A Low Blue Flame

by A. J. Downey

  I grabbed my key card to the turnstiles and the elevator from inside the locker, and I was ready to go. I went out into the pool area in a borrowed robe to wait for Backdraft, and watched the kids who were still splashing and playing.

  “Lilli! Thank you for introducing us to your friend, he was a lot of fun!” Rosario said and I smiled.

  “Yeah! You should have him come around more often,” Emilio said.

  Backdraft had repeatedly ducked under the water and let the kids stand on his shoulders. He would then stand up and launch them into the deeper water of the pool, and it had looked like a ridiculous amount of fun. They’d all tried to get me to do it, but I was too shy. I mean, I weighed a lot more than skinny little nine and eleven-year-olds.

  The hero of the hour came out of the men’s locker a few minutes later, running a hand back through his damp hair, his jacket with its colorful vest hanging from one hand. His heather-gray tee shirt had a faded blue Ford logo on it, and hugged his chest invitingly. The sleeves were tight around his muscular biceps and it was draped over a worn and comfortable-looking pair of jeans, the frayed cuffs over a pair of well-worn but still serviceable motorcycle boots, the kind with the buckle peeking at the outside of his ankle.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” I said and gave him a tight-lipped smile, trying not to flame with embarrassment at having been caught looking.

  I’m just having some seriously impure thoughts and that’s not okay since I was the one to set down the ‘just friends’ rule, I thought to myself.

  “You’re a shit liar,” he said, laughing, and touched my shoulder to turn me in the direction of the lobby. He steered me out of the pool area and I waved to the security and concierge at the front desk. They both smiled and waved back and I scanned my card at the turnstile, waving Backdraft through. I scanned it again and stepped through it.

  “Fancy,” he said.

  “That’s right, the last time you were here, the power was out.”

  “Ah, yeah, skipped leg day that week.” He raised his eyebrows and stretched out his bottom lip and I laughed, scanning my card again at the reader by the elevator’s touchscreen.

  “Fully locked and loaded, isn’t it?” he asked.

  “It’s kind of silly, how much this building does for its tenants,” I answered, rolling my eyes. We got onto the elevator when the doors opened and he looked from me to the panel, his brows crushing down as the doors slid shut, forty-four flashed on the screen and we were whisked away.

  He kind of shuddered, and I asked, “Don’t like elevators?”

  “Respond to enough elevator entrapments, and you wouldn’t either,” he said and I nodded.

  “No, I can’t imagine I would.”

  “Trust me, you’d never want to ride an elevator again if you ever saw that movie Devil by that director guy with the name I can’t pronounce. The one that did The Sixth Sense.”

  “Never seen it, I really don’t like scary movies.”

  “Comedy?”

  “More of a drama, thriller, action, and romance girl, just to name a few.”

  “Ooo! Be still my heart.” He winked at me and I seriously felt like I glowed from it. “I think we can both agree on action.”

  I smiled and the elevator opened up onto my floor. I went to my door and pressed my thumb to the little mechanism on the handle and two beeps later, you could hear the automated lock roll back and I pushed the door open.

  “Okay, this place is way cool.”

  I laughed and stepped inside, standing aside so he could enter and said, “Oh! I have cats, I can’t remember if I told you. Not allergic, are you?”

  “Nope, and you did. It’s all good.” I shut the door and he said, “Wow; that view never gets old.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” I agreed and called out, “Alexa, turn on the lights at fifty percent, please?”

  Alexa responded, “Lights, fifty percent,” and the lights came up, but not so bright as to either blind us or spoil the view.

  “Thank you,” I called.

  “You’re even polite to the artificial intelligence, which has no feelings,” he said and he had this charmed look in his hazel eyes.

  “You can never be too polite, the world could use a lot more of it, don’t you think?”

  “I agree,” he said and then shook himself as if waking from a dream. “Right, I’m going to hit the kitchen while you go do what you need to do.” He made a shooing motion with his hands and I laughed at him.

  “I was just going to order a pizza,” I said and he gave me a flat look.

  “Hell, naw, I’m cooking.”

  I made an impressed face and said, “I have no idea what’s in there or what’s still edible.”

  “I’ll make it work,” he replied looking into my fridge. “You’ve got a lot of stuff here.”

  “I’m going to grab a shower and get dressed. Twenty minutes, tops,” I promised, walking backwards up the hall.

  “Pajamas!” he called after me. “You’re supposed to relax, so act like it. Do comfortable!”

  “I have some really embarrassing sets of PJ’s,” I said.

  “Do it! Sponge Bob slippers all the way.”

  I laughed all the way up the rest of the hall at the ridiculous image.

  “I do not, nor will I ever, own Sponge Bob anything,” I corrected him before passing into my bedroom and he laughed, a rich, wild sound that felt like I could wear it like a lush fur. I really loved his laugh. It was the kind of laugh that inspired you to not only smile, but to live. Like, live life to its fullest, take risks and all of that.

  I padded across the room toward my bathroom, completely comfortable having him in my home. I didn’t feel like everything needed to look perfect, or like I needed to rush so that I could get into the kitchen and do whatever. There was no pressure to be this immaculate hostess or anything like that.

  I couldn’t ever remember a time any man had made me feel like that: completely at ease.

  9

  Backdraft…

  She had a fully-stocked fridge for living all by herself. It was kind of nice, actually. A fireman’s utopian paradise of fresh veggies and a freezer full of vacuum-sealed meat perfectly portioned for a single person.

  She had a little bit of everything and I had some ideas of where to go with it. I pulled out some chicken and got some water going in the sink to rapid-thaw it. She had another, what looked like a mini-fridge, at one end of her kitchen and curious, I opened it up. It was a climate controlled mini-wine cellar and for some reason, I wasn’t surprised she favored whites over reds. Worked for me. I selected a chardonnay and decided to wait a little bit longer to open it, until either she got out of the shower or I needed it for the sauce I had planned.

  I wasn’t big on carbs, but one of her cabinets had an assortment of pasta and that pretty much clinched it. Chicken in a white wine sauce was easy enough and she had everything for it, including shallots, which I found tucked away in one of her crisper drawers. I had planned on making do with onions, but that was a fantastic find.

  I set to work peeling and chopping, getting everything prepped that I would need. She was taking a long time, but I resisted the urge to go check on her. It was totally cool if she wanted to run on girl-time. Nothing could be worse than Torrid’s version of it. I honestly hated how late that woman had made me to more than a few things, and I was talking like a minimum of an hour late, each time.

  I shook my head and banished all thoughts of my ex. That was over and done. I was also lying to myself about being cool with the ‘just friends’ with Lil. I mean, I was cool with it for now, and if she wasn’t interested, for always, but I really hoped she was interested, too. That at some point, things could and would, evolve.

  Soon would be nice, before your dick falls off from spanking it. I chuckled to myself, twisting the knob on her cooktop to get the pan heating.

  “Wow, smells really good,” she said and I smiled, concentration on the butter, shallot
s, and garlic in the pan.

  “If it’s one thing fire guys know how to do, it’s cook. This is going to be a total cheat meal but worth it.”

  She laughed and said, “I didn’t know you were watching your girlish figure.” I looked up as she went to move around me and damn near had a heart attack. She was beautiful and her version of ‘comfortable’ knocked it out of the park.

  She had on this light peachy-pink, satin nightie-thing, edged in cream lace under a long satin cream robe and it did fabulous things around her figure, clinging to her lush curves; her nipples were erect and pressed tight against the thin cloth. She brought the two sides of the robe together and overlapped them, belting it at her waist, and I caught her blushing.

  “Sorry,” I said and put my eyes back in my head.

  “Told you my pajamas were, um, embarrassing.”

  “Not how I’d describe them,” I said with a smile and ladled some of the juices from the bottom of the pan over the chicken breasts I’d laid inside. I’d turned on the oven a minute ago and was waiting for it to preheat. It looked like, from the display that it was just about there.

  “Good to know,” she murmured and I wasn’t about to press it. So, she liked to wear pretty things that made her feel good, what was so embarrassing about that? I filed the question away for later. It was one that I for sure wanted to try and get an answer to eventually.

  “I’m surprised Jaspar and Marigold haven’t come out of their hiding place to bug you. You’re in the kitchen.”

  “Haven’t seen them yet,” I confessed. “Can you grab me the bottle of Chardonnay on the top right? Is it one you mind opening?”

  She went to the wine-cooler-thing and opened the door, selecting the bottle I’d picked.

  “Good choice, how much you need?”

  “Half a cup or so.”

  She opened it, brought down a couple of glasses and measured me out some in one of her measuring cups. I added it to the pan, steam billowing and the wine sizzling.

  “You really have this stuff down. I would have burnt myself by now, having you watch me. I’m a nervous cook.”

  “How come?” I asked.

  She hesitated, and finally took a deep breath and spit it out, “Alcoholic perfectionist mother.”

  I winced. “Perfectionist or narcissist?” I asked and she blinked at me, startled. Nailed it. It explained the confidence issues.

  “Nailed it,” she said, a straight echo of what I’d been thinking. Great minds think alike. She asked, “How did you guess?”

  I shook my head, “Seen it myself. Best friend growing up had a dad that was the same way.”

  “Youngblood?” she asked, and I shook my head and got quiet for a second. She'd showed me hers; I could show her mine. I took a deep breath and spilled.

  “Youngblood is my best friend now. A couple years back it was another guy. He and I grew up together, joined the fire department together, but for some reason, the good lord didn’t see fit that we die together.”

  Her face crumbled into lines of deep sympathy and she said, “I’m so sorry. If you don’t mind me asking…” She trailed off and I finished for her.

  “What happened?” She nodded and I put the chicken in the oven and set the timer. “We were working a fire. The brick façade of the building came down. A bunch of us managed to get out of the way. He didn’t. Neither did another one of our guys; got burned real bad in that fire, took a spinal injury and had to give up firefighting. It was a total shit-show.”

  I tried to banish the haunting image of Corbin’s face as we’d pelted back from the falling bricks. He’d been right beside me, and yet somehow, I’d gotten clear and he hadn’t. I’ll never forget it. Watching him, seeing him there, then all those falling bricks and then ‒ nothing, he was gone. That look of sheer panic and terror on his face in that one split second was burned into my fucking brain forever. The last moment I saw my best friend alive.

  She nodded and said, “Thank you for telling me. I won’t pry anymore. I can tell you don’t like talking about it.”

  I tried to breathe through the heavy somber pall that descended in her kitchen, and tried to haul it back in, end-over-end, like one of our hoses, saying, “I don’t, but it’s good, you know? Something I should do every once in a while.”

  “Is that the tattoo on your side?” she asked. The mood was beginning to ease up and lighten again, slowly but surely.

  “Yeah, he died on his birthday, so I got his name and the date.”

  She made this face somewhere between a grimace and a wince. “Oh his birthday? Really?” I nodded. She sighed and the sadness on her face made me adore her even more. She had a real gift for empathy. It didn’t surprise me in the slightest that she was an introvert. That shit had to be exhausting, feeling everything from everyone around you, as they were feeling it. I couldn’t do it, but some people, like Lil, didn’t seem to have a choice. She wore the burden like a pair of wings, though, graceful and pure. She said, “I didn’t get a good look at it in the pool.”

  I turned into the light cascading from the recessed portals in the ceiling and lifted my tee all the way up on that side, turning so she could see it.

  Corbin

  9-27

  She lightly touched the edge of it and I jumped, her stormy blue eyes flicking from the ink to mine as gooseflesh swept out from her fingertips and across my chest. I felt my nipple harden and I fought down the image of her running her mouth over every inch of my chest and stomach, of those pouty lips of hers going around my – get a fucking grip, buddy!

  She traced the lower edge, the curve of the flames and smoke around my dead best friend’s name and I shivered, then forced a laugh.

  “Ticklish,” I lied and she smiled, taking her fingers away.

  “Sorry,” she murmured shyly and picked up her wineglass from the counter, taking a generous swallow. I followed suit. I needed the fortitude to keep my hands and mouth to myself, repeating just friends, just friends, just friends, over and over again like a mantra in my head.

  “Smells really good,” she said, changing the subject.

  “Yeah, super easy,” I said. “You had everything for it, too. Including the heavy cream.”

  She smiled. “I like it in my coffee in the morning, better than half-and-half. Makes it richer, smoother.”

  “Coffee addict, huh?”

  “Guilty,” she said, with a little smile that echoed the sentiment.

  “Kind of had to expect it,” I said. “The whole ‘writer’ thing maybe tipped me off.”

  She laughed a little and asked, “Is there anything I can do to help?”

  “Nope, I’ve got it. You could cue up the Netflix, though. Find us something to watch.”

  “Okay.” She took her wine and went around the counter, past the dining table and down the step into the sunken living room. I watched her move and watched the echoing reflection of her in the darkened glass of the floor-to-ceiling windows beyond her. She picked up the remote from the modern glass coffee table, switching on the flat-panel TV bolted to the wall across from the overstuffed plush sofa.

  She cued up the streaming service and I went back to dinner, dumping linguini into the boiling water and checking on the chicken in the oven. It looked ready to go, so I brought it back out onto the stove top. I removed the chicken and set it aside before adding the heavy cream and grated cheese, stirring it slowly, bringing up the sauce to a simmer, being careful to make sure it thickened without breaking – err, the oil separating out from it.

  I got the broccoli steaming and pretty much lost sight of her momentarily as everything on my end came together and when I looked again, she’d quietly moved around me in the kitchen, staying out of my way, to retrieve dishes and silverware and set one end of the table for the both of us.

  I liked that, that we could occupy the same space and move in perfect sync without once getting in each other’s way. It wasn’t often you found people you jived with that completely, so it was really nice that
we did.

  She brought down a serving dish for me and I dumped the drained pasta into it, threw in the perfectly-steamed broccoli, cubed the chicken and dropped it in and doused the whole mess generously with sauce. A few tosses with some tongs and it was good to go.

  “Voilà,” I said and she giggled. “What?”

  “That’s French, not Italian.”

  “So?”

  “So in Italian, I think that’s 'ecco'.”

  “I don’t know what either means,” I said truthfully, and she smiled wide, blushing.

  “They mean ‘here’, as in ‘here you go,’” she said.

  “You speak both, don’t you?” I asked.

  She laughed outright and said, “No, well, a little of both. I took French in high school but I know a little Italian because I had a character speak it once and had to find someone who was fluent in it to get it right.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Yeah, Google translate isn’t actually all that reliable. Single words here or there, sure, but entire sentences?” She made a face, like a scared grimace almost, but comical. “I made that mistake ‒once. Turned out, I had a few readers in the country of origin and I got it all wrong. They weren’t happy, and rightfully so. I was both lucky and blessed that they were willing to help me fix it so it read correctly. I pulled that book from publication, fixed every bit of it according to a local to the language, and we all lived happily ever after.”

  We’d taken our seats at the table and I laughed at how she put it. It was absolutely fucking adorable.

  “I think the world needs a whole lot more ‘happily ever after’ in it.”

  “I one-hundred-percent agree,” she said, and raised her glass.