by Mia Madison
“Not your cat then?”
“No. You shouldn't make assumptions.”
“You should have said.” Now I know she isn't one of those people with some kind of entitlement to use public services like we had nothing better to do so they don't have to exert themselves, I feel more inclined to enjoy the sight of her curves in tight jeans and T-shirt than get annoyed.
“It wouldn't matter, would it? You'd have shouted just the same. It's better that you shout at me than at my neighbor. She's already had enough of a fright today.”
“If Mrs. Jenkins is unable to climb trees, that's a different matter.”
“What makes you think I can? I never climbed a tree in my life.”
She's starting get my back up again, now. “Let me think. How could you possibly manage without breaking your pretty little nails? Starts with a L. Ends in an R. Oh, yes. It's called a ladder.”
“Seriously,” she says, her eyes flash at me. “You want to play word games? Guess what I'm thinking. Starts with a J. Ends with a K. Too difficult? I'll tell you, then. Jerk.”
She starts to close the door. The cat jumps down from her arms and disappears into the house so I get an unrestricted view of her T-shirt. Shame we met like this and not on a night out. I imagine this conversation would have taken a very different turn if we had.
“Thank you, officer, firefighter, whatever you are.” And I hear her mutter “jerk” under her breath. “If I ever have a house fire, I'll make sure it's not when you're on duty, in case I need to bring my own ladder and rescue myself.”
Frustrating fucking female. I turn on my heel and I'm out of there. I feel like she had the upper hand in that conversation and I don't like it. But never mind, I don't expect to see Miss Gorgeous-tits-in-a-T-shirt again.
CHAPTER 2
Amy
Of all the nerve. I'm so mad at that firefighter, I could scream. Some men think they are so superior. Like their jobs are the only ones that matter.
“Who was that, dear?” Mrs. Jenkins asks.
“Just a fireman here to help with the cat. Seemed upset that Toby already got down. But it's fine. I sent him away.”
“You should have invited him in for a cup of tea, Amy. Was he built?”
I burst out laughing and she joins in. “Mrs. Jenkins. You're terrible! He was hot, sure—tall, dark-haired, good-looking—but he was scowling too much for my liking.”
“You should have got him inside anyway. You're not getting any younger. If you get to my age you'll regret the ones that get away.”
“I'm only twenty-one. I don't think I'm over the hill yet, I'll have you know.” I pretend to be annoyed but I'm smiling. I've known my neighbor a long time, seeing as I'm still living at home to save money until I can get a place of my own. She used to be my babysitter when I was young enough to need looking after.
“Just sayin',” she says and winks. “Get your hands on the hot ones while they're still young before they go all bald and pot-bellied.”
“That one wasn't young,” I say. “Good ten or fifteen years on me. Mature but still hot. He seemed to have all his own hair and teeth and no pot belly.”
“Good abs on him?”
“I didn't look that closely.”
“Really?”
“Yes, okay, very nice abs from the look of things, if you must know.”
“Not ancient, then. I bet he could give you a good ride for your money.”
“Mrs. Jenkins!” I'm starting to think she's been at the gin to get over the shock of Toby running up the tree and it's only four in the afternoon.
“If you can't say what you mean at my age, when can you say it?”
I just laugh. Growing up, I always loved her outrageous sense of humor. She was my first port of call whenever I ran away from home. I've no idea why I ever wanted to go, some ridiculous childhood notion, but I did like baking cakes with Mrs. Jenkins. Maybe that had something to do with it.
“In any case, I've never seen him before and I'm not likely to see him again. Getting a man is the last thing on my mind right now. I've got bigger fish to fry.”
“Oh, fiddlesticks! A good man to keep you warm at night and you'll forget about that silly notion you have of going halfway across the world where you don't know anyone.”
“I doubt it. And anyway, they're all bad. At least, the ones who want to go out on a date with me seem to be.”
And I rush off because it's time for my late shift and knowing her, she'll start on one of her stories about the guys she knew years ago and the things she got up to. It's no joke when your eighty-year-old neighbor has tales of a better sex life than you. And I refuse to dwell on that.
CHAPTER 3
Ronan
It's my day off today, and I have to take my mother to the hospital for surgery. It's as if yesterday wasn't a bad enough start to the week with that spitfire non-cat-owning woman giving me trouble and a puncture on the way home.
My mother asked me for help so I'm giving it but I hope that doesn't mean she thinks she can come wheedling her way back into my life when she's hardly shown her face for over twenty fucking years. I must be crazy paying for her, anyway. She could wait for a National Health Service bed like the rest of the country but I can't have my mother in pain on some waiting list when I can afford to do something about it, so that's an end to it. I'm picking her up with her suitcase.
“Thanks for this, Ronan,” she says. “It means the world to me that you're doing this for me, after everything.”
I give her the nearest thing to a smile I can manage. “Don't mention it.” I'm trying to be gracious because the surgery will make a difference to her. I just wish she had been a different kind of mother and a different kind of wife to my dad before he passed away a few years ago. “Do you have everything you need?”
“I think so. They gave me a list.”
We don't chat much on the way to the hospital. Our shared history stopped when she left and we have nothing in common these days. She sent me birthday and Christmas cards. Sometimes money. Dad never said a word when those cards arrived, but his lips were tight, so I tried to hide the cards and gifts from him. It was just him and me for years but we managed without her. He was pleased as punch and proud at my firefighter graduation. It would have been nice to have two parents there if she hadn't disappeared out of my life.
She checks in at reception and I carry her suitcase to her room. I've seen plenty of public hospitals but this one feels more like a country house hotel. Are there even doctors here? They are strangely absent, probably behind closed doors, but the beds are hospital beds, at least, so yes, it's a hospital. Just as we find the room, a nurse arrives to help my mother settle in. I look at the nurse. I'd know that face anywhere, with or without a cat in her arms. The nurse looks at me and I can tell she recognizes me, too.
Neither of us says anything. There must be a no profanity in front of the patient rule or something in this hospital or she would have probably sworn at me from the look on her face. Instead she employs her best nurse manners and introduces herself as Staff Nurse Amy Robinson, showing my mother the facilities in the room and explaining that she'll be back later to talk through everything. I say goodbye to my mother and get out of there.
“Are you always like that?” The nurse catches up with me.
“Like what?”
“In a mood. Cold. Scowling.”
“When there's a need for it. Yes.”
“Maybe you should cheer up a bit. It's your wife in hospital, not you.”
She has to be kidding. My mother is sixty-two. “Very funny. She's my mother.”
“It's not a dangerous operation but she is about to have complicated surgery. You might try behaving more like a son.”
“I'm sure as hell not going to behave like a husband to her or anyone else.”
“That figures. Manners and politeness just don't come into it with you, do they?”
“Says the pot calling the kettle black. Maybe I should take you out and te
ach you some manners instead. But only if you promise to behave yourself.”
“If I behave? You've got a nerve. I wouldn't go out with you if you were the last man on the planet.”
She humphs and goes off and I watch her ass in her uniform. Very nice. I wasn't going to visit my mother while she's in the hospital. She wouldn't expect me to. But I've got another day off and I'd like to needle Staff Nurse Amy Robinson a little bit more.
CHAPTER 4
Amy
I talk Mrs. Kendall through the details of what will happen tomorrow when her surgery is scheduled and tell her that the doctor will be along to see her presently.
“That was my son, Ronan,” she says, as if I asked her who he was, though I didn't. Maybe she caught the looks we gave each other. The no-love-lost looks. I should have been more professional and composed, but I was shocked when he appeared. I don't see many hot, bad-tempered firefighters around here and I never expected to see him again, let alone have him turn up at work. He looked even better in jeans than he looked in his gear yesterday. Pity about the frown.
Mrs. Kendall continues. “We don't get along, but I can't blame him and he's been good to me over this.”
I beg to differ. He just seems like a real grouch to me, but I can't say that to a patient about her son. So I just say, “He seems very nice.”
“He got a medal from the Queen, a few years ago.” She grabs her handbag and pulls out a yellowing scrap of newspaper, opening it up to show her son in full gear, smoke smudged. Apparently, he single-handedly rescued two children from a house fire when the house was starting to collapse. It was thought too dangerous for the crew to go in, but he went in anyway.
“Did you get to meet the Queen, too?”
“Me? No, he went with his dad.”
I hand Mrs. Kendall back the scrap of paper, make her a cup of tea and explain about the pre-op tests we'll need to do, while I try to put Ronan Kendall out of my mind. He's such an annoying guy, and yet… since I met him yesterday, he keeps popping into my head uninvited, and then he turns up here where I least expect him. Anyway, I've just got to get to the end of this shift and I'm going out with my friend, Sandra. I can forget all about firefighter Ronan and enjoy the night out.
*
“Of all the people to show up as a patient's relative—him.” I already told my friend Sandra about the cat and my run in with Ronan, then an unknown firefighter, yesterday. She wanted to know all about him when I first mentioned him. Was he in full gear? Did he have abs to die for and a butt to match? There's no getting Sandra's mind out of the gutter when she's on a roll.
But today I tell her, “I think he was as surprised to see me as I was to see him. His mother seems a lot nicer than him, though. And then he had the nerve to say he'd take me out and teach me some manners.”
“Tell me you said yes, nerve or no nerve. I don't expect your manners were on his mind at all.”
“I said no, that I wouldn't go out with him if he was the last man on the planet.”
“That means you have the hots for him.”
“What do you mean?”
“Otherwise, you'd just have said no and moved on. You weren't emphasizing your refusal to him; you were emphasizing it to yourself, because admit it, you were tempted.”
“Ever since you did that psychology degree, there's no avoiding you finding something I didn't say in my words.”
“That's because I'm right. Am I right?”
“Okay, so he was hot. Scorching, like I told you yesterday. But that doesn't make him a nice person.” I tell her what his mother said about them not getting on, how he didn't invite her to his honors ceremony with the Queen, just his dad. Who does that? I'd have invited my stepmother, Grace, right along with my dad even though she's not my real mother.
Sandra spent a lot of time at our house when we were growing up. “Your mother might have been the best, but you know some mothers are not what they seem. Real bitches. But anyway, who cares if a guy takes out the trash and spends his Saturday afternoons at the old folks home when he's in bed? Bad boys are the best. You have to get over yourself sometime. Take the risk.”
“No, it's not happening.”
“Why? Come on, Amy. You're twenty-one, not sixteen. This is the twenty-first century.”
“You know why.” She's well aware of why I can't just jump into bed with anyone. She's psychoanalyzed me enough about it. But she never lets it rest. Sometimes old friends, the ones who know you inside out, are the worst, thinking they know what's best for you.
“Suit yourself. But you need to get over all that crap. I've told you before you can't let a few high school idiots get one over you like that. Besides, the longer you leave it, the more crusty you'll get down there.” She pulls a face.
“It's not the worst thing in world. Most guys are losers. I may as well get crusty.”
“They're not all losers. You have to fuck a lot of lemons to make lemonade.”
“Sandra!” But my protest is getting nowhere because I laugh at the same time. “That's not the phrase.”
“Whatever the phrase is, you're making damn all lemonade right now, and anyway, never mind Sexy Fireman, I have something to tell you.”
“What?”
“You know how I'm always complaining that the bosses at work get all the perks and invitations to events that the bank sponsors and they don't even want to go.”
“Yes.”
“My boss gave me his tickets to the XT Music Awards.”
“You're kidding me.” The XT Music Awards always have the best bands performing live. Now I'm green with envy.
“No, not kidding, and you're coming with me.”
“Me?”
“Who else? If I take a guy, he's not going to let me drool in peace. You are the only one I want to drool with. Wait until you hear who's going to be there.”
She reels off a whole list of bands. My chin just about hits the floor. And I give her a hug. “I think I love you.”
She laughs. “What are friends for?”
“You're the best.”
“You could do something for me, though. Make me happy.”
“What?”
“Get your fireman friend to ask you out again.”
“You're kidding? I can't do that. Besides, I might never see him again.”
“Just promise me, if you do, you'll talk to him. In fact, I dare you to ask him out if he doesn't ask you out again. Do it for me, if not for you, because I don't want you turning into a dried-up old maid.”
“I can't ask him out.”
“Yes, you can. If it helps, I'll make it a condition of you coming with me to the XT Awards.”
“You wouldn't!”
“I would. They call it tough love.”
In the end, I agree to at least speak to Ronan Kendall if he turns up to see his mother when I'm there. I know I'll never hear the last of it unless I try. And I can't say no to Sandra. She's always there for me, whatever happens.
In any case, I doubt the guy will be around much, so I'm probably off the hook. And even if I have to speak to him, after his mother goes home I'll never set eyes on him again, so what does it matter?
CHAPTER 5
Ronan
Nurse Amy Robinson is on duty when I go to see my mother the next evening after her surgery.
“Mrs. Kendall will be feeling groggy from the anesthetic so don't stay long,” Amy says.
“And after I made a special trip to see her. Maybe you can make it up to me.”
She doesn't tell me to get lost right away. I'm chalking that up as a win.
“I'm on duty,” she says.
“Don't you have breaks?”
She glances at the clock above the door. “If it's quiet, I can take one in twenty minutes.”
It's weird because she doesn't seem any friendlier than she did before, so I'm not sure why she wants to spend any time with me. Anyway, she does come back when she said she would. Maybe she just wants to give me a hard time again. Th
at, or I'm not losing my touch after all.
I shouldn't chance my luck, but I can't resist it. After I get the coffees in the little cafe in the hospital reception area, I say, “Why are you here sharing your break with me? I thought you said if I was the last man on earth…”
“I did say it, and I meant it.”
“So why are you here when you could be… I don't know… eating ice cream or skateboarding or something.”
She looks at me. “I could. But then again, I decided not to.”
“Don't tell me. You want me to ask you out again so you can say no. I don't think so. I know that no is supposed to mean no.”
“You're not supposed to take no for an answer when you're asking a girl out. Haven't you seen any movies?”
“It's too much work. Easier to move on.”
“You've had a lot of noes, I expect.”
“Not really. No usually means ‘I already have a boyfriend.’ Not ‘you're the last man on earth.’ First time I got rejected that badly. “
“Did it cut you to the quick?”
“Yes, I'm mortally wounded.” Actually, now she mentions it, it did sting a bit. I wanted her to say yes, more than I usually care.
“What if I was going to say yes this time?” She looks up from under her lashes. She can't be serious.
“Is this a trick?”
“No.”
“Why the change from last man on earth to a yes? Seems like a big stretch to me. There's something you're not saying.”
She blushes. Bingo. I hit the nail on the head.
“My friend, Sandra, challenged me to ask you out.”
“Wait, what? It might be a while since I've been in full time education, but you're older than high school, right? This isn't one of those 'my friend likes your friend' things?”
“No, she thinks I should go out more. And she'll only give me one of her XT Music Awards tickets if I go out with you.”
