“Hey, man, that waitress is checking you out,” Evan said.
We’d barely sat down and I was going over the menu trying to decide what would not make me feel like I had erased all the progress I’d just made with my workout, when Evan pointed out that I might have an admirer. I rolled my eyes and ignored him for a few seconds while I continued to peruse the menu in front of me.
“Seriously,” Evan insisted.
“I don’t care,” I replied.
“Well, she is coming this way.”
The waitress sauntered over and when she arrived, I could see that she was quite attractive. But I was not in the mood to entertain her notions about us, if she had any, maybe going out or even hooking up. It was becoming so easy for me to ignore a woman’s attention that I hardly even noticed it anymore when they displayed such an interest.
She took Evan and Doug’s drink order before turning to me and asking me, “What will you have?”
The way she said this let me know right away that she wanted me to say “You”, but I did no such thing. I just ignored this flirtation and said, “I’ll just have some water.”
“Water? Wow that is so boring. You should live a little, cowboy,” she continued. I noticed that as she spoke with me she leaned over a little bit and flashed some beautiful cleavage for my eyes to behold. I was not immune to the fact that this was very visually appealing to me, but it was not going to happen.
The other guys were staring at me eagerly, waiting for me to make some kind of a move so they could portray me as being a hero to them of some sort. But they were going to be disappointed. “Yeah, that’s all I need to drink.”
“Ok, and what about your lunch? What do you fancy today?” The waitress asked, her voice almost purring the words as she poured it on a little bit too much.
“I’ll just have a salad with salmon,” I said.
“Wow, someone is keeping it clean today. I need to start doing the same, but I’m so addicted to chocolate. It’s like a serious thing with me,” she said. I could tell she was fishing for some kind of complements, but I sat the menu back in the holder and simply smiled and nodded.
The waitress finally took the hint and went back to the computer to put in our orders.
“Wow, man. That was pathetic,” Doug said. “That girl is smoking hot and she was practically throwing herself at you.”
I shrugged. “I’m not interested. Leave me alone about it.”
“Man, you need to reevaluate some things in your life. The way you are living just isn’t healthy.”
“I know. I know that, but for right now I just have to deal with things my own way, ok?”
I knew my friends were only trying to help, but I did not want to become romantically involved with anyone. My heart would not take it. I had this fear that if I pursued someone romantically, then at some point I would lose it. I would crumble and just fall apart. I wasn’t going to let that happen to myself. I had to stay strong for Zoe. No matter how uncertain I was at times or how much the stress of things and the pain that I felt all the time missing my wife got to me and held me down, I still had to put up the illusion of strength. That was important so that Zoe could be happy and move on and I could do everything that I needed to do, only for her.
Then why couldn’t I stop thinking about Julie? I kept imagining how good it would feel to hold her in my arms, to kiss her, to make sweet love to her and lay her down with me in my bed. I wanted to fall asleep beside her, to hear her soft whispered breathing in the darkness and to know that I had someone that amazing in my life again. In those moments of fantasy, it felt like I had really clawed my way back to the surface, and I had finally found my reason to start enjoying my life again.
We finished having lunch, and I didn’t really talk too much to my friends during this. I didn’t want to feel sore at them, but I’ve always been the type of a guy who really hates hearing others advice. It just burns me up when I hear that other people think they know better about what I should do than I can do for myself. They weren’t me and they had no business presuming that they understood exactly how I felt. They had some valid points, but they were coming at me entirely the wrong way like this. I wanted to tell them to back off and to really mind their own business, but they were my friends and I knew they meant well and just really wanted to help me. I’m not the kind of guy who readily accepts help, even when I know I need it.
After lunch we headed to the training class. I was too unfocused to really be engaged in it. My head was somewhere else. I kept thinking about Julie. I wanted to sit down and really spend time with her. We’d connected so much in that short little time during the interview, and I just wanted so much more. This was very dangerous thinking. I knew this. I had a great nanny in place for Zoe and I didn’t want to do anything to mess that up. What if something happened romantically with Julie and me and then something else turned it sour? What would happen to the nature of our working relationship of employer/employee? Julie might decide to leave and then that would put Zoe in a lurch of losing someone else she really cared about. She needed this connection as well. She was a lonely little girl who did not have many friends. And she didn’t have a consistent adult female in her life anymore, other than her teacher who had to divide her time up with thirty other kids.
I did not want to mess this situation up. So, by the time the training class finished up and I headed home, I knew that I was going to keep things between Julie and me as professional as it was supposed to be. But the moment I would lay eyes on her, I knew that all of that planning and thinking, all that psyching myself up to do the right thing—all of it would go right out the window and I’d be a slave to my emotions. That woman had stirred up something inside of me that I thought was long dead and gone. I hadn’t known I could still feel like that again.
And for the first time in two years, I didn’t feel totally guilty about that. I felt happy and free.
But there was still something inside my guts that was gripping me with panic when I entertained the thought of being with this wonderful woman.
Time would tell…
Chapter Six
Julie
I was exhausted.
Zoe and I had played nonstop since her aunt dropped her off a few hours earlier. We started with a tea party with her little tea set. And then we brushed each other’s hair for a bit. After that we played some board games (Break the Ice was my favorite, even as a kid), and then Zoe watched some of the Wizard of Oz while I prepared dinner. I’d gone to the store earlier for Ricky and stocked up on all the essentials, but I was more tired than I thought I would be, so I decided that making something easy would be fine for dinner. I decided on spaghetti. It was one of Zoe’s favorites she said and every few minutes she would wander into the kitchen to ask me if it was done. I’d have to scoot her back to the living room and keep her away from the boiling water. She was hungry, but I could tell she also just wanted to be near me. That gave me a warm sense of sweetness inside. She was such a wonderful little girl.
Being so busy with Zoe had given me a break from thinking about the erotic dream I had about her father last night. I had sat in that chair in my room thinking and trying to recover from it for a few hours before I was finally able to get some more rest. It was so intense, I had to wonder if somehow it was a vision. Maybe I was seeing the future in a dream. I’d never experienced that before, and I wasn’t all that sure if I really believed in that sort of thing, but I’d never had such an intense dream before in my entire life. It was so real. I could still feel everything, taste everything, smell it, and even hear that sweet, guttural moaning voice of Ricky’s. I wanted it all to happen. It needed to come true, or I might not be able to retain my sanity.
I tried to keep my mind off it as I popped some garlic bread in the oven and then went to work on the salad. Ricky should have be home soon. He said he had some training to do, so I imagined that he would be taking a shower first, unless he already took one at work. But if not, then I would be dr
eaming about helping him with his hard to reach spots and maybe with his easy to reach spots as well.
I could not stop thinking about him and how much he turned me on. I needed to just relax and forget about it. This was not going to happen. I knew the possible consequences.
When the pasta was done boiling, I put it in a colander and strained it. While that was going on, I put the sauce on simmer and took the hot garlic bread out of the oven. It smelled delicious. I’ve never been a chef or a great cook, but I can put together food that tastes good. The key is playing to your strengths.
Right then I heard Ricky’s truck entering the garage and the door closing shut behind him. Zoe leapt up off the couch and ran to the door that led into the garage. “Daddy!” She yelled as she jumped into his arms.
I watched him hug his sweet little girl and let the door close gently. He looked cleanly fresh showered, his hair still a bit damp but combed slightly in his typical fashion that gave me the idea Ricky had tried to hide his bad boy side since becoming a father, but there was still that hint of danger in there somewhere that drove me wild.
Ricky sat Zoe down on the couch and then walked to the fridge where he pulled out a beer. “Hey, how’s it going?”
I almost spilled the sauce I was stirring as I jumped so much at the sound of his thick voice being directed at me. It sounded just like it sounded last night in my dream. That voice telling me what to do and how to do it…yes, please. I needed it so badly.
I sighed and braced myself before I dared to formulate and articulate an answer, all the while trying to act natural. “It was great. Zoe and I had a lot of fun. Dinner’s almost ready.”
“I can smell that,” Ricky said. “Wow, that smells fantastic.”
“You are probably just hungry,” I said.
“I am, but it smells wonderful nevertheless.”
Ricky sat down at the kitchen table with his beer and rested for a minute. I could tell he was tired, as if his day had been brutally hard and long. I wondered if he’d had to fight any actual fires that day, but I decided not to ask.
“Thanks,” I replied.
“So, you got to meet Katy?”
“Yeah, I did. She seems really nice,” I said.
Ricky was periodically glancing at his phone. “Yeah, she said she enjoyed meeting you when she dropped off Zoe. She said that you were wonderful, which coming from her should give you the highest compliment. She is very picky about nannies.”
I smiled. “Wow, that is great news to hear. Tell her thanks.”
I finished making dinner and put the dishes on the table so that we could all start serving ourselves. I felt strange eating dinner with them, but Ricky and Zoe both seemed to want me there. And it was good food, even if I do say so myself.
“Wow, this is fantastic,” Ricky said. “It might be the best spaghetti that I’ve ever tasted. What is your secret?”
“Oh, the secret is something my mother taught me. It was actually passed down from her mother as well. When the spaghetti is boiling, you sprinkle garlic powder, just a dash, into it every three minutes. Then you alternate that every two minutes with a dash of pickle juice. It gives it that little something extra, even if you don’t actually taste it.”
“Interesting,” Ricky said.
“It’s really good,” Zoe added.
“Thank you, sweetie,” I replied. “If you eat it all up then you will grow up to be big and strong.”
Zoe took this opportunity to flex her muscles and give us her tough face. “Super Zoe!”
I laughed. “We’ve created a monster over here.”
“Oh, she knows she will kick butt wherever she goes one day,” Ricky said.
We finished dinner with plenty of conversation, most of it directed by Zoe. She first told us both about her best friends at school, Shelby and Lynn, who I hadn’t heard anything about yet. And then she went on to say that when she grew up she was going to be a ballerina, but she also wanted to be a ninja.
“You can be both?” I asked.
“Yes, silly. Ninja’s like the dark, so I will do that at night and then I’ll be a ballerina during the day.”
“Cool. You have to study a lot to do those things.”
“Nah, they are easy.”
Zoe was such a sweet girl, and I could tell that Ricky really enjoyed the way we bantered back and forth together. It was a fun time. Zoe was a strong, very capable little girl with a wondrous imagination. I hoped one day I would have a child just like her. At twenty-five, I was well aware that my biological clock was starting to talk to me regularly. I hated that it was, but I had been thinking a lot about having kids one day and having that fantasy life with the perfect husband. Sitting there eating dinner with Zoe and Ricky felt so right.
After dinner, I helped clean up everything, and then I started to leave. I was putting my jacket on when Zoe hugged me and said, “No. I want you to stay for story time.”
I looked up at Ricky. “What do you think? Should I stay for story time?”
“I think that would be a wonderful idea,” Ricky said.
I took off my coat and smiled at Zoe. “Ok, let’s read that story.”
“After your bath, sweetie,” Ricky said. “So get crackin’.”
“Ok, daddy!” Zoe said.
She ran upstairs to the bathroom and a moment later I heard the tub running. I found myself trying to think when I’d been able to bathe by myself and actually be trusted to get myself clean. The last family I worked with had a ten year old boy who still needed to be talked to through the door to make sure he did everything. It was weird.
Ricky led me upstairs after a few moments and we waited in Zoe’s bedroom for her to be done with her bath. “She is one of those kids who would take two baths a day if you let her,” he said. “She has a phobia about not being clean enough. At times, I wonder if I should get her tested for OCD, but I’m hoping it’s just her being conscientious.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t worry too much about it,” I said. “Thanks for asking me to stay.”
“Of course. Zoe rules the roost around here. If she wants you to stay then you are staying.”
I chuckled. I loved to see the way Ricky’s eyes lit up with love and pride when he spoke about his daughter. He was a great father.
“I noticed you have a Cubs emblem on your jacket,” Ricky said.
I was reminded of the patch on the shoulder. “Oh, yeah. I’m a huge Cubs fan. I love baseball.”
“Really? That’s great. Did you play a lot of sports growing up?”
“Yeah, I played little league, and then softball in high school. I also played girls basketball and some volleyball. So, I stayed pretty active. But art was always my biggest passion.”
“That’s fantastic. I’d love to see some of your art sometime,” Ricky said. “We spoke about that previously.”
“If you are interested, I’ll show you some,” I said.
“Great. What type of artistic form does most of your art consist of?”
“Well, I do paintings mostly, some sculpting, and drawing/illustrating. So, I like to encompass a lot of things. I like to keep it fresh and interesting, otherwise I tend to get a bit bored. Do you do any art?”
“Nah, the most artistic thing that I do is strum around on an old acoustic guitar that I got at a yard sale years ago.”
“I’ve always wanted to learn to play.”
“Well, I’d be happy to show you a few chords sometime. That’s how I started out on it. After you learn some of the chords then everything else seems to fall into place.”
Zoe finished her shower and she picked out a book for me to read to her. She went with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. A classic. I remembered my mother reading that to me when I was a little girl. Those memories stayed with you forever.
After the story I tucked Zoe in and gave her a kiss on the forehead. Ricky did the same and we left the room closing her door quietly behind us.
“Would you like a glass of wine, before you lea
ve?” I asked. “A small one of course. I was just about to have one, and I hate to drink alone.”
I paused. This sounded like a bad idea, but I really enjoyed spending time with this man, and I love a good glass of wine. I knew I should have left, but I found myself saying “Yes. I would love one.”
“Great,” he said. “Have a seat on the couch and I’ll bring it over.”
I sat down on the sofa and leaned back. It felt good to just relax. I watched Ricky pull a bottle of wine out of a locked cabinet and then grab two glasses from the cupboard. It was interesting watching him. I had a hard time keeping my eyes off him. He was so sexy, so suave, and everything he did I found romantic and so appealing. I was feeling a little tingly. In all of my body parts, the tingles were coming in waves throughout me. I breathed deeply, held it, and then let it out slowly. I had to keep myself calm. The wine would help.
Ricky used an opener and uncorked the bottle before pouring two small glasses.
“There we are,” Ricky said as he sat down beside me on the couch and handed me a glass.
“So, long day?” I asked trying to break the ice.
“It wasn’t too bad,” Ricky said. “The training was kind of repetitive and boring, but it was ok.”
“I couldn’t imagine doing your job. It’s got to be so dangerous.”
He nodded. “It is, but honestly I couldn’t imagine doing anything else. I love being able to save people. Someone has to do it and I take that responsibility along with my brothers.”
“You refer to each other as brothers? I like that.”
“Yeah, we have to feel that way about each other. Our lives depend on each other doing the right thing and working together. We have to live and train like brothers at times. Otherwise, it would be so dangerous for a group of guys who didn’t really care about each other to do what we do. It would be a train wreck waiting to happen.”
Burning With Desire Page 5