about that,” I mumbled into the mouth of my beer bottle. “I’m starting to think that tonight was a mistake.”
“What do you mean? Was your big date with Hot Teacher a dud?”
She has a name… I wanted to correct him, but I was already too distracted remembering how Des had looked in that tight skirt. I remembered her dimples and her long dark hair, and then... that kiss.
April Embers_A Second Chance Single Daddy Firefighter Romance Page 11
