Scorchin' (The Hot Boys Series Book 2)

by Olivia Rush

Callie rested her chin on her hand and blew away a stray curl with a puff of air. “Doesn’t seem very satisfying,” she said. “I mean, I get what you’re saying, that we should be happy. But I’d be lying if part of me wasn’t hoping to hook a big fish with all of this. And stop some fires in the process, of course.”

  I shook my head. “That’s the thing—it’s all way too easy. And it doesn’t make any sense. Like I said, the usual process with arsonists is that they get bolder and cockier over time. For them to pull back and play it cool for a while is just strange.”

  A thoughtful look formed on Callie’s face. “Do you think… Nah, never mind.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “It’s nothing,” she said. “Just being paranoid.”

  “Let’s hear it,” I said. “No secrets in the detective squad.”

  “Oh, we’re a squad now?” she asked with a smile. “I like it, but I think you need more than two people to be a ‘squad.’”

  “The little guy can be an honorary member,” I said.

  “Sure,” she agreed. “Anyway, I was wondering if maybe whoever’s behind the fires knew that we were onto them. Maybe they had some way of seeing that people were in the office and asking questions and poking around.”

  I raised an eyebrow.

  “You think so?” I asked.

  “Maybe,” she said. “I mean, think about it—if what’s going on with the fires is what we’re thinking, then whoever’s behind them would have to be really tech-savvy. Maybe they’d have access to the office’s security cameras and all that. Not too crazy to think that they might be keeping an eye on things in the office to make sure that nothing out of the ordinary happens.”

  “Like a fireman and his journalist friend asking around.”

  “You think I might be right?” she asked.

  “Could be,” I said. “Something just doesn’t add up.”

  Then a playful expression formed on her face. “And his journalist ‘friend’?” she asked, a sliver of white teeth visible through her full smile.

  “Just the first word that came to mind,” I said.

  Callie placed her hand on my thigh and gave it a squeeze. “Maybe I’m being a little presumptuous, but I’m starting to think we might need a different word to—”

  Before she could get out another word, her face took on an expression that was both shocked and uncomfortable. Her hand froze in place.

  “You cool?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” she said, shifting in her seat and swallowing hard. “Just had a weird flash of nau—”

  Then that same expression formed. This time, however, she didn’t go back to normal. Callie stood up spear-straight from her chair for a moment before running at full tilt to the bathroom. The door slammed behind her, and I was left sitting there, confused and a little worried.

  “What’s wrong with Miss Callie?” asked Jason, taking his eyes away from the TV for long enough to pose the question.

  “No idea,” I said. “Guess she’s not feeling well.”

  A few minutes went by, Callie still in the bathroom. I stepped into the kitchen and prepared a glass of water for her for when she came back. After another five minutes, she finally left the bathroom, a confused expression on her face.

  “You OK there?” I asked, leaning back against the bar.

  She shook her head as she came back into the kitchen. Callie looked like she was in a daze, like something had happened that she still couldn’t believe.

  “It was so weird,” she said, her eyes looking down toward the floor as she spoke. “I was sitting there with you, feeling totally fine, then out of absolutely nowhere I got sicker to my stomach than I’ve ever been in my life, like I took that stuff you swallow when you need to throw up.”

  “Ipecac,” said Jason.

  I cocked my head.

  “How did you know that, buddy?” I asked.

  “It’s in one of the other games,” he said. “You sneak around and you can give it to guards to distract them.”

  “There you go,” I said. “Straight from the mouth of the expert.”

  Callie allowed herself a small laugh.

  “But you’re fine now?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” she said. “Just as fine as I was before. I just had to … you know, and when I was done it was like nothing had happened.”

  “Hmm,” I said. “That’s really weird. You want some medicine?”

  “Nah,” she said. “Like I said, I’m feeling totally fine now.”

  Silence hung in the air for a moment, explosions and gunshots from Jason’s video game the only sound.

  “I think I should get going,” she said. “Might be a good idea to chill for the rest of the day and make sure I’m not coming down with anything.”

  “Good call,” I said. “Especially since things are so quiet with the fire situation.”

  “Right,” she said, nodding. “But keep me posted on anything new that comes up.”

  “Will do.”

  We stepped toward each other, as unsure as ever of how to say goodbye. We settled on a quick, tight hug. Then Callie grabbed her purse, said goodbye to Jason, and headed off.

  A strange feeling came over me as soon as Callie left. Things were odd before, and her sudden, intense nausea only gave the afternoon an even more surreal feeling.

  Between the fires and what was going on between me and Callie, everything was calm, almost easy. I wanted to just enjoy it, but a nagging feeling in the back of my mind made it clear that part of me understood this was just the calm before the storm.

  22

  CALLIE

  The nausea that woke me up that next morning was like nothing I’d ever experienced before—not even the sudden sickness that’d taken hold of me at Stone’s yesterday afternoon. It felt like there was something in my gut that absolutely didn’t belong and that the only thing my body cared about was getting it out of me as fast as possible.

  My eyes shot open as wide as if I’d just been given a bracing electrical shock, and my body propelled out of bed so fast it was like I wasn’t even in control of it. During the brief dash to the bathroom, all I could think about was how I was actually happy my apartment was so freaking small—it meant less of a run to the toilet.

  I dropped to my knees, the tile floor hard and cool on my bare skin, and let it rip. Through the vomiting I had brief flashbacks of my few experiments with binge drinking in college, memories of gripping the toilet after nights of one-too-many wine coolers rushing back into my mind.

  When I was finally done with the puking and the dry heaving that followed, I rolled over on my side on the bathroom floor and curled up into a tight ball. Unlike yesterday’s vomiting spell, this one left me worn out and spent. It took me a good ten minutes before I felt well enough to get back on my feet.

  Once I recovered, I plodded into the kitchen and put on some coffee. I knew I needed to eat something, but as I went through the slim pickings in my fridge to try and decide on something, I realized that just about everything in there made me sick to my stomach to even consider eating.

  When the coffee was done, I plopped down on my couch, mug in hand, and tried to figure out just what the hell was wrong with me. The thing was that I never got sick. Aside from the occasional cold, I’d taken pride in my ability to fight off just about any sickness that nature and this dirty city threw my way. But this was different—it was impossible to ignore.

  Still, I swore to try my best to do just that. I had too much work to do to be laid up with some stupid stomach thing, and I figured that if I could just power through it, that I’d be right as rain by Monday.

  And for the majority of the day, I was able to do just that. Over the course of my cup of coffee, and the one that followed, the nausea slowly subsided, and by the time noon rolled around I was feeling back to my normal self. I plunked away at my article over the course of the afternoon, slowly putting it together.

  It was shaping up nicely. I’d managed to blend the more personal tou
ches about Stone and the rest of the crew throughout the narrative of the fires, and slowly but surely, it was all starting to come together. I had to smirk a bit as I wrote about Stone, knowing that I needed to keep my and his little affair on the down low. The idea of Danvers finding out that I’d slept with a source was enough to make sure that I kept all references to Stone nice and professional.

  After a few hours of work, I was feeling antsy and ready to get out of the house. I dialed up Meg and asked if she was in the mood for a mid-afternoon wine break. Of course, she was more than down.

  We met up near her place in Greenpoint, and soon the two of us had a nice spread of fancy cheeses and meats in front of us, along with a couple glasses of very delicious-looking wine.

  “So, you and the fireman are officially a thing,” said Meg, before popping a coal-black olive into her mouth.

  “We’re ‘officially’ nothing,” I said. “You know how screwed I’d be if it got out—”

  “Just as much as you’re being screwed,” added Meg with a smile.

  I smiled and shook my head at her crass comment.

  “That’s one way to put it,” I said.

  “I just never thought I’d see the day when the Callie Sullivan, career woman par excellence, found herself getting into something serious like this.”

  “Same here,” I said, reaching for my glass. “It just all kind of happened out of nowhere. But then again, isn’t that how they say things like this go? That you find love when you’re least expecting it?”

  My hands shot to my mouth as I realized that I’d just said the “L” word. And my choice of words didn’t slip past Meg unnoticed.

  “Did you just say what I think you did?” she asked.

  “Um, I didn’t mean it,” I said. “I was just saying ‘love’ as, you know, a generic word for intense, romantic feelings.”

  “I’ll bet,” said Meg with a knowing grin. “Then, at the very least, you’re admitting that you have very intense, romantic feelings.”

  I had to fess up. “I guess I do,” I said. “Stone’s just…not like any man I’ve met before. And we make such a good team. And his kid is so damn cute.”

  “But,” said Meg, sensing there was more to the story.

  “But even aside from the work-romance conflict, I get the sense that he’s holding something back, like he’s keeping some kind of barrier up, that he’s not all that open to exposing himself in the way that you need for anything serious to happen. I don’t know.”

  I shook my head, suddenly feeling very overwhelmed.

  “Hmm,” said Meg. “Keeping barriers up, not being open to the possibility of love. Starting to sound like someone I know.”

  I realized what she meant as soon as the words left her mouth. “I guess you got me there,” I said.

  Meg gave me a wink as I reached for my glass of wine. But as soon as I wrapped my fingers around the stem, an odd feeling came over me. For some reason, despite how tempting and inviting the wine looked, it struck me as the least appealing thing imaginable at that moment. I couldn’t explain it.

  “Something up?” asked Meg, noting what was happening.

  “Just…I don’t know. Booze doesn’t sound good to me right now. You want it?”

  “Hell yeah, I do,” said Meg, not wasting a second before taking my glass of wine and dumping it into her glass.

  It was strange—that same feeling of nausea that had come over me when I’d been looking through my fridge was back. I was starting to get worried.

  Meg and I finished up our food, and I was soon off and on my way back to my apartment. As the evening went on, I wanted to give Stone a call and see what he was up to, but I kept my will strong and decided to have a night in, just me and some cheesy old movies.

  Over the course of the rest of the evening, I managed to convince myself that everything in my life was normal, and that, for example, nothing out of the ordinary was looming on the horizon, threatening to throw everything I knew into a total tailspin.

  The next morning made it abundantly clear just how I wrong I was.

  I woke up to the same killer nausea that had taken hold of me over the last few days. Just as before, I sprang out of bed as soon as I woke up and burst across the apartment to the bathroom, dropping to my knees. And just as before, I took some time curled up on the cool floor of the bathroom, giving my body a chance to recover.

  Once I was somewhat back to normal, I realized that whatever was going on with me, there was no ignoring it. I called up my doctor’s office and let the receptionist know what was going on, and, to my luck, they’d just had a cancelation. If I hurried, they could squeeze me in today.

  I grabbed my things and bolted out the door. My trip to the doctor’s passed by in a flurry of stress as I considered all the horrible possibilities of just what was wrong with me. By the time I stepped out of the subway and onto the streets of Midtown, I’d managed to convince myself that I’d come down with some form of super-cancer, and that my trip to the doctor’s would involve him letting me know in no uncertain terms that I only had a few months to live, if that.

  I soon reached the doctor’s office, and once checked in, I found myself unable to take a seat in the waiting room. Instead, I paced back and forth across the small, brightly lit space, my mind racing with all the different ways that I could be totally doomed.

  “Miss Sullivan?” called out the nurse, her tone way more chipper than I was capable of dealing with.

  “That’s me,” I said, my heart thudding.

  “The nurse will see you now.”

  I walked through the hallway leading to the examination room feeling like I was heading to my execution. It was strange just how nervous I was—normally I had no problem keeping cool under pressure. But for some reason, my emotions felt like they were a whirling storm, my mood shifting by the second. I felt like I was going totally crazy.

  I was soon seated on the crinkly paper on the large bed in the examination room, the place still and quiet. I spent another ten minutes of mulling over my potential fate before the door opened, and in stepped a squat, middle-aged woman with an open, friendly face and blue eyes fanned with wrinkles.

  “Miss Callie Sullivan?” she asked.

  “That’s me,” I said, my voice coming out small.

  “My name’s Nurse Welsh,” she said, extending his hand. “Pleasure to meet you.”

  I shook her hand, which was warm and soft.

  “Now,” she said, “I see that you’ve been a little sick recently?”

  “That’s right,” I said. “I’ve been getting randomly ill, like the worst nausea I’ve ever had. And then when I throw up it goes away, then randomly comes back. And the weirdest stuff has been making me feel like I want to puke just when I smell it. And yesterday I was about to have some wine, and it just sounded like the worst thing in the world to me. And my emotions have been running wild and, and—”

  I realized that I was talking at a mile a minute. The words had come out of my mouth so quickly that I’d used up every last molecule of my air in my lungs. I needed to take a moment to catch my breath.

  “So,” said Nurse Welsh, her tone easy and calm compared to mine, “you’re having bouts of nausea, and some emotional instability, and you’re generally just feeling all out of sorts.”

  “OK,” she said. “Before we jump to any conclusions about what is or isn’t going on, I’m going do some preliminary tests and then ask you a few simple questions.”

  “Sure,” I said, doing my best to calm down.

  We got started. The nurse took my weight and blood pressure and went over my general medical history.

  “And have you been sexually active recently?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “And are you on any sort of birth control?”

  “…for the most part,” I said.

  The nurse raised her eyebrows.

  “I’m on the pill, but I sometimes forget to take it every single day. I just get busy with work and ev
erything else.”

  The nurse nodded, thankfully staying professional. I felt silly, knowing that taking the pill every day was the only way for it to really be effective.

  “And how long has it been since your last period?”

  That was something I hadn’t considered. Normally, I was pretty regular. But thinking the question over, I realized that it had been a while. I’d gotten so caught up with everything that I’d totally forgotten about such things.

  “I think … it’s been about three weeks.”

  The nurse nodded again.

  A thought occurred to me: Was it possible that I was pregnant?

  The question raced through my head as the nurse finished. Soon she left, and in entered a tall, lanky man with close-cropped gray hair and a thin, friendly face. He introduced himself as Dr. Harford and picked up where the nurse left off.

  But the question of pregnancy didn’t leave my mind. I had to know.

  “Am I pregnant?” I blurted out.

  He smiled. “That’s what we’re going to find out,” he said. “Morning sickness doesn’t usually begin until around six weeks, but nausea can present itself very early in a pregnancy. And between that and your not remembering the date of your last period, as well as the general malaise that you’ve been feeling, I’m thinking that a blood test is the next item on the agenda.”

  I went along with it, not wanting to delay knowing any longer. Dr. Harford and one of the nurses carefully took some blood, and I could barely think straight with how nervous I was.

  “How long does this take?” I asked. “I mean, the blood work and all that.”

  “Normally, this would take a day or two,” the doctor said. “But it just so happens that we’re pretty empty in the lab right now, so it should only take a few hours.”

  I was thrilled. “Can I wait here?” I asked. “I want to know as soon as possible.”

  “Sure,” he said. “If you want to wait in the lobby, you’re more than welcome. We can tell you as soon as the tests are done.”

  The doctor and nurse finished up with the blood removal, and once they were done they left me alone with my racing thoughts.