Up in Smoke, page 13
His eyes warm. “I want you to succeed, not because you’re a woman or have had a rough go being the daughter of some big shot. But because my crew needs you to succeed. I’ll always have your back.”
“You will?”
“Of course, Abby,” he says so gently it makes me want to cry.
“I—I appreciate it. I’ve already learned a lot from you. I want to continue learning.”
He studies me, which means I’m stuck—gloriously stuck—returning his heated regard because any other option would mean I have to back down. I can’t do that because anything less than toe to toe with this man will signify weakness.
He unfolds from the sofa, which is really for the best because I was about to do something incredibly stupid there, like climb all over him.
“My offer still stands,” he says.
“Offer?”
“Breakfast.”
That text seems like ten years ago instead of ten minutes. Can I do the friends and co-workers thing? I might be brave in a working fire but I’m not sure I’m brave enough to spend time with Roman Rossi, pretending I’m not dying to stick my tongue down his throat. Pretending I don’t want to feel his strong arms around me and all the wonderful comfort that comes with that.
“Maybe another time,” I say.
He nods again, understanding in his expression. He knows the sparks between us are likely to ignite if we spend any non-work time together. By common instinct, we move toward the door, sadness dogging my steps. This feels like the end instead of a brand-new beginning to the story of us.
He stops at the door and turns.
“Remember you asked me about whether I would have called you?”
You mean when you crushed my heart as flat as a pancake? No, haven’t given it a second thought.
I snatch a jagged breath. “You said probably not.”
“I lied.”
Long pause while my heart trip-hammers against my ribs, almost cracking a couple in the process.
“You lied?”
“Yep. I had every intention of calling you. I’ve been out of the dating game for a while and wasn’t sure how long I was supposed to wait, what the protocol is these days. I obviously waited too long.”
You mean, we could have already done the deed and moved on? Once I’d found out he was a firefighter, I wouldn’t have wanted to date him anyway. I can’t risk that level of closeness, but I would have been very open to something more casual.
Tripping down that rocky road would help no one just as the man telling me this now doesn’t change a thing.
If anything it makes it worse.
I gave him an out—said no to his breakfast offer and made it clear that he and I breathing the same air outside the firehouse is madness. Now he’s here, dangling something I can’t have.
“If you’d called me, it wouldn’t have changed anything.”
“You sure about that?” He moves back into the apartment, so fast he’s in my personal space like it’s his personal space. I look up into that sculpted face and hold my breath. “I said I wouldn’t have called because it seemed like the easiest way to move forward,” he says, every word a carbon copy of the thoughts rolling through my frazzled brain. “Put it behind us and deal with the new world order. But it was a lie.”
My heart’s not doing so good. Still, he continues, stringing together more words than I’ve ever heard from his lips.
I am spellbound.
“I wish I’d done more than kiss you because I can still taste that cherry pie on your lips, I can still feel your gorgeous breasts against my chest, I can still hear those breathy little moans you made when our tongues tangled. I wish I’d spent the night with you so I’d have that memory of how good we could be together.”
I have no words. And if I did, what would be the point? Nothing can resolve this to our mutual satisfaction short of banging each other’s brains out.
The burning look he delivers says he understands completely. Great, I’m totally simpatico with a man I can’t have.
I’m still melting under his scrutiny when he leaves three seconds later.
Twenty
Roman
I walk out of Abby’s building, crushed with disappointment, though fuck knows why. I stopped by to tell her I had her back, to let her vent, and make sure she was okay.
Instead I blurted out that if we were living in a different universe, I’d have called her for that date.
Excellent leadership skills, Rossi.
The minute she turned down breakfast with that look of such misery I knew what she was feeling. What we’ve both been feeling since she walked into my office at Engine 6: how the fuck can we pretend we don’t want each other?
She’s been doing a better job of it and clearly has the right idea. Don’t spend a minute of unchaperoned time together. That’s what she was saying when she basically told me to walk my ass out the door.
But I had to open my big mouth. I couldn’t go another second letting her think I might not have wanted her from the start. Maybe she could tell with the way I’ve been practically drooling all over her, but I needed to say the words. Actualize the hell out of it, and if in actualizing, if in making the words live and breathe outside my head resulted in sending a call up to the universe, then maybe my sister and her dumb New Age shit have the right idea.
So I said it. I told her my wishes and dreams in the most inappropriate manner. And then I got the fuck out of Dodge before I acted on those fantasies.
It was supposed to make me feel better, a cathartic admission.
Instead I’ve only gone and made it so much worse.
These tangled traps occupy my mind as I let myself into the apartment. It’s Tuesday, so I should have the place to myself, except I hear voices in Chiara’s kitchen, and there I find my sister and daughter seated at the table.
“What’s going on? Why aren’t you in school?”
Lena looks up at me with red-rimmed eyes. My heart drops.
“She got into a fight,” Chiara says.
“Are you okay?” I touch a hand to her head and she ducks away.
“I’m fine.” She leaves the kitchen.
Chiara blows out a breath. “The school called you but couldn’t get through.”
I turned off my phone before I went to Abby’s. “I had it off for a while and forgot to turn it back on.”
“Lena talked to Tori and the bitch blabbed. Told her you won’t let her come to the wedding.”
“Shit. Tori wasn’t supposed to say anything. Why the hell would she do that?”
“Because she knows it would look terrible if her own daughter isn’t a bridesmaid. Tori is all about the optics.”
I turn on my phone and sure enough, I have several messages, a couple from the school, the rest from Chiara. Nothing from Tori, though.
I scroll to my contacts. “Excuse me while I shove those optics down her throat.”
“Maybe hold off and deal with Lena first. She was upset and got into a physical altercation at school. Have you forgotten that part?”
I take a breath. While I was fantasizing about getting my rocks off, my daughter was having a meltdown.
“Yeah, okay. I’m sorry you had to leave work. Thanks for picking her up.”
“Sure, I’m here to be the backup. I think she’s taking the move and changes really well, but the fact her mom is so hot and cold is really hard on her. I know you’re trying to protect her but maybe you should let her go to the wedding.”
“No fucking way,” I growl, and especially not now when Tori tried to end run it. “I’m going to talk to Lena. Go back to work.”
Chiara looks like she has more to say, but instead takes the wise approach and leaves.
I knock on Lena’s bedroom door. There’s no answer so I put my head around. “Fragolina?”
She’s curled up on her side, her back to me, looking at her phone screen. She makes no effort to face me. I understand her hurt and I hate that I’m the bad guy here, but sometimes you have to be. That’s pretty much the definition of parenting.
Taking a seat, I run a hand over her shoulder. She doesn’t flinch, so I take that as a positive.
“You okay?”
She shrugs and my heart breaks at seeing her so closed off. Only when her mother is involved does she recede like this and become smaller. I’d vowed she’d never feel like that with me.
“What was the fight about?”
“Nothing.”
“Want to tell me what your mom said?”
She turns over, fueled by indignation. “You know what she said. She wants me in the wedding and you never told me!”
“True. I didn’t want you to take part.”
My candor surprises her. “But, why? She actually wants me there. It’s like you’re trying to keep us apart.”
“That’s not the case. I—I just don’t want you … to go.” As I can’t defend my bitterness toward Tori, I add another string to the bow. “Who’d look after you?”
“Aunt Kayla. Aunt Lisa. There’s a whole other side of my family I can’t see because you moved us out here! Because you got mad at everyone.”
I dig my nails into my palms. I’ve never described it this way to her, and I sure as hell know Chiara wouldn’t. “Is that what your mom said?”
“She said that you both made mistakes but that we wouldn’t have had to move if you hadn’t gotten into a fight with Uncle Rick. You’d still have your job and we’d still be in New York. And I’d be able to go to Mom’s wedding.”
Yeah, a lot hinged on one thrown punch. Tori knows what preceded that, how her affair with my colleague and the cover-up by my captain, “Uncle Rick,”—who was supposed to be my closest friend—sent me off the deep end. Sure, I could have taken it, suffered the indignity of my whole crew knowing I was fucked over by people I cared about. But I didn’t and here we are. Tori has no right to use my reaction to her bad behavior as leverage in her mind games with our daughter.
“I don’t want you to go, Lena. If I can’t go with you—and I can’t—then you can’t go at all. That’s all there is to it.”
Her look is pure tween hatred. I’d hoped to stave this off for longer but now I’m in it good.
“It’s not fair.”
“Maybe not. But sometimes we have to do things we don’t want.”
“Adults always say that to justify their own bad decisions.”
Does my daughter know me or what? Yet I hear a thread of her mother’s thinking in there.
So maybe I’m the king of bad decisions. Tori, my job in New York, this wedding business. Abby.
Abby, who I almost caved to not fifteen minutes ago, the worst best mistake I almost made today.
“I’m sorry you can’t go, Lena. We’ll do something else.”
My daughter growls and turns her back on me.
Two days later, I walk into the Engine 6 gym, surprised to find Luke pondering the weights.
“Shouldn’t you be headed out to make a baby?” Luke’s shift ended thirty minutes ago but there’s no end in sight to the wagering on his powerful sperm.
“Just getting some time in. Baby-making takes stamina. Spot me?”
“Sure.” I go through the routine of making sure Luke’s windpipe isn’t crushed all while thinking on how best to approach my dilemma.
“How’s it going with your candidate?”
“Torres?” Luke counts off with the barbell in his secure grip. “Guy’s great. Nice to have another joker on the crew, and he’s definitely pulling his weight.”
While I’m pleased to hear we have a good guy in the house, I was hoping to hear there’s friction or trouble in paradise. Maybe I should come at it from a different angle.
“You hear the Commissioner put Sullivan on light duty?”
Luke sits up, grabbing his towel to wipe at the sweat dotting his chest.
“Yeah, she was spittin’ nails about it. Not that I blame her. Kind of a sick call.”
“I wonder if the fact she’s on my crew gets his goat.”
“Because of your history with him?” Luke considers this. “You think he’s going to go harder on her because you’re her CO? Or you think he doesn’t trust you to have her back?”
“Maybe both. She did push back during the call—makes me wonder if maybe we don’t work so well together.”
Luke considers this. “Rossi, are you trying to get Sullivan transferred off your crew?”
“No.” I take a seat beside him on the bench, and murmur, “Maybe.”
He knows there’s nothing wrong with her. She’s going to make a great firefighter so the only reason I want her off my crew is as plain as the nose on my reddening face.
“You want to f—uh, date her?” Whatever he sees on my face is not good. “You’re fucking kidding me? It’s been barely a month!”
“How long did it take you and your lady to know?”
“Day One. She walked into the Engine 6 locker room and I was in a towel. End of story.” Cocky grin. Fucker. “Of course, we had to go through the motions of pretending there was nothing because of work stuff. So, been there.” He twitches his nose. “What does Abby think?”
“We haven’t—uh, discussed it. But I’m pretty sure she’s interested.”
Luke narrows his gaze. “So you’re investigating the options behind her back? She won’t like that. Hell, I don’t like that.”
“It’s not—listen, I’m trying to think of options so I can present them to her. Really, I should be forgetting the whole thing because I’ve got enough drama at home.”
“What drama?”
“My ex wants Lena in the wedding party as a bridesmaid. I told her no and that she couldn’t discuss it with Lena, but she found out.”
“Your kid did?”
“Yup. Now it’s World War Three and I’m the bad guy. Just when I think things are starting to even out. Chiara’s marriage is imploding and—” I rub my forehead. What the hell am I thinking trying to carve out a path to date a candidate on my crew? “Forget I said anything.”
Luke waits a beat. “There’s nothing wrong with looking for a little happiness for yourself. Back when Kinsey and I met, I’d gone through a pretty bad divorce myself. And I threw myself into taking care of the kids. Alex and Gage were old enough to look after themselves but I used that as an excuse to not make any sudden moves. I almost fucked things up with Kinsey but when I went all in with her, told her she was number one, she met me halfway and it changed everything. It’s okay to want things, Roman.”
“As long as everyone’s on the same page.” I check the door to make sure we’re alone. “The thing is, this attraction I feel for Abby is trouble, you know. Not only because she’s on my crew but because I need to keep things stable. I’m on shaky legs here as it is and I want to fuck with that for someone I barely know?”
Laying it out there like this is the cold ice bath my horny muscles need.
I have too much to lose to let a piece of very fine tail derail me. Abby obviously has ten times more sense than I do.
“Pretty sure I did not say or imply any of that,” Luke says.
I jump off the bench and head to the treadmill. “You didn’t have to. I just needed to talk it out and now I have, we’re good.”
“Are we?”
I set the treadmill to its most punishing route. May as well practice for the days and weeks to come.
“Yeah, we are.”
Twenty-one
Abby
I’m a couple of minutes late for my shift, likely because I’m not eager to tie myself to a mop for the day. I have company in my tardiness. Wozniak is in the locker room and looks a little sheepish on seeing me.
“Hey, Sully, how’s it going?”
“Could be worse.”
I could be wallowing in memories of an inappropriate hookup with my superior officer—oh, wait! I’m not and I have nothing and no one to keep me warm.
“Yeah, this whole warehouse business is really fucking us both over.”
That’s an interesting take. The only person who seems to have been screwed sideways here is me. I wait on tenterhooks to hear how this affects another straight white male.
I don’t have to wait long.
“There’s an LT position opening up at Engine 70 that has my name on it but now this incident is being blown way out of proportion. Rossi is being a total asshole. Just loves playing the big man on campus.”
I’m not about to get in the middle of this. I have to work with both of them so you won’t hear me taking sides, though if pressed, I know exactly where I officially land.
I’m a Roman girl all the way.
I stash my backpack in my locker and close it. Woz is tying his shoelaces and I can feel him staring at me, expecting a response.
I keep it as neutral as possible. “Well, I’ll be thinking of you while I’m fumigating the equipment room.”
“See? There you go. We workers are getting trod on. You should take this light duty shit up with your union rep, Sully.”
And say what? I saved this lazy dickwad’s life by skirting protocol and my father the commissioner thinks I’m not ready for prime time? Oh, sure.
Woz is on a roll. “You know Rossi came in here, up shit creek after he punched out his CO in New York and somehow he manages to jump the line straight into a management position. Guy’s on thin ice, though, I heard.” He whispers, “With your dad.”
That day over breakfast, Roman had hinted he left FDNY on bad terms. So that’s the story: he punched his boss and is now on a last warning with Chuck. All the more reason why we’re a terrible idea.
“I wouldn’t know.”
But I know this: I’ve never wanted to pummel someone as badly as I want to pummel Wozniak right now.
“Just sayin’ that if Rossi gives you trouble you can always sic your pater on him. Use those connections, Sully.”
“Okay! See ya at breakfast.” Christ, I need out of here.
