Burning Up (Flirting With Fire Book 1)

by Jennifer Blackwood

  “Isn’t wooing saved for relationships?”

  “Who knows? Mom’s loaded up on pain meds from her hernia surgery.” Reece scratched his chin. “Which might explain a lot.”

  “How long is Erin in town?”

  “Just for the summer. Don’t think she could handle our mom for any longer than that.”

  Jake nodded. Erin had always been the beach-going type, complaining that there was never enough sun in Portland. With the sun only making an appearance in July, August, and part of September, he’d have to agree. But he liked that about Oregon. The change in the seasons. The hustle and bustle of the small metropolis he’d called home for the majority of his life.

  “You’re more than welcome to stop by. Just might save one of us from killing the other,” Reece said.

  “Can’t. Have to run some errands for Josie.”

  Reece shook his head and smiled. “Still can’t believe she’s getting married.”

  “Figured it was about time one of us Bennetts tied the knot.” Thank hell it isn’t me. He had one girl in his life already, and she maxed out every bit of patience and commitment he could muster.

  The back door to the cab flew open, and Hollywood’s voice carried past Jake’s headset.

  “Were you assholes going to leave me stranded here?” Hollywood wagged the money-filled boot in Jake’s and Reece’s faces as he slid into the back of the apparatus. He plunked the boot on the floor and pulled on his headset. “I was doing my civic duty by encouraging people to make healthy contributions to raise awareness for muscular dystrophy.”

  “You made it, didn’t you?” Reece said, twisting the key in the ignition. “And don’t give me that altruistic crap. How many numbers did you get along with donations?”

  Jake turned around in time to see Hollywood put his hand to his chest in mock horror. “I take this job very seriously. And I’m offended you’d even ask.”

  Jake cocked his brow. “Do you smell that, Reece?”

  Reece made a show of sticking his nose in the air and taking a grandiose sniff. “As a matter of fact, I do. Smells like a pile of shit.”

  Cole sighed and knocked his head into the back of the seat. “Only four numbers this time. I’m losing my touch.”

  Both men up front chuckled. It’d be a cold day in hell before Hollywood ever lost his touch.

  The three of them had worked B shift together for the past two years. Reece was their engineer while Jake was the lieutenant. Add Cole as their firefighter on duty, and they’d been a tight trio since day one.

  A few minutes later, Reece pulled the apparatus into the station, and they all began their end-of-shift routine of checking supplies and prepping for the next shift. They slid past each other without a second glance, the movements so natural and rehearsed they were as simple as breathing. At a quarter till twelve, later than Jake had anticipated, they’d finished their duties.

  “See you guys on Monday. Don’t have too much fun without me,” Jake said.

  “Try to survive Bridezilla,” Reece said, clapping Jake on the back.

  Jake flipped Reece the bird. “I guess you’ll know if you need a new lieutenant by Sunday.”

  He walked out into the parking lot, the sun blazing against his tired eyes. As Jake slid into his truck, he pulled out his phone.

  His daughter, Bailey, had stayed with her grandmother for the past two days since Jake had offered to fill in for someone else, taking a double, not realizing that his shift for Fill the Boot was right after that.

  She picked up on the second ring. “Hey, Dad.”

  “How are you, princess?”

  “Dad.” He could practically hear her eyes rolling. Something that was happening with alarming frequency lately. “I’m not seven anymore.”

  Yep. He knew this. And even on the off chance he’d suddenly forgotten, his twelve-year-old made it abundantly clear that she was 282 days closer to becoming a teenager. Lord help him. But she’d always be his princess, even when she turned forty. And was still single and angelic.

  “I was talking to Aunt Julie last night at dinner . . .” She trailed off.

  Every muscle in his body tensed. He stretched his neck from side to side, waiting for whatever crazy scheme was about to be thrown at him. Talking to Aunt Julie, a.k.a. Jake’s free-spirited sister, was always code for bringing up something that 100 percent will not be okay with Dad. He loved his sister, but she liked to play the fun aunt card more than Jake appreciated. Last time they’d called from a tattoo parlor, Bailey begging for a nose piercing. Solo parenting was hard enough without three sisters, Julie in particular, trying to undermine his authority every time he turned around.

  “Yes? What about Aunt Julie?” he managed to get out through gritted teeth. The coffee he’d picked up on his way out of the station wasn’t nearly potent enough.

  “Can I bring a date to the wedding?”

  Jake nearly aspirated on the coffee he’d just taken a sip of and placed it back in the cup holder before he did something stupid like crush a cup with scalding hot liquid all over the interior of his new truck.

  Just a phase. Just a phase.

  Shit. Boys weren’t a phase, not even close. He knew just what reckless ones were capable of. He had been one. Which was how Bailey had come into existence. Best thing to ever happen to him, but he’d rather that she not follow his same path.

  He swiped a hand over his face. Boys. There was no way they were to that stage already. It felt like just last week Bailey was fake-gagging over people kissing on TV. Installing a tracker on her iPhone would qualify as overkill, right? Just when he felt like he had this parenting gig on lockdown, Bailey had to go ahead and throw him through yet another loop.

  “Dad,” Bailey said. “You still there?”

  No, Dad’s not here right now. He’s busy having a brain aneurism.

  Hell, he’d just had the period talk, even YouTubed videos to make sure he was giving Bailey the correct information—he’d spent thirty minutes in the feminine-products aisle of the grocery store helping her figure out the difference between ultra and super. And what was up with wings versus none? He still didn’t understand the difference, but they’d decided on the pink box, which he had then bought enough of to skyrocket the brand’s share on the stock exchange. There had to be a parenting rule out there that a single dad was allowed at least a six-month reprieve before the next catastrophic event.

  He turned onto Twenty-First Street, making his way toward the bakery to pick up a treat for Bailey and his mother as a thank-you for watching her the past two days. “I thought you wanted to take Rochelle.” They were best friends as of today. Tomorrow it could be another debacle about who stole whose contouring brush. The Internet had saved his ass so many times when he’d had to Google all this makeup lingo he barely understood.

  “Aunt Julie said Rochelle was already invited. I figured if you get a plus-one, I do, too.” If Jake was in the same room as his daughter right now, he’d put money on her batting those big blue doe eyes at him. “There’s this guy . . . Zack.”

  Nope. Not happening. Not in a million years. Or at least until she was twenty-seven. That seemed like an appropriate age. “Let’s just stop right there. I’m not even using my plus-one, which means you aren’t either.”

  She huffed, and her words were laced with venom as she said, “Just because you have a loser love life doesn’t mean I have to.”

  Jake rested his head on the steering wheel and closed his eyes as he sat at a red light. His heavy lids fought to stay shut. Sleep. He needed sleep. Hell, maybe he was sleeping, and this was all just a shitty dream. Bailey’s exasperated huff cutting through the stereo system proved otherwise.

  Middle schoolers. They’d been the worst when he was in school, and if this was any indication, they still were. Before Jake could say anything, Bailey cut in.

  “Hold on. Grandma wants to talk to you.”

  Two women ganging up on him while he was sleep deprived? Now that was just fighting di
rty. Luckily, his other sisters were out of state because they’d never miss out on a chance to dog-pile him.

  “Well, if it isn’t my hero son. How were your shifts?”

  “Just fine.” They were brutal. He’d had an especially bad call involving an infant that made him want to hug his daughter tight and encase her in Bubble Wrap. “Is everything okay with Bailey? She was good for you?”

  “She’s always a peach. We’re not here to talk about her.”

  “Then who are we talking about?”

  “You.”

  She never did beat around the bush. “Can’t this wait until I pick up Bailey?” At least then he could pound back a sufficient amount of caffeine and be somewhat awake for whatever she wanted to discuss.

  “No, this can’t wait.” Nothing could wait with Sadie Bennett. He loved his mom, but she was the type who had to speak her piece the instant she felt the need to. And apparently now was the time he’d be getting an earful.

  “I was talking to Julie last night.”

  “Seems like everyone was,” he murmured.

  “You might be thirty-two, but I am not above taking out the wooden spoon.”

  He smiled and shook his head. His mom loved to joke about whacking them with a wooden spoon, but he could count on his one hand the amount of times his mother had ever followed through with that sentiment. “Fine, Mom. What’s up?”

  “We’re worried about you. With Josie getting married, this is a good opportunity to think about getting back in the game.”

  He knew where this was going. He’d tried the whole dating thing after Bailey’s mom had left them high and dry when their daughter was three months old. Bailey had been six when he’d started dating someone seriously. Jake was cursed with shitty luck in picking women, apparently, because that one had left as soon as it had gotten too serious. The look on Bailey’s face when Jake had told her Brittany wasn’t going to be around anymore had been enough to reinforce that he wasn’t going to seriously pursue anyone until Bailey was out of the house. Protecting her was his number one job.

  “Mom, you know how I feel about that,” he gritted out.

  “You deserve to have some happiness, too. I talked to Melissa. You know, the pretty blonde who lives down the block from me.”

  “The one with twenty-nine cats?” No, really. Twenty-nine fucking cats in a tiny one-bedroom bungalow. The stench of cat piss wafted clear down to the other side of the street. Even the neighbor kids gave wide berth to Melissa’s property line. He might have been in a dry spell, but he was nowhere near desperate enough for his mother to play matchmaker.

  “What does that matter? Anyway, I was talking to her and said you might be interested in taking her as a date to Josie’s wedding.”

  Christ.

  Jake was thankful his drink was shoved into the center console as he wrung his hands around the steering wheel. “You didn’t.” His mother and daughter were going to be his demise.

  “I did.” She even managed to sound offended at Jake’s comment. “She is perfectly suitable. I even did some . . . What do you call it? Stalking on the Facebook. She posts an awful lot of quiz results about Harry Potter, but literacy is a noble hobby.”

  Idiot move setting up a Facebook profile for his mother.

  “Mom,” he warned. There wasn’t enough coffee in the world to make this morning better. Somehow he kept his car from veering off the road as he navigated downtown Portland. “As much as I appreciate your”—meddling, absolute lack of consideration of my privacy—“kindhearted gesture, I’m going to be busy enough helping Josie out. No need for a date.”

  “I’m just concerned.” Her voice wavered, which was as effective as a sucker punch to Jake’s gut. “I’m not getting any younger, you know. I just want to see my boy as happy as he deserves to be.”

  Straight for the jugular. His mom was the ultimate tour guide down Guilt Trip Lane. If he hadn’t been up for almost three days straight, he could probably have thought of a better defense. Instead, he let out a sigh. “You want me to find a date for the wedding? That would make you feel better?”

  “Yes, it would.” The wobble had completely disappeared from her voice, and Jake gritted his molars together. Jake: 0. Mom: 1.

  Fine.

  What could one date really hurt? A date for his sister’s wedding meant absolutely nothing. He could ask around the station. It wouldn’t be too hard to find someone with a sister or a friend of a spouse.

  “Fine. You tell Melissa you’re sorry, but I already have a date. I will find someone else.” Even if a wedding date meant nothing, he still didn’t want to go with the crazy cat lady.

  “Promise?”

  “Yes.”

  Great. Now he needed to find someone to travel to the other side of the state for Josie’s wedding . . . in two days.

  Bailey came back on the line. Damn. He’d been played. His mother always was good at that. “Does this mean I get to bring Zack?”

  Zero chance in hell, kid.

  “We’ll talk later when we get home.”

  Another petulant sigh. “Fine. Can you pick me up a bagel from Barry’s? Cinnamon raisin, please.”

  “Already on it. See you soon.”

  He pulled his truck into Barry’s Bakery and cut the engine. Where the hell was he going to find a date to his sister’s wedding?

  Chapter Three

  “Everything bagel with a small coffee,” Erin said to the lady at the counter. The woman poked the register keys with a fluorescent-pink nail, the chipper color offset by her black shirt that read MY CITY’S WEIRDER THAN YOURS. Rows of beautifully glazed doughnuts and bagels outlined the back of the register area, all nestled in rustic wicker baskets lined with white linen. Erin swiped at the drool pooling at the corner of her mouth as the barista plucked a bagel with a set of tongs and placed it in the toaster.

  Nothing like garlic, poppy seeds, sesame seeds, and onion slathered with cream cheese to momentarily forget she was back home for the summer after a ten-year hiatus. And to alleviate the sting of still being jobless. The only thing that would make her feel better at this point was the smell of Chinese food and the sight of thick fog blanketing the Bay Area. Yes, she was homesick enough to miss the daily weather system.

  She tossed down the proper amount of cash, grabbed her coffee cup, and went to the counter across the room to fill it with the strongest drip she could find. Barry’s Bakery was a gem on Mississippi Avenue in downtown Portland. Bold, rich coffees. Fluffy, decadent pastries. The line to get into this building, which was nothing more than a hole in the wall, wound around the block well before six in the morning most days. That was the way most of the downtown food establishments worked. Because if Portland was known for one thing, it was great food, beer, and coffee. At least that was a plus.

  Erin pumped the coffee into her cup, replaying every single interview she’d had in the past week through her head. All positive. All seeming to go well. And yet she wasn’t the perfect fit for their school. Your luck’s run out. You’ll be stuck here forever now. Seemed like her worst fears were about to come true.

  Coffee drizzled onto her fingers as her cup moved out of the trajectory of the pump. Damn it. She really needed to stop zoning out. She grabbed a few napkins from the basket next to the half-and-half and whole-milk containers and dabbed at the liquid on the lacquered wooden counter.

  A text buzzed through her phone as she filled her to-go cup with her favorite tortoiseshell blend and a dash of cream. She grabbed a lid, popped it onto the cup, and pulled out her phone.

  ANDIE: SOS. I’m going to jump out the window if Mom makes me fluff her pillow one more time.

  Erin imagined her sister’s lip curling before sticking out her tongue the second she was out of view of their mother. She would have done the same at nineteen. Possibly still would at twenty-eight if she was around her mom for long enough. Because even though she’d been back less than twenty-four hours, she could feel herself slipping back into that role of the daughter
still viewed as six in her mother’s mind.

  I love my family. Love them.

  She’d chanted that through her five-hour shift at their family gourmet PB&J food cart downtown because when you were a grown-ass woman, you hiked up your big-girl panties and didn’t complain when family needed you most.

  ERIN: Dude. Five hours in an Airstream scooping peanut butter.

  Which she’d done before she’d endured the grocery shopping trip from hell.

  ANDIE: Mom asked me to file her toenails. I REPEAT. FILING TOENAILS. Must. Save. Me . . . Withering away.

  Dear Lord. If her sister decided to finally get her butt to college, she should major in theater.

  ERIN: This is me playing the world’s tiniest violin.

  Her sister sent back a middle-finger emoji.

  You’re just back for the summer. Take care of Mom post-op and then pack your bags, she reminded herself.

  Enough time for Erin to do her daughterly servitude and find a new job down in San Francisco, since her teaching license was restricted to California.

  She’d think of these next six weeks as a holiday. An extended one. One that made Quantico seem appealing. As she said, she loved her family, but there was a reason she lived six hundred miles away. And it included appreciating her family to the max in small doses. The kind that could be measured in those infant liquid-medicine cups.

  Please. Someone—anyone, take her out with a hammer. Make it quick.

  “Bagel for . . .” The barista muttered the last word, but she could have sworn she heard her name. She strode up to the counter, still staring at her phone, at her sister’s message.

  Barry’s was the best in downtown Portland because not only did they have the best pastries, but they were also very liberal with their cream cheese. She didn’t even want to think about how this little indulgence capsized her healthy-breakfast streak. Okay, fine, she’d done the whole yogurt-and-granola thing for a whopping two days . . . and it was absolute torture. In fact, if she didn’t get a bagel in her mouth in the next two minutes, she might spiral into a state of despair. Because, if anything, being under the same roof as her mom again really put her in the mood for overdosing on calories.