by Emilia Finn
She takes off each piece individually, so she ends up with four strips of paper and a metric ton of sexual chemistry floating in the air between us.
Better than mourning and awkwardness, I guess.
Gently, Idalia lays the covering over my newly cleaned cut, and hums under her breath as she smooths out the edges. “Traumatic mutism,” she murmurs after a moment. “Not selective, but from trauma, as far as we can figure out.”
“Max?” I remain in place, unmoving and careful not to spook her away. “Trauma?”
Studying her work, Idalia nods and slowly lowers my shirt. “Before that night, my son spoke just fine. He was on track with his peers, he had words, he had complete sentences. But now…”
“Trauma,” I finish with a sigh. “From the fire? How much did he see?”
She makes herself busy tossing the trash away. “He saw the house ablaze. He saw the fireman carry him out, then when Brandon came back for me. He saw all the flashing lights, the people, the chaos.”
“He saw it all.”
Thinking on that for a moment, Idalia brushes by me and goes back to her soda. “Ya know, I think his trauma is actually based around me.”
“You?” I fix my shirt and have to force myself to remain standing on my side of the kitchen.
Just because she smells good, and her touch is feather-soft, it doesn’t give me permission to follow her around like a fucking puppy.
When Idalia doesn’t elaborate, I recycle her word. “Explain?”
“It was just fire,” she begins. “Right? I mean, fire can be beautiful if someone spins the narrative that way. Sure, Max saw the flashing lights, but again, there’s nothing truly sinister in that unless we allow there to be.”
“I don’t…” I pick up my beer and try to use it to keep my hands busy. “I still don’t understand.”
“He saw me, Nixon. Screaming, kicking, demanding they go back into that house to save Max and Brandon. It was collapsing. There was no way they could send any more men inside. It was too dangerous. But I wasn’t ready to accept that yet. I wasn’t ready to let them go. So despite the paramedics trying to keep me calm, Maximo still had a front-row seat to me losing my damn mind. And after…”
She smiles, but with that shaky grin also comes a lone tear she furiously swipes away. “I didn’t speak unless I absolutely had to. For days, I had nothing to say. I had no one to speak to. I was existing, surviving, barely, and Max was right there with me, eating, sleeping, but it was nothing more than existing. I stopped speaking, because I wasn’t coping, but in doing so, I worry I might have wired his brain to think silence was the appropriate response to trauma.
“Maximo was only a toddler,” she continues. “He’d only just started speaking, and then I took it away without explaining anything to him.”
Another thing she blames herself for. Another way to deal with her own trauma.
It’s easier, I suspect, for her to hoard what she perceives as her faults and make herself busy dealing with that, with her son, than it is to accept her own grief and emotional needs.
That’s why she turns to ice when she’s mad or sad. It’s why her level of tolerance is so low.
“What are you thinking about?”
“Me?” I study her eyes. Her torso. Her wide-set hips. Her generously sized chest. And that golden fucking seven plastered across the front. “I was mentally flipping through my psych degree and deciding how much of your own trauma you’re still holding onto.”
“Oh?” Her eyes widen. “Wow, okay. I thought you’d zoned out a while ago and were looking at my tits.”
My cock fills. Just like that. Because the prim and proper Miss Italy talking about tits does things to my blood.
“I was looking too,” I admit. “But my brain can think while my eyes look. I’ve trained them to work independently of each other.”
“Quite the anomaly,” she forces a snigger. “Look, Mr. Rosa, I’m just gonna—”
“Mr. Rosa?” I stand taller. More alert. “And just like that, we’re back there again?”
“Nixon.” Her cheeks blaze, hot and nervous. “Can I speak, please? I don’t enjoy vulnerability. And I don’t enjoy change. Not right now at this point in my life.”
“So, what is it? What makes you vulnerable?”
“You.”
She broadens her shoulders and pushes her breasts forward. Not to entice me, I’m certain. But to assert her dominance. “I married a wonderful man, Nix. We were happy, and I wasn’t ready to lose him.”
“Well—”
“But I did,” she pushes on. “I lost him in a really traumatic way. I haven’t dated since then, because I haven’t been interested. Men have asked me out, of course.”
My brow shoots up at her confidence. Her arrogance. “Of course.”
“But not a single man has walked through my world since Max that tempted me to look twice. In fact, I was beginning to think it was impossible.”
“Okay…?”
“But I keep looking at you!” she snaps. “Twice. Three times. Four. I saw you in town yesterday, and though you didn’t see me, the car sitting behind me at the traffic light honked to get me moving. God knows how long I was staring.” Huffing, she shakes her head. “Drooling over a man I have no interest in. It must’ve been a while, since we both know there’s never all that much traffic around town.”
“You were watching me?” My face warms, and my heart does a little skip in my chest. “Really?”
“You were wearing those yellow pants you wear.”
“Turnouts.”
“Soot on your face, just like tonight. Which means you’d been playing with fire.”
“Well, I wouldn’t say playing, but—”
“You were with your brothers. Two of them.”
“Oh.” And now my smile turns to a scowl as I recall us heading to the diner for lunch. “You ruined the image I had in my head.”
She scoffs. “Three of you, three men who look good in their respective uniforms. Turnouts,” she says the word with trepidation. “The paramedic in blue. And the other one, wearing a suit that was clearly tailored just for him.”
“Don’t go looking at my brothers now, Miss Italy.” I push off the counter with my beer in hand and slowly stalk closer. She doesn’t enjoy vulnerability, but I sure as shit don’t want this moment to pass without breaking down a few of those walls she loves building. “Mitch is taken, and Beck is a slut. I can’t trust him not to sweep you up before I pluck up the courage to do it myself.”
“I’m unsweepable.” And yet, she blushes. “I guess I just wanted to let you know that I see you. I saw your brothers too, but it’s you my eyes and brain latch onto.”
“I’m excited to tell Beckett of his bad fortune.”
“Can you shut up for a second? Taci.” She snatches up her soda and takes a deep swig, then walking it to the sink, she sets the whole thing inside. “I’m here to let you know that you’ve caught my attention. So far, I’ve dealt with that by brushing you off and being unkind. But I don’t like how I feel when I do that. I don’t enjoy being a bitch. So instead, I’m showing you my cards. You can know that I look, and I can know that you’ll leave me be.”
“Whoa, wait.” I step in her way when she tries to pass. “Who said I would leave you be?”
“I have a son to raise, Nixon. A hotel to run. A child to un-traumatize. And a nanny to rein in before she gets us all sent to prison. My life is full, I barely have time to brush my teeth twice a day.” She sidesteps me and heads toward the doorway. She’s running. “I don’t have time for you.”
“Ouch.”
“I especially don’t have time for a firefighter.” She drops the axe over my neck. “I clearly have unresolved trauma when it comes to fires and firemen. I still see Brandon’s wife in my head, Brandon’s child, crying at his funeral and saying goodbye to a man who should never have died. I have a million things to work through, but one of them won’t ever be an acceptance for your career.”
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She turns before leaving the kitchen, her hand on the doorframe, her head turned so she glances over her shoulder. Her eyes are cutting, mean. “To me, it’s unnecessary and cruel to expect your loved ones not to worry every time that siren goes off.
“I hope to see you around, Nixon. Say hello, smile. You can even kick a palla in the park if you happen across my son and Arlo there. But it would be best if we kept things at that.”
“Friends?”
Sucking on her bottom lip for a moment, Idalia finally nods. “Friends.”
“Friends who just so happen to look at their friend’s ass when they wear Levi’s?”
Surprised, then shaking her head, Idalia laughs and makes her way out of the kitchen and toward my living room. “If you must. It’ll take me a minute to stop looking at you too.”
I follow her. Of course I do. But stop again when I enter my living room and find her studying a family photo: me, Mitch, Beck, Corey, Troy, and Abby. Our parents were traveling when we took that picture, enjoying their best lives, now that their kids had grown and left home.
“This is a beautiful family you have here, Nixon. You’re very lucky.”
“Yeah. I am.” I make my way closer and stop when my chest touches her shoulder. “I’m quite honestly the luckiest little brother in the world. I’m very fortunate to have them.”
“And yet, you reward them with uncertainty. Every night you go to work, they worry if you’ll ever come home again.”
Lethal blow; I stumble back from the force of her words. The sadness. The cruelty. “Fuck, Idalia.” I bring a hand up and rub it over my aching heart. “Why’d you have to say that, huh?”
“Because until I did, I’m not sure you truly understood what I’m trying to tell you. What you do is dangerous, and even if your family says nothing, I’m certain they worry every single time you go to work.” She grabs the doorhandle and slowly twists it to let herself out. “Friends, Nixon. I would very much like that. But anything more is too much at this point in my life.”
Nodding, I watch her walk away, out my door and into the darkness.
She crosses my lawn, slides into a car, and blinds me when her lights flash on. Music starts inside her car, loud enough I hear the hum, but not so loud that I can identify the song.
I remain standing on my doorstep, watching, wishing, and wondering what the hell is going on inside my head that I can’t stop watching her.
She’s just a woman; beautiful, yes. Intriguing. Smart as a whip, and cold in business. She’s also a mom, and though I feel like I should shy away from that, because hell knows I wasn’t up to planning kids at this stage of my life. Here I am anyway, wishing I’d asked how Max is doing today.
Maybe the kid doesn’t speak, but he sure as shit knows I’m watching his mom when she walks. And because he knows that, he ensured I was aware he’d rip my face off if I took a misstep.
He may be small, he might be quiet, but he isn’t playing. If I was to ever step inside his home, I’d need to make sure the knives are packed away somewhere high.
Once Idalia’s car disappears around the corner and into the darkness, I step back inside my home and close the door. I was planning to take a shower and sit down to rest before Idalia unexpectedly arrived, but now I bypass the bathroom and instead grab my cell. Rather than texting, I hit dial, and call all of my siblings in one go.
“Yeah?” Beckett is the first to answer. “What?”
“Hold on.” I swing by the kitchen and snag a fresh beer from the fridge. “I’m calling everyone.”
“Hey,” Corey answers next. “What’s up?”
“Hello?” Abby is next, but although she’s supposed to be the sweetest, calmest, most protected of us all, gunshots ring out on her end. “Nix?”
“Abigail?” Corey snaps. “Are you seriously in a gun range right now?”
She snickers. “I live in a gun range, Corey. Relax. Nixon, why the group call?”
“Troy, you there?” I ask, instead of answering just yet.
“Yup. I’m with Abby and Serrano. What’s up?”
“What’s wrong?” Mitch is the last to join our call. “Why the group drama?”
“Dunno,” Beck mumbles. “He hasn’t said anything yet.”
“Nixon?” Abby pushes. “What’s wrong?”
“Oh, I wanna get in on this.” Nadia’s voice filters along a half dozen phone lines. “What’s up, Rosas?”
“Oh man, Reynolds is here,” Corey mocks. “Who let her in?”
“Shut the fu—”
“Do you all hate me?” I cut in. “Because of—”
“Yep,” Beck bursts out. “Yes, we do. You’re annoying, and I know we voted to never tell you, but we think your haircut is stupid too.”
“Beckett!” Abby scolds. “Hush. Nixon, what the heck is going on?”
“Do you guys hate me because of my job? I was talking to someone recently, and she basically told me I was cruel and selfish for making you guys worry about me like that.”
“Oh dear,” Abby murmurs. “I know who—”
“Shots fired from Idalia!” Nadia cackles. “She’s so good at the suckerpunches, huh?”
“Who is Idalia?” Troy demands. “And why does this one person’s opinion warrant an entire family group chat? Why do we care?”
“She’s the new owner of the Oriane,” Abby fills him in. “That hotel in town that just had a grand opening. My shop does the flowers every week.”
“So… this new business owner,” Corey begins. “Moves to town, signs Cadabby on for flowers, is allegedly good with the sneaky jabs, and now… Nixon cares about her opinion?”
“She’s hot as hell,” Beck adds. “Like, pin her against a wall and—”
“Hey!” I snarl.
Corey chuckles. “Well, alright. Now we know why we care. Nix is up in his feels, this chick is hot, she’s business-savvy, and by the sounds of it, Reynolds and Cadabby already like her. Sounds like a win to me.”
“Mention pinning her against a wall again,” I growl for Beckett, “I swear it, safado, I’ll put you down.”
“He’s also protective,” Troy grunts. “Noted. So, are we discussing her, or are we talking about being a firefighter?”
“She also has a kid,” Nadia tosses in. “I feel like that’s super important information for this discussion.”
“A kid?” Corey gasps. “Hell, Beckett. Why’d you say that shit about pinning her? She’s a mom! Have you no respect?”
“That’s what I’m saying,” I shout. “Respect her, or I’ll be hurting some folks.”
“So she spent a day in hospital and had a baby,” Beck huffs. “Doesn’t mean she can’t have a rough time in the bedroom.”
“Beckett Rosa!” Abby snaps. “Stop it right now. Nixon, take a breath, then tell us what you want to know.”
“I want to know if my career hurts you guys. I want to know if I’m a shitty brother for making you worry.”
“Cussing,” Abby scolds. “And yes. But no.”
“Yes, but no?” I bring my beer up and sip. “Do better.”
“Yes, I worry,” she clarifies. “But no, that doesn’t make you a crappy brother.”
“She said crappy,” Mitch murmurs. “What the hell?”
“It makes you a hero,” Nadia adds. “You’ve chosen a dangerous career, Nix, but someone has to do it. And anyone who knows you knows you’re not hotdogging around those fires. You train hard, and you run a really strong crew who has your back.”
“I mean, the same could be asked of Mitch,” Troy points out. “Dangerous work. Or Corey. Or me.”
“Hey,” Beckett nags. “I’m a hero too, ya know? It’s not my fault I get to look good while doing it.”
“You’re sexy, too, Beck. It’s okay. You can relax,” Nadia patronizes. “Nixon, I consider Idalia my friend, so I guess I get to add a slightly more personalized answer here. She worries, and she has good reason to. She’s got her own story in this world, she has her own things to work
through. And she’s busy with Max, so—”
“Wait,” Troy inserts. “Who is Max?”
“Her son,” Abby answers. “But before we get too far, I should mention her son was named for his father. So they’re both named Max.”
“She’s married?” Corey balks. “Boy, you’re crushing on a mom… who is married? The fuck are you thinking?”
“He’s deceased,” I tell them. “Two years ago.”
“Oh no,” Abby cries. Just like that, she sniffles and feels someone else’s pain too deeply. “I mean, I knew he wasn’t around. But she doesn’t talk about it, and I’ve never asked. I didn’t want to pry.”
“I tried to pry.” Nadia is unapologetically honest. “She turned to ice and set me in my place.”
“Which is fair,” Troy says. “I mean… it’s shitty she won’t unpack that with her friends. But it’s her business. It’s up to her what she wants to tell people.”
“The guy died in a house fire.” I drop the last piece of this story for my siblings. “And the firefighter they sent in to save him also bit it. She’s in mourning for her husband, obviously, but sending that firefighter in, and him never coming out again, is really fucking with her.”
“And that, my friends, is why she hates Nixon.” Beck makes a sound in the back of his throat. A mix of sadness and ‘hell yeah’. “Anyone have her number? I don’t fight fires for a living, and I bet she thinks I’m sexy too.”
“I will kill you,” I growl. “Swear to God, Beck. You need to chill the fuck out.”
“Cussing,” Abby nags. “Beckett, stop taunting Nixon. And Nixon, stop reacting to his BS.”
“She said BS!” Mitch gasps. “What the hell is going on around here?”
“I’m done with this.” Shaking my head, I turn out of my kitchen with my beer in hand and head toward the bathroom. “I just wanted to check in with you guys. I’m careful when working. You know that, right?”
“We know,” Troy answers. “We’re all careful.”
“We have to come home,” Mitchell declares. “How else could we smother Abby?”
“Har-har.” Her words are a verbal eyeroll. “And since we’re on the topic, now might be a good time for me to tell you all that Spencer and I have officially entered the adoption database. We’re going to make a family just as soon as we’re blessed with the right child.”