Heat Exchange

by Shannon Stacey

  “Speaking of that,” Aidan said, running his finger down the condensation on his bottle, “has she said when she’s going back?”

  “Ashley hasn’t said anything to me about it.”

  Scotty shrugged. “Again, she’s not speaking to me. Thus illustrating one of the many reasons you don’t want your best friend sleeping with your sister. Everything’s fun and games until the breakup, and now you’re an asshole, I’m an asshole and my sister has a broken heart.”

  Walsh nodded, then lifted his beer as if in a toast. “Yeah, but at least your sister’s broken heart will heal.”

  After a few seconds, Aidan couldn’t hold back the laughter anymore and Scotty laughed with him. It was a start, he thought. He’d be thankful for these glimpses their friendship would survive and use them to ride out the rough times, when Scotty was still throwing him attitude. They’d be okay, though.

  But he knew the weeks wouldn’t feel any less long and lonely because, at the end of the day, he didn’t have Lydia anymore.

  * * *

  THEY THREW LYDIA’S pity-slash-farewell party at Ashley’s house because Danny had pulled a night tour and she had enough room for them all to sleep if they had too much to drink.

  It was a good thing, Lydia thought, since they’d all jumped that hurdle at least an hour before. Some more than others. She was sipping her vodka-and-raspberry seltzer because the last thing she needed on top of unbearable sadness and heartbreak was a hangover.

  “We should go put a bag of flaming dog shit on his deck,” Courtney said. She obviously had no fear of hangovers because she was drinking laps around Lydia, with Ashley and Becca somewhere in the middle. “Do people still do that?”

  “A big bag of flaming dog shit,” Becca said. “One of those paper leaf bags that’s like four feet tall. And we can go sneak around people’s backyards and steal their dog shit until it’s totally full. Then we’ll put it on his deck and set it on fire.”

  “Courtney, you can’t do that,” Ashley argued, pointing a finger in her general direction and leaning close. “Only you can prevent dog shit fires.”

  “He’s a firefighter,” Lydia said. “He’d just put it out, anyway. And we’d get arrested.”

  Courtney made a shocked face. “They’d never know it was us.”

  “I hate to break it to you, but Ashley and I were born and raised in this neighborhood, so us dragging around a giant paper bag and stealing people’s dog shit from their backyards is not going to go unnoticed.”

  “That’s not fun at all.” Becca sighed. “What are we going to do, then?”

  “I’m going to go home,” Lydia said. She’d probably go after the weekend, to give Ashley a few more days to acclimate, but then her time in Boston would be over. “I’m going to curl up with my roommate’s cat and a big bucket of ice cream and watch movies that make me cry. And then I’m going to find another job and get on with my life.”

  “No.” Courtney shook her head. “We can still make this work. You know everybody, so if somebody asks why we’re in their backyard, you can just tell them you’re cleaning up the dog poo for them. Like community service.”

  “You’re shut off, Court,” Ashley told her. “And whatever you do, don’t ever drink without one of us with you because I think you’d make some really bad decisions.”

  “I think Lydia going back to New Hampshire is a bad decision,” she shot back.

  “So do I,” Ashley said. When Lydia gave her a questioning look, she shrugged. “You asked me why I helped you and Aidan get away for the weekend when I’d been worried about your relationship blowing up in your face. I’d figured out you two might actually be good together and if I helped you guys get away, you’d fall in love and stay here and marry him and work at the bar with me.”

  “That was never the plan, Ash.” But, judging by the ache that intensified in her chest, her heart had decided somewhere along the way that it was a damn good plan.

  Her sister shrugged. “Sometimes plans change.”

  “And sometimes plans get canceled,” Courtney mumbled. “Even great plans that would have been doing your dog-owning neighbors a huge favor. It was going to be a valuable community service.”

  “We’re not setting anything on fire,” Lydia said. “We’re going to leave Aidan alone, which is what I should have done from the first day I came back to Boston.”

  Maybe if she’d left him alone, the way she told herself to do that first night at the bar, she wouldn’t be facing the rest of her life with a huge hole in it she wasn’t sure anybody else could ever fill. Before Aidan, she hadn’t known she was missing anything. But now it would never be the same because she missed him so much she could barely breathe.

  “Maybe you should ask him to move in with you,” Becca suggested. “He can make you cookies.”

  “Why would he make me cookies?”

  “Because I like cookies.”

  Lydia nodded. “Of course.”

  The other three women immediately launched into a lively debate on what the best kind of cookie was. She didn’t really care, so she drained her glass and debated on having another drink.

  Asking Aidan to move in with her had crossed her mind, but she’d never been able to muster the nerve to ask him how he’d feel about moving to New Hampshire. To her, that didn’t mean transferring to a firehouse in Concord. It meant giving it up and she couldn’t ask him to do that. Not since the day she’d seen how very much the job meant to him.

  Maybe he’d do it, too. He might be willing to walk away from Boston Fire for her, but at what cost? He couldn’t change the man he was and, if he did, was he still the man she loved?

  She’d been asking herself that for days and never got an answer but a headache to go with her heartache.

  With a sigh, Lydia decided against another drink. What she really wanted was ice cream and she knew for a fact there was a half gallon of Rocky Road in the freezer, but she probably shouldn’t go get it. If she did, she’d have to share and, when it came to ice cream, she didn’t play well with others. Plus, if there was any chance of her friends getting sick as part of their revelry, she thought she’d do her sister a favor and leave the chocolate ice cream out of it.

  “You okay?” Ashley asked, and she realized they were all staring at her.

  “Uh, yeah? Do I not look okay?”

  “Becca just said she likes walnuts in her peanut butter cookies and you didn’t say anything. That’s not like you.”

  “Nobody wants walnuts in their peanut butter cookies,” she said, because it was easier than explaining to three drunk women why ranking cookie types wasn’t high on her list of things to do tonight. “Actually, there shouldn’t be nuts in any cookies.”

  “You don’t like nuts?” Courtney asked and, of course, all three of them broke out in a case of the giggles.

  She managed a smile, but she couldn’t giggle with Aidan so front and center in her thoughts. Not a second went by that she didn’t think about and miss him. She ached for him, day and night, and there was a little voice in the back of her mind constantly questioning if going back to Concord was the right choice.

  Kincaid’s Pub was in her blood. No matter where she found a job, it wouldn’t be the same. She had a feeling that Ashley and Danny would be starting a family soon, and she didn’t see how it would even be possible for her to miss any of her niece’s or nephew’s lives, to say nothing of Ashley needing to cut back on her hours. She’d missed Courtney and Becca and would miss them even more when she left. And she wanted things to be good between her and Scotty again, but that wouldn’t happen with physical distance between them.

  Most of all, every time she tried to picture the rest of her life without Aidan, it was depressing as hell. Somehow he’d gone from the sexy guy she wanted to scratch some itches with to the man who made her laugh and held
her hand and who looked at her like she was the only woman who’d ever made him smile like that.

  But Aidan was a package deal. With him came a lifetime of being a firefighter’s wife. She’d raise children who were proud of their dad, but afraid for him every time he went to work. He came with a brotherhood and a code of conduct and expectations.

  To get the guy, she had to take the whole set. Aidan Hunt not sold separately. It was a risk she wasn’t sure her heart could afford.

  Chapter Nineteen

  THE KNOCK ON Aidan’s door the following evening jacked his heart rate up like a shot of adrenaline to the chest, and he practically jogged to the door. Anybody else he could think of besides Lydia would have sent him a text first.

  But when he opened the door, he saw the wrong Kincaid standing in the hall. Tommy had never been to his place before and Aidan felt panic rising in his throat. Fear for Lydia, followed immediately by fear for Scotty. “What happened?”

  Tommy frowned at him. “What happened? I knocked on your door and you answered it with no pants on, that’s what happened. Who the hell does that?”

  “Shit.” He stepped back into his living room, knowing he wouldn’t get a lecture if there was bad news waiting to be delivered. “Sorry. Come on in and I’ll grab some sweats. It scared me when I saw you because you’ve never been here, so I thought you had bad news.”

  “I’ve never been to your place because most of the time you’ve always been at my place or at the bar.”

  “Good point.” Aidan grabbed a pair of sweatpants out of the clean clothes basket and pulled them on. “You want a drink or something?”

  “Nope.” He sat down at the kitchen table and gestured for Aidan to sit across from him.

  Uh-oh. He was about to get a stern talking-to from Tommy, which wasn’t usually an enjoyable situation. Before sitting down, he grabbed a soda from the fridge just in case he was there awhile.

  “What’s going on with you and Lydia?” Tommy asked once he was seated.

  Aidan clenched his jaw, breathing in deeply through his nose. If ever a conversation required him to think before he spoke, it was this one. “Last I heard, she was going back to Concord.”

  Tommy nodded. “Tomorrow.”

  If he knew that, Aidan didn’t see the point in asking him the question, but he didn’t say so. “That’s pretty much what’s going on with me and Lydia.”

  “You just going to let her go? That’s it?”

  “She doesn’t want to be married to another firefighter, Tommy. I can’t change that.”

  “Okay. You’re right about that, because you can’t change her.” He nodded. “She’s so much like her mother, it drives me crazy sometimes. Most of the time, actually. Let’s talk about you, then. How do you feel about my daughter?”

  “I love Lydia, sir. Absolutely and completely.”

  “Did you tell her that?”

  “I, uh...”

  “So, no. You haven’t told her you love her.”

  Aidan picked at the label of his soda bottle with his thumbnail. “Why make it harder? I’m pretty sure she’s in love with me, but she doesn’t think she can be happy with me. Don’t you think me telling her I love her will just make it worse for her?”

  “So what? She’s leaving you. How about what’s worse for you?”

  “I probably deserve it. If I was capable of being who she wants me to be, I could keep her. So that’s on me.”

  “And who does she want you to be?”

  Aidan hesitated for a few seconds. This had to be painful for Tommy because even though a lot of the blame could be placed on her ex-husband, Tommy had to know being his daughter played a substantial role in how she felt about it. “She wants me to be somebody who’s not a firefighter.”

  Tommy nodded slowly, considering his words. “And that’s not something you’re capable of?”

  The words threw him for a loop. How could Tommy Kincaid, of all people, suggest it was that easy? “I...don’t know”

  “Have you thought about it?”

  “Maybe. A little. But when I was eleven, you told me that being born to take charge in emergencies and to save lives is a special thing and not everybody’s got it. If I throw it away, how do I live with that?”

  Tommy gave him a long, hard look. “I’ve been around the block a few times, son, and the real question is how will you live with letting Lydia go? If you really love her and you let her go for the job, you’re going to start hating what you do. You’ll get bitter and you’ll start resenting it. Maybe you’ll start having some hard liquor shots between those beers or, God forbid, getting hooked on something worse to get through the days.”

  “You’re the worst Ghost of Christmas Future ever,” Aidan mumbled.

  “The bottom line is that to take care of others, you gotta take care of you first.” Tommy breathed in deeply through his nose, his lips pressed together for a few seconds. “You know what I live with, son? I get to live the rest of my life knowing the only reason my wife didn’t divorce me is because she found out she was dying.”

  Aidan didn’t know what to say. Tommy never talked about his wife. He knew that was true, though, because Scotty had told him about it.

  “And now I got two daughters struggling with loving firefighters and you know whose fault that is? Mine. If I’d raised them better and found a better balance or whatever, maybe it wouldn’t be so hard for them.”

  Tommy stood, pointing a finger at Aidan. “I’m telling you right now, son, you do what you need to do. If being a firefighter means that much to you, then leave her alone and let her go back to New Hampshire. Make it as clean a cut as possible. But if Lydia’s what you want, you need to make a decision and be okay with it. You don’t owe anybody anything.”

  Aidan stood and extended his hand. “Thanks for the talk. And for not telling me to leave her alone just because I’m no good for her.”

  Tommy took his hand and, instead of shaking it, pulled him in for a quick hug. “You’ll never hear me tell you you’re no good. I love you, son, and whatever decision you make isn’t going to change that. I’m proud of you.”

  Tears clogged Aidan’s throat, so he only nodded and lifted a hand as Tommy walked out of his apartment. He slowly sank back onto the kitchen chair, and then he pulled out his phone.

  Definitely not a text message, he thought. He tapped on Scotty’s name and listened to the phone ring.

  “What happened?”

  Aidan frowned, and then realized it had been a very long time since he’d heard Scotty’s voice on the phone. They communicated almost entirely by text, with the occasional email. “Nothing’s wrong. I was just wondering if you’re busy.”

  “Not really.”

  “I could use some company. Your dad stopped by.”

  “He did? That’s surprising.”

  Aidan agreed. “Yeah. And he said some stuff.”

  “That’s not surprising.”

  “I could use an ear. Somebody to talk to you, you know? And for me, that person is you, but I should tell you up front it’s about Lydia.”

  “I can be there in twenty minutes. You got beer?”

  “Yeah.” A sharp sense of relief made him almost breathless for a few seconds. “I appreciate it.”

  Once he’d ended the call, Aidan set the phone down and cradled his head in his hands. He had twenty minutes to try to sort out his feelings so he could verbalize them to Scotty.

  One thing didn’t need to be sorted, though, because it was very clear in his mind. He was in love with Lydia Kincaid and he didn’t have a lot of time to figure out what to do about that.

  * * *

  AFTER SHOVING THE last of her toiletries into her bag, Lydia zipped it up and looped the strap over her shoulder.

  She was out of excuses to
be here. She’d even cleaned the room and washed the sheets, remaking the bed so it would be ready for Ashley’s next guest. There was literally no reason she shouldn’t get in her car and start driving north right now.

  No reason at all, except for the fact she didn’t want to go.

  Standing in the hallway, she stopped, wondering if she was going to hate herself for the rest of her life if she forced herself to leave Boston today. If she left Aidan. She regretted the distance between them already and she hadn’t even left the city yet.

  She heard a knock on the door and then the low murmur of Ashley’s voice, followed by a man’s voice. It was heartbreakingly familiar and Lydia headed for the stairs.

  “Lydia!” Ashley almost ran into her on the staircase. “I thought you were still packing. Aidan’s here. I’ll be in my room doing stuff for a few minutes. Until you’re done, I guess.”

  Done with what, though? Saying goodbye? Lydia wasn’t sure she could do that. It was one thing to walk away from him when she’d been riding high on temper. But now, when missing him was a constant, painful companion, she wasn’t sure she could find the strength.

  She nodded at her sister, but she couldn’t respond because she was totally focused on the man standing in the living room. Aidan looked like hell, which was about how she felt. “Hey.”

  “You have your bag packed.”

  “I’m leaving in a few minutes,” she said, surprised she could get the words out without having a total breakdown.

  “I don’t want you to go.” He cleared his throat. “I don’t want you to leave me, Lydia, because I’m in love with you.”

  Her breath caught in her chest and she found herself incapable of making words. He loved her, and he wanted to be with her. All she had to do was accept that love and he could be hers. “I don’t want to leave you, either. I’ve been trying to force myself to go but it’s obviously not working because I’m still here.”

  He clenched his jaw for a few seconds and then relaxed. “If you stay with me, I’ll hand in my papers tomorrow.”