Firefighter's Virgin

by Claire Adams

  “All right, I’m ready,” Daisy said when she returned.

  I tried to ignore the look that Jonathan was giving me as we left. And as we were driving to the Eagle Hollow, I was thinking that “great” might not be the exact term I’d use to describe it, but who knew; maybe it would be.

  “He had a stroke,” I said to Daisy as we walked into the facility. “So he can’t actually talk. As far as anyone knows, though, he understands things completely.”

  “That must be so hard,” she said. “To lose your ability to speak but to still be able to hear and understand. I can’t even imagine.”

  “Well, I’m sure he’ll be glad to meet you. This is his room right here.” I paused before we went in. I hadn’t parked where I normally did; this time I parked in the visitors’ parking area, which wasn’t visible from Pete’s window. I cleared my throat before we went in.

  “Hi there, Pete,” I said. “This might surprise you, but I’ve brought a visitor with me. I thought you might like to meet Daisy.”

  She walked into the room, a smile on her face. She didn’t seem the least bit uncomfortable, and I felt my skin start to crawl as she went over to his wheelchair. My instinct was to shield her from him, but what was he going to do? He couldn’t get up; he couldn’t even speak.

  “Very nice to meet you,” she said, taking a seat across from him. “I’m Daisy. That was one of the first things I learned about Ian, that he had a stepfather that he came and still visited, which I thought was really great of him to do.”

  Oh, Jesus. She continued to talk, and I tried to keep a straight face. It wasn’t that I was tempted to burst out laughing or anything—it was more like I wanted to cringe. Most people would have been somewhat uncomfortable at having to have a conversation with someone who couldn’t actually respond to what they were saying, but Daisy didn’t seem the list bit bothered. It would appear as though she had missed her calling as a nurse, or maybe a preschool teacher.

  I sat down in the other chair and watched Pete watch her. It was clearly a mistake to bring her here, as this was no doubt the highlight of his day, perhaps the highlight of his entire life. A young beautiful woman, focusing all of her attention on him. His eyes shifted over to me for a second, and I just stared at him, hoping he’d get the clue that this wasn’t some sort of kindness on my part. My phone started to vibrate in my pocket, but I ignored it. Daisy kept talking with Pete, talking with him as though he were a participant in the conversation.

  “They said it’s probably going to be very humid tomorrow, so you’re lucky you have air conditioning in here,” she said. She looked around the room. “This is a very nice place.”

  My phone buzzed again, and I pulled it out of my pocket to peek at the screen. Dan. The clock on my phone said that we’d already been here for almost half an hour longer than I usually stayed, so I stood up, touching Daisy’s shoulder. “We better get going,” I said. “I need to take this call from Dan.”

  “Why don’t you do that and I’ll sit with Pete a little bit longer,” Daisy said.

  “Sure, fine,” I said. “I’ll just be out in the hallway.”

  I stepped out into the hall and called Dan back. He answered on the first ring.

  “We’ve got a problem.” He did not sound happy.

  “What’s up?” I said.

  “I’ve been calling and calling. I haven’t been able to get a hold of you or Jonathan! Where the hell have you been?”

  “What’s going on?” I could hear a lot of commotion in the background. “Are you on the boat?”

  “No, I’m not on the boat because it’s a fuckin mob scene down here.”

  “Mob scene? What are you talking about?”

  “There’s a shitload of people down here! People that aren’t supposed to be here, I can tell you that much. Martin is furious; I think he wants to call the whole thing off. At the very least, he wants to see you.”

  “Well, where are they? Did they get on the boat?”

  “No, they went back to his house. So you should probably head over there.”

  I groaned. All those people down there, hoping to catch a glimpse of the Hollywood celebrities. How had word gotten out about it? This was bullshit.

  “If they’re all back at Martin’s house, why the hell is there still a huge crowd there?”

  “It’s dispersed a bit; half of them tried to follow the cars back to Martin’s, so we sent some guys with them, but a bunch of them stayed because they’re convinced that they’re going to come back to board the boat. This is a huge fucking mess.”

  “I’ll handle it,” I said, hanging up the phone and stuffing it back into my pocket. I gritted my teeth as I went back into the room to get Daisy. FUCK.

  I didn’t get into all the details with Daisy, but I told her I needed to drop her off because there was a crisis of sorts at work that I needed to deal with. Thankfully, she didn’t ask too many questions. Jonathan called as I was driving over to Martin’s South End brownstone.

  “I’m heading over there right now,” I said.

  “Good luck with that,” Jonathan said, sounding grim. “He sounded pissed when I talked to him.”

  “He is! His whole fucking dream cruise trip was almost ruined. Granted, it wasn’t, so maybe he should get over it, but either way, it doesn’t look good. I don’t know how it got out about that happening, but it must’ve been someone from his end. Maybe it was his daughter, for Christ’s sake. Teenagers are always going gaga for famous actors and shit.”

  “That seems the most likely.”

  “Parents are always turning a blind eye to the shit their kids do,” I said.

  “Yeah. He definitely wanted to put the blame somewhere else.”

  “Well, now I have to go deal with it.”

  “You want me to go with you?”

  I considered this. Maybe it would be better if there was two of us. But maybe not. I knew what Martin really needed to do was bitch at someone, get it out of his system, and hopefully move on.

  “It’s all right,” I said. “I’ll deal with it.”

  When I got there, though, Martin wasn’t interested in hearing any apologies. He wanted to lay into someone about it, and that’s exactly what I had to let him do. “This was a disaster,” Martin said. “A complete disaster on every level. I work with you, Ian, because you’re a professional in every way—discretion being at the top of that list. You know as well as I do that there are half a dozen other companies we could have gone with, but we decided to go with you. But after all this, I’m starting to wonder if that was the right choice.”

  “We’ve always done right by you,” I said.

  “Not today you haven’t! There’s no way that information should have gotten out like that,” Martin said.

  “I can assure you, it wasn’t on our end,” I said.

  But he was shaking his head. “So what are you saying? Are you trying to blame us? Are you trying to say this was somehow our fault?”

  Yes and no. There was no way any of our guys would have leaked that information about Martin’s goddamn cruise—unless they wanted to be out of a job. Martin was right—discretion was supremely important, and though we did have a lot of guys working for us, only the ones who I could trust completely had specific knowledge of events like these.

  Martin was pissed, though, there was no doubt about it, though he was doing his best to keep it in check. His face was turning red, and I could see a vein in his forehead that I’d never noticed before. Probably because we’d never had an incident like this.

  “You got an answer for me?”

  I gritted my teeth and tried not to have a childhood flashback; that was what Pete was always saying after he’d used me as a punching bag: You think anyone’s ever gonna have any respect for a pussy like you? What? You got an answer for me? I can’t hear you!

  “My answer is that I don’t know exactly how this happened. You have my full apologies, though I am one hundred percent certain that it was not from our end.”<
br />
  “Then who? If I’m one hundred percent certain it wasn’t on my end, and you’re saying the same, one of us is wrong and it damn sure isn’t me!”

  I’d never seen him so enraged. I let him bitch at me for a little bit longer, and then I left, only after agreeing to at least look into the possibilities that the leak was on our end. I stepped outside, glad to be out of there, but in serious need of a drink.

  And wouldn’t you know, the first person I see upon entering the fucking hole-in-the-wall sports bar I chose to go to: Billy McAllister.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Daisy

  Ian was pretty vague about whatever it was that Dan had called him about, but after he had gotten off the phone, he hurried me out of Pete’s room and drove me back to the office so I could get my car.

  I didn’t feel like going home right away though, so I drove down to Failte. Someone was having a birthday, and the whole back area of the bar had been sectioned off. The birthday girl was someone I didn’t recognize, though she looked like she was probably around my age, except there seemed to be something different about her expression. I didn’t notice this right away, but as I sat at the bar with my drink, I’d sneak looks over, and when someone brought in a store-bought cake, stuck haphazardly with candles, and got everyone around the bar to sing a rousing rendition of “happy birthday,” I realized what it was: She looked fresh. She looked excited about the prospect of her life, all that was yet to come, like she was just assuming that it would only be good things. Or mostly good things. Really, she probably didn’t look much different than I myself had felt a few years ago when I’d graduated college, certain that my real life was just now about to start.

  Yet all that had really happened was a whole bunch of confusion and not really knowing if I was doing the right thing. I felt less sure about myself and what I was doing than I could ever remember, yet somehow I was supposed to just keep on going, believing that at some point, things might change.

  At least things were good with Ian, though. I had that much, and I was grateful for that.

  I headed home after that one drink; I didn’t feel like having more, and things were getting a little rowdy, as the whole bar had basically been invited to join the girl’s birthday party. I had to park a block over from where I normally parked when I got home, and as I was walking to my apartment, I happened to glance over and see that there was someone sitting in a black SUV parked a few buildings away from my place. He looked over right as I was going by and I realized that he looked familiar. Where had I seen him before?

  I went over to the passenger side window and he put it down the rest of the way.

  “Hey,” I said, recognizing him, though I couldn’t remember his name. He was one of the guys that worked for Ian that I’d seen come through the office with Dan once when I’d first started working there.

  “Hello there, Daisy,” he said.

  “Are you looking for Ian? He had to go meet up with Dan; he got a call from him when we were over visiting his step-father.”

  The guy shook his head. “Nope, not waiting for Ian. Just on the lookout for you. Been out here for a little while; haven’t seen any suspicious activity or anything. I think you’re good. But don’t worry, we’ll be here all night. Kevin’s parked a little further down, on the other side of the street. ”

  “All night? That doesn’t seem necessary.”

  “It’s what Ian wants. He’s the boss.”

  “Oh.” I didn’t know what else to say to that. Part of me did feel comforted in knowing that there were two guys out here, if Noah did show up, but another part of me felt bad, that they were probably not too psyched about having to be stationed outside my apartment building all night. “You’re really going to be out here all night? Don’t you need to sleep?”

  He smiled. “Don’t worry about it, Daisy. We usually work the night shift; we’re used to it.”

  “Well . . . thanks,” I said. “If you need to use the bathroom or need a drink or anything, you can come inside.”

  “We’re all set,” he said. “But thanks.”

  “Okay.” I started to turn away but stopped. “What was your name?”

  “Ben.”

  I nodded. “Ben. Thanks, Ben.”

  He smiled again and waved me off. “You already said that. No need to thank us, Daisy; we’re just doing our job. Good-night.”

  “Good-night.” I went inside, a smile on my face. Even if Ian wasn’t there himself, I still felt as though he was watching out for me, making sure that I stayed safe.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Ian

  Daisy was already there at the office when I got in the next morning, and just seeing her put a smile on my face.

  “Hey there,” I said. There was no one else in the office, so I went over and gave her a kiss, forcing myself to pull away after a moment, even though I would’ve liked to just continue on in the direction that was headed.

  “Mmm, hi,” she said. “I was wondering where you were.”

  “Am I late?”

  “A little. Or no, since you’re the boss, I guess you get to decide when you come in. But Seamus McAllister has been calling.”

  “Oh yeah? And what does he want?”

  “He wouldn’t say; he just asked if you’d call him back. Even when I asked him what it was in regards to, he wouldn’t tell me. So you should probably call him back.”

  “Sure,” I said. “I’ll do that now.”

  I went into my office and called Seamus. This was probably about that Ghanizadeh coming back into town or some shit.

  “Ian,” Seamus said, picking up after the second ring. “Thanks for returning my call. I’d like to meet with you. What is your schedule looking like? Why don’t you meet me for an early lunch.”

  “Hi, Seamus,” I said. “Early lunch? I haven’t even had breakfast yet. What’s is that you wanted to talk about?”

  “I’ll let you know when I see you. That’s the whole reason why I’d like to get together.”

  I could tell by his tone there was no way he was going to tell me over the phone and save me the trip, and I also knew that if I didn’t agree to meet with him, he’d keep calling until I did. So I told him my schedule was relatively open today, and we could meet up since he clearly had something of the utmost importance to discuss with me. I hung up the phone, trying to not feel too agitated.

  “Everything okay?” Daisy asked.

  “Just fine,” I said. “I’ve got to leave in a little bit to meet up with Seamus. Apparently, he doesn’t want to tell me over the phone what it is, either.”

  What the fuck did Seamus McAllister want to talk about? He rarely ever wanted to talk in person—I couldn’t actually remember the last time that we’d had a face-to-face meeting. That’s what Billy was for—Seamus just called the shots and then did who knows what with the rest of his time.

  Seamus had me meet him in Chinatown, at the restaurant that fronted for his underground poker club. By the time I got there, I had it figured out: Word had gotten out about the shit that went down with Martin, and Seamus wanted to can us. Even though nothing like that had ever happened before, and would not happen again. I would make sure of that. The air smelled greasy, and there were people sitting at the bar, hunched over bowls of noodles. Seamus was sitting at a table by the window, with a plate of egg rolls in front of him.

  “Ian.” He gestured to the empty seat across from him. “Have a seat.”

  I sat, then rested my hands on my knees. “Hi, Seamus,” I said. It had been so long since I’d last seen Seamus that I’d almost forgotten what he looked like, though really, he looked like a slightly older, wiser version of Billy. Billy, though, exuded this attitude of merriment, while Seamus, undoubtedly, could send off some very heavy don’t-fuck-with-me vibes. “Look, Seamus,” I said. “I know why you wanted to meet with me.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “You do?”

  “Yeah. Which is why I’d like to start the conversation off by saying
that it shouldn’t have happened in the first place, and though I’m not trying to make excuses, there’s no direct evidence that it was from our end. There just isn’t. And ultimately, everything worked out, so it’s not like—”

  Seamus waved me off. “That’s not what this is about,” he said. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about. It sounds like there was a fuck up. Was there a fuck up? Here, have an egg roll.” He pushed the plate toward me.

  “No thanks, I’m good. It’s still a little early for egg rolls.” I looked at him closely. “Wait—if this isn’t about the thing with Martin, what is this about?”

  It was then I realized that this whole time, Seamus had been looking rather chagrined. As though this were a conversation that he didn’t actually want to be having.

  “You know me, Ian,” he said. “And you know that I’m not generally interested in getting involved with . . . most things. I like the simple life. I like life to uncomplicated. That might be hard to believe considering some of my endeavors; I realize this. Most of which I’m involved in because my father was. So it’s like a legacy. But you probably don’t care to hear about any of that sort of thing. I only bring it up for context.”

  “Okay,” I said slowly, completely not following what it was he was trying to say.

  “And my son, Billy, though he certainly has his faults—as any man does—has done a surprisingly good job thus far at managing the things that I’ve asked him to, at handling the aspects of my various enterprises that I’d rather not deal with. Because I like the simple life.”

  “Right,” I said. “You said that already.”

  Seamus nodded. “Indulge me a moment. When things are working, I can rest easy, which, at this point in my life, is exactly what I want to do. Things have been in a bit of a disarray though. Nothing major, which is good. But lately, I have noticed that whenever I see Billy, something seems wrong. At first, I dismissed it, figuring he’d had a bad day, or maybe Mercury was in retrograde, or some other voodoo nonsense like that. But it lingered, which uncommon for Billy. He has a buoyant spirit. That’s how his mother always described him as a child. You remember Imogen?”