by Abby Jimenez
I smiled, weakly, and went in for the next rack. Stuntman barked. He got excited when the fridge was open. I never fed him human food, but I think Sloan had been sneaking him pieces of turkey whenever she was here.
“Is that my little arch nemesis?” he asked. “That dog better not bite me again.”
I pulled on the shelf. It was stuck. “Or what?”
“Or he’s going to the pound.” He laughed. He was kidding. But it annoyed me just the same.
“How do you deal with armed insurgents when you can’t handle one four-pound Yorkie?” I gave the shelf a hard yank and it came away from the door with a clatter of condiment jars.
“If that fat ass is four pounds, I’ll eat my helmet.” He chuckled.
I laughed and felt myself soften a little. “He’s just fluffy.”
“I know. I’m just playing with you. You know I love your dog.” He paused for a moment. “Mi amor?”
Our game. My lips twitched into a smile and I stayed silent. I set the condiment rack down on the kitchen table and closed the fridge door.
“Amore mio?” he said in Italian.
Still, I waited. I wanted one more. Maybe two.
“Meine Geliebte?”
German maybe?
“Mon amour?”
Ugh. That did it. The French always got me.
Tyler had been a military brat. His parents were diplomats and had been stationed all over the world. He knew four languages by the time he was old enough to talk. Now he knew nine. He was an interpreter. He was also one of the most intelligent men I’d ever met.
He specialized in simultaneous interpretation, a skill set all its own. He knew Arabic and Farsi too, which made him a particular asset in the Middle East. They’d lobbied hard to keep him in service. It said a lot about his feelings for me that he was willing to leave all that.
I put my back to the fridge door and slid down to the floor, a grin on my face. “Yes?”
“I know you’re nervous about me coming home. I can hear you cleaning.”
He knew me too well. “And you’re not? I mean, let’s be honest here—this is a little crazy, right? We’ve never spent more than fourteen days together at a time and now we’re moving in together. What if I drive you insane? What if on day fifteen you want to kill me in my sleep?”
What if I want to kill you in yours?
On paper it made perfect sense. He didn’t have a place of his own. Why get one? He’d be over here all the time anyway. And if he was going to be over here, shouldn’t he pay rent?
This move-in thing had been in the works for six months. Tyler and I had decided on it back when Sloan and I moved out and I got my own place. It was hardly a new development. It just felt like it was barreling toward me all of a sudden.
“Kris, the only thing insane would be me spending another two years half a world away from you. It wasn’t just you who couldn’t handle it anymore. It’s going to be great. And if it’s not, you’ll tell me to go fuck myself and make me move out.”
I snorted and put my forehead into my hand. God, what the hell was wrong with me? “Tyler, do you ever see yourself acting crazy, but you can’t stop because you’re not a quitter?”
“You’re the least crazy woman I know. It’s my favorite thing about you. It’s normal to be nervous. It’s a big step.” He changed the subject. “How are you feeling? Do you have a surgery date?”
“Two and a half months from now. The week after Sloan’s wedding. I’m not anemic anymore,” I added.
“Good. I wish I were already there to take care of you.”
“Oh yeah? Are you going to buy me pads when I need them?” I asked wryly, knowing this errand was an affront to his very manhood. Men were so dramatic about buying feminine products. I never understood what the big deal was.
“Now, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
I rolled my eyes with a smile. “Lucky for you, there’s only one need I want you to take care of. I’m climbing the walls.”
He laughed. “As long as you’re not climbing anybody else.”
My mind flickered traitorously to Josh.
Tyler didn’t have anything to worry about. I didn’t cheat. Never had, never would.
Cheating was a completely avoidable scenario as long as you operated with the barest amount of common sense.
Like not putting yourself into vulnerable situations, such as hiring a hot fireman-carpenter to spend hours working in your garage.
Josh would be an endurance test of my willpower.
“Look, Kris, I gotta go. I’ll try to call you again in a few days. No more stressing. I can’t wait to see you. And I’m gonna tear you up when I get there,” he added.
Now he had me in a better mood. Of course, how much he could tear me up depended entirely on where my wacky cycle was at the moment. But I liked the offer. “I can’t wait.” I grinned.
“I love you.”
“I love you too.”
We hung up and I surveyed the chaos I’d pulled from the fridge. Stuntman sat in the middle of it, looking up at me. His little white chin looked like the beard on a nutcracker.
This is fine. It’s all going to be fine.
But I spent the next three hours scrubbing the kitchen just the same.
FIVE
Josh
Two days after our fender bender, I knocked on Kristen’s door. Yapping started on the other side. I’d just gotten off my shift, and I had a heaping pile of building materials in the bed of my truck. Brandon let me raid his garage for power tools. Thank God. This job was temporary—I didn’t need to be buying shit.
Kristen opened the door, wearing a pink robe and a green mud mask. “Hey. Come in.”
Stuntman Mike bounced off my shins. I reached down to pet him, and she stopped me. “Don’t. He bites.”
“We’ve already met. He let me hold him at the station,” I reminded her.
“He’s got a misplaced sense of ownership over me and his memory is stored in a brain the size of a peanut,” she mumbled. “Wait a few minutes until he calms down. Then it’ll be safer.”
I looked down at the little fluff ball. He growled and wagged his nub of a tail at the same time. I followed her into the house and leaned down and gave Stuntman Mike a pat while she wasn’t looking.
A teetering stack of FedEx boxes sat piled by the front door. The coffee table was covered in carefully organized piles of paper. A laptop sat in the middle of it with a beer next to it, still cold. The glass bottle was perspiring. “Already drinking, huh? It’s breakfast time.”
“I had a Pop-Tart with it,” she grumbled.
I snorted.
Her house was clean. Sparse, but clean. Smelled a little like bleach. There was a huge vase of flowers on her credenza. From the boyfriend for Valentine’s Day, I guessed. I hated that holiday. Just an excuse to spend money on overpriced shit. I was glad I was single for it this year.
“Here’s the garage.” She opened a door off the laundry room.
A tiny lacy black thong hung from a hanger over the dryer at eye level. I looked at it longer than was probably appropriate.
I hadn’t been with anyone since Celeste. I’d been too busy and worn out from the new job and the move. And to be honest, I’d been enjoying not having to deal with a woman. It was a reprieve.
It had been my experience that all women, even the ones you’re only having sex with, are on some level exhausting. I wasn’t in any particular hurry to get back to it.
I came up behind Kristen and peered into the garage over her shoulder. It was cavernous and mostly empty except for a few containers stacked against the far end and a newer black Honda parked in the last bay. She hit a button on the wall and sunlight shafted under the opening garage door.
She turned to me, the green mask starting to crack around the edges. “Bathroom is down the hall. Sodas are in the fridge. Holler if you need something. I’ll get you a fan. It’s a hundred and fucks degrees out here.” She left me standing there.
/> Well, the reception was chilly, but at least she’d let me in.
I backed my truck up and started to unload, and she came down the stairs and set a fan in the middle of the floor. Then she walked out into the driveway, green mask and all, and put my folded shirt into my hands. “Here. I washed it.”
“Thank you.” A car rolled by and the driver stared at her. I looked back at her with an arched eyebrow. “Don’t you care what people think?”
“Do I look like I care?”
“No.”
“There you go.” She turned and went back into the house and I smiled after her.
Kristen had crossed my mind a few times over the last two days. I’d actually found myself somewhat looking forward to coming over and getting further abused.
I’d asked Brandon about her boyfriend. Not straight out—I’d asked him why she didn’t have him build the stairs. Just an excuse to find out more about her.
Brandon only met him once, almost a year ago. Didn’t have much to say about it, other than the guy seemed all right. But he did say Sloan didn’t seem to like him for some reason. I’d pressed for more, but he just shrugged and said she wasn’t a fan.
Two hours later I poked my head into the living room. “Where’d you say the bathroom is?”
She’d changed into sweats and a T-shirt and she lay on the couch with a heating pad on her stomach. Her mud mask was gone.
She answered with her eyes closed. “Down the hall, second door. Put the seat back down.” She winced.
“You okay?”
“Fine.”
She didn’t look fine. She looked like she was having the period from hell.
“Have you taken anything yet?” I asked.
“I took two aspirin at four a.m.” Even her words sounded painful.
I looked at my watch. “You can alternate with Motrin. I have some in my gym bag.”
I went out to the truck and got two pills and brought them back with a water bottle from the fridge and handed it to her. She took them gratefully.
“You get a lot of calls for period cramps?” she asked, lying back against the cushions, closing her eyes.
“No. But I grew up with enough women to know the drill. Also, I’m a paramedic. You shouldn’t be taking aspirin for cramps. Aleve or Motrin is better.”
“Yeah, I know. I ran out,” she muttered.
“I’m going to get some lunch. Want something?” I figured if I was going to eat, might as well ask her too.
She opened an eye and looked at me. “No.” Then she sat up with a grimace. “I need to go to the store.”
“What do you need? I’ll get it. I’m going out anyway.”
She clutched the heating pad to her belly and eyed me. “You don’t want to buy what I need. Trust me.”
I scoffed. “What? Pads? Tampons? I have six sisters. This isn’t my first rodeo. Text me what you want.” I turned for the garage before she could object. I couldn’t care less about buying the stuff, and she didn’t strike me as the kind of woman to be embarrassed by feminine products—or anything, for that matter.
She wasn’t. She sent me a long list. It was all heavy-duty. Ultra this and overnight that. I grabbed her some Motrin too.
I stopped at McDonald’s and got her food, figuring she was probably too sick to make something for herself.
When I got back, I dropped the bag of tampons at the foot of the couch.
“Thanks,” she said, sitting up to peer into the top of the bag. “I’ll write you a check. I’ve never met a guy who was willing to buy that stuff.”
“What, your boyfriend gets worried the cashier will think he’s got his period?” I said, plopping onto the couch next to her with the McDonald’s bag in my lap.
She gave me a little smile. She already seemed to be feeling better. The Motrin must have been working.
I started pulling food from the bag. “Fries,” I said, putting the red container in her hand. “And a hot fudge sundae.” I put that in the other hand.
She looked from her hands back to me in confusion.
“My sisters always wanted something salty and sweet when they were on their periods,” I explained, digging out the rest of the food. “Fries and hot fudge sundaes. They’d send me out to McDonald’s. I bought it on autopilot. There’s a Big Mac and two cheeseburgers too. I didn’t know what you wanted.”
Her face softened, and for the first time since I’d met her, it looked unguarded, like she just now decided to like me. I must have finally tamponed my way into her good graces.
“Six sisters, huh? Younger? Older?” she asked.
“All older. My parents stopped when they finally got their boy.”
Dad said he’d cried from happiness.
“Wow. No wonder you ply menstruating women with ice cream. I bet when their periods synced they sat around glaring at you and making prison shivs.”
I snorted. “Big Mac or cheeseburger?”
“Cheeseburger. So, how’d you meet Brandon?” she asked, setting the sundae down on the coffee table and eating one of the fries.
I handed her a yellow paper-wrapped cheeseburger. “The Marines.”
She arched an eyebrow. “You were a Marine?”
“Once a Marine, always a Marine,” I said, taking the Big Mac and opening the box.
She looked me up and down. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-nine. Same as Brandon.”
Stuntman Mike jumped up suddenly from the couch and started barking frantically at nothing. He startled the shit out of me, but she didn’t even flinch, like this was a daily occurrence. He stared at nothing, seemed satisfied that whatever it was was gone, and then he spun a few times and lay back down. His shirt today read I MISS MY BALLS.
“How old are you?” I asked.
“Twenty-four. Like Sloan.”
She was mature for her age. But then I always thought Sloan was too.
“Hmm.” I took a bite and chewed thoughtfully. “You seem older.”
A sideways smile told me she liked that I thought that.
“How are you liking the new fire station?” she asked.
She must have seen the answer on my face.
“Really? It’s shitty?” She seemed surprised.
I shook my head. “I don’t know. It’s all right.”
“What? Tell me.”
I twisted my lips. “It’s just at my old station, we didn’t get shit medical calls. I mean, we only got, like, three a day—”
“How many do you get here?”
“Twelve? Fifteen? It’s a busy station. But the calls are bullshit. Drunk homeless guys. Crap that should be a trip to a walk-in clinic. I went on a call yesterday for a stubbed toe.”
“Well, most people are pretty fucking stupid.” She ate a fry.
“My granddad used to always say, ‘Even duct tape can’t fix stupid,’” I said, putting my straw in my mouth.
“Hmm. No. But it can muffle the sound.”
I burst into laughter and almost choked on my soda. I liked her wit so much more when I wasn’t the brunt of it.
“You know, I never thought about firefighting being like that,” she said after I’d gotten hold of myself. “It’s so romanticized. Every little boy’s dream,” she said sarcastically.
I looked into my fry box. “It is not what everyone thinks it is—that’s for sure.”
I’d questioned all my life choices in the last week. So far there wasn’t much that I liked about any of it. Reduced to a probie, paying through the nose for everything, running calls to put Band-Aids on idiots. Except this was turning out to be interesting…
“Why did you move?” she asked.
I shrugged. “I had a breakup. My girlfriend of three years, Celeste. Figured a change of scenery was due. Thought I might like the busier station. And it was getting a little too much living so close to my sisters. I realized that I liked them better when I was deployed,” I said dryly.
“The breakup her idea or yours?” She unwrapped the ch
eeseburger and took out the pickle and ate it first. Then she dragged the bun on the paper to scrape off the onions.
“Mine,” I said.
“And why?” She took a bite.
“A lot of reasons. The biggest one being that she didn’t want to have kids. I did. It wasn’t negotiable.”
She nodded again. “That’s a big one,” she mumbled.
There were a lot of big ones at the end. I also didn’t much enjoy supporting her shopping habit or her inability to actually work in any of the many career paths she’d chosen. She was a perpetual student, jumping from one pursuit to another and never graduating. Paralegal, vet tech, dental assistant, nursing assistant, EMT—she was the most partially educated waitress in South Dakota.
“How about you? Boyfriend, right?” I asked, looking around her living room for a photo. When I’d gone to Sloan and Brandon’s to pick up tools, Sloan had photos and art and shadow boxes all over the place. Kristen didn’t have anything on her walls. Maybe Sloan took it all in the move.
“Yeah, Tyler. He’s coming home in three weeks. Moving in. He’s a Marine too.”
I took a swallow of my Coke. “First time living with someone?”
“I lived with Sloan. But yeah, first time living with a boyfriend. Any tips?”
I pretended to think about it. “Feed him and give him lots of sex.”
“Good advice. Though I’m hoping that’s what he does for me,” she said, laughing.
Her laugh transformed her face so instantly I was immediately taken by how beautiful she was. Natural. Long thick lashes, smooth flawless skin, warm eyes. I’d thought she was pretty the other day too, but a scowl is an unflattering filter.
I cleared my throat, forcing myself to look away from her. “So doglets, huh?” I nodded at Stuntman Mike. He had his head on her lap. The tip of his tongue was out. He didn’t even look real. Like a stuffed animal. “You know, he doesn’t seem like the kind of dog you’d own.”
She looked at me curiously. “What kind of dog do I look like I’d own?”
“I don’t know. I guess I just had a preconceived notion about what kind of people own dogs like this. Paris Hiltons and little old ladies. Is he the reason why you started the business?” I took a bite of my Big Mac.