The Single Dad - A Standalone Romance (A Single Dad Firefighter Romance)

by Claire Adams

  Despite the smoothie, my stomach was rumbling when I went to the dining hall for lunch. I got in line and tried to decide which of the slightly unappealing lunch selections was the least unappealing. I knew from experience that the least visually-appealing selections tended to taste better, but the ugliness of some of the entrees made it hard to believe. I decided on the eggplant parmesan, a salad, and some fruit, reasoning that if I needed to I could get back in line. I tried to steer my thoughts towards the rest of the classes I had for the day; I really had to pay attention in math and American History. Stats was kicking my ass in spite of Jess’ tutoring, and I had to keep up or I’d be hopeless.

  I went through the entryway and into the seating area; the first thing my gaze fell on was Zack, sitting with some of his teammates—most of them members of his same frat—and a bunch of girls. I only had to look for a moment to realize the girls were all flirting with him, trying to get his attention. I clenched my teeth. I didn’t want anything to do with Zack. He could flirt with as many girls as he wanted to. I certainly wasn’t going to stand around long enough for him to possibly see me. I quickly turned away and went blindly into the tangled mass of people at tables. I spotted Jess with some of our friends from another class and sat down, trying my best to be as unobtrusive as possible.

  In spite of my best efforts, I couldn’t help but notice that the girls at Zack’s table had spotted me. One of them asked something I couldn’t quite hear—but the tone of her voice made it clear she was laughing. They all started looking at me and laughing, and I felt my cheeks getting hotter and hotter.

  “Just ignore them,” Jess suggested, seeing what I was seeing. “They’re stupid bitches, anyway. Ignore it.”

  I couldn’t. They were clearly talking about me—what they were saying I couldn’t tell, but it had to be hilarious to them. I could only assume it was either to do with the spectacle I’d made of myself before in the dining hall, or maybe they had heard something about the situation before the interview. I tried to eat and not pay attention to it, but it was impossible.

  After a few moments, Zack turned in the direction they were pointing, and I looked away quickly—but not too soon to avoid seeing his eyes widen. Oh God, I thought, now I looked like some kind of weird hung-up freshman. I looked straight down at my plate and tried to calm myself down. I didn’t care about Zack. I would eat my lunch and go to the library, or back to my room. If Zack called me, I would ignore it. If he tried to talk to me, I’d keep walking or leave the room. I fidgeted in my seat. I finally got the nerve to look up again after a moment; just in time to see Zack stand up from the table he was sitting at. My heart was pounding in my chest. No, I thought. Don’t let him come over here. Don’t let him do that. I chewed on my bottom lip.

  The rest of his friends were still laughing and joking, and I swallowed down the lump of humiliation that was growing in my throat. I’d just leave, I thought. If I wasn’t there to be made fun of, they’d have to stop. But then if I ran away, they’d just keep doing it. I knew from first-hand experience that bullies would keep picking on you if you gave them what they wanted, and what the girls at Zack’s table wanted was clearly to make me uncomfortable. I thought of my mom—what she would say.

  “Sweetie, if ignoring them won’t work, you might as well make them realize that if they mess with you they’ll pay a price for it.”

  I thought about it. Should I go over there and confront the girls?

  Before I could make up my mind, Zack climbed onto the chair he had been sitting in, and then onto the table. The girls—and even his teammates—were just as surprised as I was. Jess gasped and asked me in a whisper what the hell was going on. I had no idea at all; I shook my head numbly. Zack looked around the room as everyone went quiet, stunned at the spectacle of the star quarterback standing on top of a table in the middle of the dining hall. Zack looked down at his team mates, and then at the girls. He glanced at me again and grinned slightly.

  “Attention everybody!” he called out—not quite shouting, but definitely making himself heard throughout the dining area. “Can I have everyone’s attention?” I didn’t know how he could possibly have more attention—everyone was looking at him, including the staff. Zack grinned again. “I want everyone here to know something very important.” I shook my head, shocked beyond anything I could ever imagine. What was he doing? “I want everyone to know that I am stupidly, head-over-heels hung up on Evelyn Jackson. She’s the only girl for me. No one else could ever compare with her.”

  Blood flooded into my face. I heard a clattering noise and looked down to see my fork tumbled onto the table. I felt hot and cold all at once as Zack pointed to me; every eye in the dining hall was turned on me. I swallowed, my heart pounding in my chest, my stomach feeling like it was shooting up into my throat.

  It was a joke. It had to be. Zack was getting his revenge on me for dumping the plate of food on him. I was seething. After a moment of stunned silence everyone in the dining hall began to laugh—a few people at first, and then everyone. I stood up without knowing what I was doing. Jess grabbed at my arm to try and stop me but I pulled away, grabbing my tray and running away from the table as fast as I could. I don’t know how I managed to keep everything on the tray, but I was moving through the dining hall, everything around me a blur, and I slammed my tray into the dish chute. I didn’t even go around to the main entrance; the thought of everyone still laughing, still thinking how ridiculous I was, sent me to the back door. I slammed it open and dashed through it, finding the cement path and running around the circumference of the dining hall until I got to the main route. My eyes were stinging, my cheeks were burning. I kept my gaze on the ground at my feet as I found my way back to the dorms by memory. I swiped my ID card once, twice, three times. Finally it pinged and the green light on the reader came on and the door unlocked. I snatched the door open.

  I didn’t even bother with waiting for the ancient elevator to get to the ground floor. I ran through the hall to the stairs and yanked the door open. I ran up the stairs, ignoring the stitch in my side and the ache in my legs as I went past the second floor, third, fourth, all the way to the fifth. The stairs were on the opposite side of the hall from my room. I walked through the hallway, barely holding myself together; someone might see me. They might not already know about what happened in the dining hall. The last thing I was willing to do was to give people another reason to find out about what Zack had done. I dug my keys out of my pocket and fumbled with them, dropping them before I managed to unlock the door.

  I let the door slam behind me and it wasn’t until I’d thrown myself onto the couch, face buried in the cushions, that I realized that I had left my backpack at the dining hall. I hadn’t even thought about it while I was making my retreat. I had had to get out of there—nothing was going to stop me. I groaned. Not only had Zack humiliated me in front of everyone, but now I had to figure out how I was going to get my textbooks back.

  I had to assume that Jess would bring them back to the dorm. She was flighty but she would definitely have noticed that I’d left empty-handed. I screamed into the cushions until my throat felt raw and I started coughing, hot tears flowing from my eyes as I thought of how much I had been humiliated. I lifted my head from the couch and slammed it back down, grateful that it was well-padded. I did it again and again. I was so stupid. I had let Zack mix me up; I had let him get in my head. I should have never gone to the stupid party with Jess, I should never have let Zack kiss me, I should have never let him take me back to the frat house. I should have known better. Zack was no better than any other guy on the planet, even if he had been there for me when my mom first got sick. He was just another asshole who would take advantage of me and then embarrass me for my troubles.

  I sat up on the couch after a while and started to calm down. Jess would grab my backpack; I didn’t have to go back for it and face the prying eyes and smirks of my classmates. I could live down the humiliation. I’d lived through far worse than humilia
tion and come out of it okay. I could get through it. I would bury myself in my work and I wouldn’t even give anyone the satisfaction of remotely showing I’d ever cared about Zack. I’d just pretend like it was some stupid thing that didn’t matter at all. I took deep breaths and decided to wash my face.

  Thirty minutes after I had stormed out of the dining hall, I heard a knock at the main room door. I was confused—and more than a little alarmed. If it was Jess, I’d have to apologize if I had accidentally locked her out. Sometimes she forgot her keys, which was understandable—and usually neither of us was very far away. I’d also have to apologize for making her haul my books back up to my room, and for running away the way I had. If it was someone we knew, I didn’t know whether or not I should answer it. It could be someone who wanted to rub salt in my wounds and tease me some more about Zack’s display. It could be someone who somehow had managed not to even hear about it, or someone who had but wanted to comfort me. I stood in the common area for a long moment staring at the door, hoping that whoever was on the other side of it would just go away and leave me in peace.

  But if it was Jess, and she had brought my books up, I couldn’t just leave her hanging outside. There was another knock. Either way, I thought, I would have to face the situation eventually. I took a deep breath. When I went to turn the knob on the door, it wasn’t locked; I set my spine—clearly it wasn’t Jess, then. If she had come up, she would have tried the door before assuming she was locked out. And she would have known for sure that I’d come straight to the dorm instead of going to the Library after that mess. It had to be someone else.

  I opened the door. If I could have formed any expectation of who was on the other side of it specifically, other than Jess, I would never in a million years have guessed that it would be Zack. He stood there, looking both mischievously amused and concerned, his dark eyes glinting and widening at the sight of me.

  “Whoa,” he said, stopping just short of coming into the room. “Are you okay? What’s wrong?”

  My anger—which had started to subside—exploded in me like coals on a low fire.

  “What the hell do you mean, what’s wrong? You humiliated me in front of the entire dining hall! Why? What the hell, Zack?” Words tumbled out of me—I asked him if it was because of the stunt I’d pulled, asked him if he’d demanded the date just so he could set up the stupid thing in the dining hall; I kept talking until I couldn’t think of anything else to say and just stood there and sighed. “Well?”

  Zack was shaking his head, a smile still tugging at the corners of his lips. “Evie,” he said gently, coming closer to me—coming into the room and closing the door behind him, reaching out to put his hands on my shoulders. I sidestepped, still feeling hurt and betrayed. “Evie, no one was laughing at you. Everyone was laughing at me.”

  “Those girls you were sitting with were definitely laughing at me. They pointed. I saw it.”

  Zack smiled. “Yeah, well, they’re jealous, that’s all. They were laughing at you to make you feel bad because they’re jealous of the fact that it’s true: I’m still stupidly, crazy hung-up on you.”

  I staggered backward until the corner of the wall caught me between my shoulder blades. “What?”

  Zack smiled wider. “I’m in love with you, you stupid girl. What did you think?” I shook my head slowly, feeling shock as deep as I had when he had jumped onto the table. “I never said I’m not an idiot.”

  I laughed in spite of myself. Zack moved closer to me again, licking his lips nervously.

  “I’m sorry if you felt humiliated. I didn’t mean to humiliate you. I meant to…I don’t know…make those stupid girls feel like idiots. And put the attention back on me. I could tell you’d noticed what was happening.” Zack was maybe two inches away from me. He brushed his lips against my temple. “Look, I’m an idiot, but I’m an idiot in love.”

  “Just…no more public spectacles, please?”

  Zack chuckled lowly. “I will try my hardest. But you’ve got to live up to that too.”

  He brought his lips down along the side of my face, to my cheek, down to my jaw, and then around to my lips. Before I could even think of the reasons why I should stop him, he had me pressed against the wall, my mouth sealed, his hands on my waist, holding me frozen. Zack’s tongue swiped across my lips and I opened my mouth without thinking, immediately and completely enthralled and stunned by the kiss. I should have expected it; when his lips had moved down along my jaw, I should have known that he was going to kiss me—but I had been so wrapped up in the moment that I hadn’t been thinking at all. I came out of my shock but the feeling of Zack’s hard, muscled body against mine, and the emotional high I was on, made it completely impossible for me to pull back and tell him to stop. I couldn’t think of anything rationally; all I knew was that I wanted that kiss, that I wanted it to keep going and maybe even never stop.

  Zack’s hands fell to my hips, and I moaned against his lips as he gave me a careful squeeze; I could feel the heat of him through my clothes, the tension in his body. Zack deepened the kiss more, his tongue probing my mouth, his head tilting to give him complete control, lips moving against mine. He sucked my bottom lip into his mouth and nibbled on it playfully, making me half-gasp at the tingling jolt of sensation the tactic sent shooting through me. I was hot and cold all over, trembling from the dizzying upset and the sudden onslaught of lust I was feeling. I couldn’t quite believe what was happening; it was like my brain was five minutes behind the rest of the world, and that I just couldn’t seem to manage to catch up.

  Zack’s hands began to move all over my body, tickling my waist and then grazing my breasts, moving back down to my hips. I snaked my arms around his broad shoulders and pressed myself against him. Moments before, I would have said that the last thing I would ever do would be to kiss Zack. I would have told you—after the situation in the dining hall—that Zack was dead to me and that any feelings that I had for him were completely finished. But between his apology and explanation, and the way he was kissing me, I couldn’t even remember how I had felt moments before. All I knew was that I absolutely needed him and couldn’t stop touching him. If I stopped touching him, stopped kissing him, I might tremble and shake so hard that I would fall apart.

  I didn’t break away from the kiss, but I groped behind me blindly, fumbling around with my eyes closed and my face occupied to try and find the door to my bedroom. I reached out and knocked my hand against the door hard enough for it to briefly hurt—and then found the lever-handle. Zack, hearing the noise, pulled back and I almost groaned in sudden frustration. “My room. Now.” My voice was breathless and tight to my own ears.

  “Good idea,” Zack said—in a voice as breathless and tense as my own.

  We tumbled into the room together and I barely remembered to close the door behind us. In the moment I was out of Zack’s arms I realized—barely—that if anyone came in they’d know what we were up to immediately. I lurched toward my computer and turned on my music, not even bothering to pay attention to what playlist I had selected.

  Zack wrapped his arms around me and then his lips were on mine once more and I pressed against every inch of him, reeling, and my mind spinning. I could feel the hard ridge of his cock straining at his jeans, digging into my hip. I was trembling again, my heart pounding in my chest, my hands shaking as they trailed along his back and shoulders, over the tee shirt he wore. I barely noticed the wail of electric guitars, the shrieking of a female voice launching into a fast-paced song—in the back of my mind I recognized it as Yeah Yeah Yeahs; I couldn’t focus enough to think of the song itself. Zack pulled and tugged at the hem of my shirt, working it up over my breasts while I squirmed. I threw my arms over my head and we broke away from the kiss at the same moment, just long enough for him to pull the shirt over my head and throw it across the room.

  My hands slid along the lines and planes of his back; I could feel the rippling muscle down along his spine, the heat of him through the fabric of his te
e shirt—I was moving instinctively as Zack caressed me almost everywhere all at once, cupping my breasts through my bra, tickling my ribs, gripping my hips, trailing across the small of my back as he pulled me close to him. I brought my hands around and found the hem of his shirt and started pulling it up. I couldn’t think of anything that I wanted more than to see him naked—I absolutely had to see him again. The sight of him, the taste of him, the feeling of him, had haunted me from the time we’d had sex on the couch at his frat—no matter how angry I’d been or how depressed, I’d remembered how incredibly hot it had been, how much better than anything I’d done since I’d lost my virginity to him a few years before.

  Somehow Zack’s shirt was over his head, and Zack’s lips shifted along my jawline, brushing and leaving a tingling trail in their wake as he brought them down to my neck. He kissed along the column of my throat, moving down one side and up the other until he came to my ear. I moaned as he slipped my earlobe between his lips, sucking it and then nibbling it playfully, worrying it with his teeth and tongue—it was more erotic than I would have ever thought it could be, sending hot and cold electric jolts through my body. Zack’s hands slid against my skin, trailing around to my back, and I felt his deft fingers touching and feeling for the clasp of my bra, finding the hook-and-eye in a moment. He unhooked it and shifted back from me just slightly—I could still feel the brush of his skin against mine—and guided it away from my body. It seemed like it almost evaporated, disappearing off somewhere—I didn’t care where. He lifted me up onto the bed and slipped between my splayed legs, bringing his mouth back up to mine and once more kissing me hungrily.