Controlled Burn

by Shannon Stacey

  “She’s not my girl,” he said to the room in general, since most of them were people he knew. “She was at the game with her grandparents. So was I. That was the extent of us being there together.”

  When he reached the bar, Ashley set a frosted mug on a coaster in front of him. “Yeah, we could see you guys from where we were sitting. And I heard about your pool lesson the other night. She might not be your girl yet, but that’s totally happening.”

  “She’s going back to San Diego on Thursday.” It wasn’t a total denial of any chemistry they may have witnessed at the bar or at the hockey game, but it should put an end to the speculation.

  “Oh.” She frowned at him, her expression of annoyance so like Scott’s, he almost laughed at her. Scott and Lydia had the fiery Kincaid temperament, like their old man. Ashley tended to be levelheaded and calm, though she’d pop off if she was pushed hard enough. “That’s what sexting is for.”

  “Don’t you think I’m a little old for sexting?”

  “Of course not.” She paused, and then smiled. “Although, if you send her a dick pic, you might want to use a filter.”

  It’s a good thing he hadn’t taken a drink of his beer yet, or he might have choked on it. “Gee, thanks a lot.”

  “And a zoom lens.”

  Rick turned to see Danny stepping up to the bar. He hadn’t seen Ashley’s husband when he came in, but he should have known he’d be here. “You two are freaking hilarious tonight.”

  “I’m not sure why you and my wife are talking about your dick, but that makes you fair game for any insult I want to throw your way.” He set his empty mug on the bar. “You didn’t bring Jessica with you?”

  “And that’s why we were talking about his dick,” Ashley said as she replaced his empty mug with a full one.

  “Okay.” Danny took a sip of his beer and then turned to face Rick. “Since she’s not here with you, are we talking about your literal dick or are you being a dick?”

  “I’m done with this conversation.” Rick picked up his beer and headed for the alcove at the back of the bar where the pool table was.

  A game was going on, but there were quite a few guys gathered around to watch. Rick shook hands with Scott and Gavin, plus there were several guys from a nearby station and two police officers he recognized. Of course Danny followed him back, but luckily didn’t bring up the conversation they’d been having at the bar.

  Once Scott lost and no longer had the run of the table, he grabbed his half-empty beer mug and walked over to sit with Rick at the small round table he’d claimed. “How’s it going?”

  Rick shrugged. “It’s going, I guess.”

  “You going to play tonight?”

  “I don’t think so. Not really in the mood. Is Aidan with Lydia tonight?”

  “Yeah, since we’d talked about getting together tonight, Danny wanted in. And Ashley said if Danny was going to be here, she may as well work and Lydia could have a night off. It’s not like Sundays are hectic.” Scott tipped his chair back onto two legs so it balanced against the wall. “How are things going with Jessica and the Broussards?”

  Rick had an instant flashback to the moment he’d spotted Jess outside his door, her hand frozen in mid-air, just shy of knocking. Considering what he’d just been up to in the shower, he wasn’t surprised to feel a rush of heat in his cheeks but, luckily, she hadn’t been looking at his face.

  “Things are good,” he said. “But she’s leaving Thursday.”

  Maybe if he said it enough times, he’d be able to figure out how he felt about it. He should be thankful things would go back to normal around the house. But the idea of not seeing Jessica whenever he popped in downstairs didn’t sit well.

  “For good?”

  Rick shrugged. “I’m sure she’ll come back to visit Joe and Marie, so I’ll see her around here and there. You seeing anybody new?”

  Scott sighed and dropped his chair back onto four legs. “No. I think I’m going to stop trying to see anybody for a while.”

  “Interesting. And unlike you.”

  “Yeah. But maybe I spend too much time with women who don’t see marriage in our future—or see marriage for the wrong reasons—and it’s keeping me from finding the right one.”

  Rick knew he’d been burned recently by a young woman who’d pressured Scott for a ring, but only because she wanted access to his benefits and was even willing to get pregnant to get him to the altar. She hadn’t been, but he was pretty sure that girl was a turning point for Scott.

  “I don’t think I have a right one,” Rick said before taking a long swig of his beer.

  “From what I hear, she might be right under your nose. Literally, like she’s sleeping one floor below you.”

  He had to guess Scott had gotten that little tidbit from his sisters, since he’d been on the ice the entire game and hadn’t seen them together. And Scott hadn’t seen the kiss in the pool room, but Aidan had probably filled him in. “Pretty sure the right woman for me would at least live in the same time zone.”

  “Good point.” Scott sighed and raised his mug. “Here’s to being not the marrying kind.”

  Rick touched his mug to Scott’s and then took another drink. “Well. This is kind of depressing.”

  “Yup.” Scott nodded. “Another night alone in our apartments to look forward to. Might as well order some burgers and then stay here until they throw us out.”

  Rick agreed, but he was thinking about tomorrow night, when he wouldn’t be alone in his apartment. And he might feel low at the moment and she might be leaving on Thursday, but Jess, hockey and junk food was a potent combination he’d spend the next twenty-four hours thinking about.

  Chapter Eleven

  Jessica did a little yoga in her room after wrapping up her work late Monday afternoon. And she even threw in some bonus planking just because she hadn’t been back to the gym with Rick but had continued to stuff herself with Marie’s cooking.

  The fact it was a good excuse to take a shower at that time of day was purely coincidental, she told herself. And since she was taking a shower anyway, she went ahead and shaved her legs while she was in there. A little scented body cream and she was ready to go watch a hockey game.

  She felt silly, though, when she had to go down to the kitchen to get the bag of junk food she’d bought at the corner market during her lunch break. Marie was there, preparing dinner for her and Joe, and she breathed in deeply.

  “You smell lovely, honey.”

  “Thanks. I took a shower.” That sounded awkward. “I was doing yoga in my room and I’m out of shape so I got sweaty, so I wanted to clean up.”

  Marie gave her a knowing look. “You don’t want to watch hockey if you don’t smell pretty.”

  Jessica laughed and took a seat at the table. “It’s good to take a shower after yoga. It keeps the muscles limber. Honest.”

  “Mmm-hmm.” Marie hit the button to turn the oven off and cracked the door to let the accumulated heat escape. “Are you sure you don’t want to eat with us?”

  “Rick said he’d order pizza. You’re supposed to eat junk food with hockey.”

  “Pizza’s not junk food,” Joe said as he walked into the kitchen.

  “I should make homemade pizza soon,” her grandmother said. “I haven’t done that in ages.”

  Jessica frowned. “Isn’t the whole idea of pizza that not only does somebody else make it, but they deliver it to your house?”

  “Mine’s better.”

  She didn’t doubt that. Marie was an amazing cook and Jessica had never realized how much her own skills were lacking until she came here. She might look like a younger version of her grandmother, but the cooking gene had definitely skipped her. “I’m going to go answer some last-minute emails while you guys eat. Everybody’s trying to clear
their desks before the holiday party on Saturday kicks off the holiday pseudo-break.”

  “Pseudo-break?” Joe asked, pulling out his chair. “That doesn’t sound like time off, exactly.”

  “It’s the closest we get to time off. We close the office for the week Christmas falls in, but the market doesn’t take time off, so we all have to stay on top of things from home. And we have a lot of top clients who expect us to be as dedicated to work as they are.”

  “All work and no play is no way to live,” Joe said sternly.

  “Hey, you’re talking to a woman who’s in Boston about to watch her first Bruins game while her office in San Diego is going nuts. I’m learning.” She’d been walking past him, but on impulse, she leaned over and kissed his cheek.

  He smiled and grabbed her hand, giving it a little squeeze. Then he let it go without saying anything. By now Jessica knew he wasn’t emotionally demonstrative, so the small gesture spoke volumes.

  “You going to watch the news with us before you go upstairs?” he asked.

  “Of course.” She gave them a small wave and then took her phone out to the couch, where she dealt with emails and read articles she’d bookmarked until it was time for the news.

  She had trouble focusing on the broadcast because her gaze kept straying to the time displayed on their cable box. The snow in the forecast caught her attention, but it didn’t look as if it would amount to very much in New England terms, so she didn’t worry about it. If Joe didn’t comment on the forecast, she knew there was nothing to worry about.

  When it was finally time, she said good-night to her grandparents, since they’d already be in bed by the time the game ended, and grabbed the paper bag of snacks. Then, after taking a deep breath—telling herself a hockey game was no big deal, really—she went up the stairs to Rick’s apartment.

  As soon as he opened the door, Jessica knew they’d reached a point of no return. They were either going to drop the futile game they’d been playing, dancing around their attraction for each other, or they were going to fully commit to absolutely no more kissing or touching and mean it.

  She doubted he’d been doing yoga in his bedroom but Rick had definitely just gotten out of the shower. And he was freshly shaven. That was slightly disappointing since she’d spent a lot of time wondering how that scruffy jaw would feel against her skin.

  But both of them taking showers late in the day meant eating pizza in front of the television wasn’t the only thing on their minds.

  “Black sweater?” He grinned as he stepped back to let her in. “Good choice.”

  She hooked her thumb under the yellow bra strap and pulled it out far enough so he could catch a glimpse of it. “It was the closest I could come to black and yellow.”

  His gaze seemed locked on the thin strip of her bra and his jaw tightened. “Black and gold.”

  She frowned and released the bra strap, which slid back into place. “The colors look like black and yellow.”

  “I know. But it’s gold. Trust me.” The grin reappeared. “But that bra definitely qualifies.”

  “Oh, good. I’d hate to get disqualified from fandom for the wrong color underwear.” She handed him the paper bag. “I brought junk food to go with the pizza.”

  He led the way to the island, where he unloaded the bag. She’d bought chips and dip and a bag of pretzels. Two different kinds of cookies. A variety of artificially flavored cupcakes packaged in pairs. And at the bottom of the bag, a bottle of liquefied cheese in a squeeze bottle.

  “You really know how to bring the junk food.” He held up the squeezable cheese. “What are you going to do with this?”

  “I’m not sure. Maybe dip the pretzels in it?”

  “Maybe I should have ordered a small pizza.”

  She laughed. “We don’t have to eat it all. I only brought it because you’re supposed to eat junk food with sports, though I would have preferred nachos. And cotton candy. I bet if you bring it to work, it won’t go to waste.”

  “Go to waste? I’ll be lucky if it makes it to the kitchen. What do you want to drink with your pizza? Beer, soda or water?”

  “I’ll take a soda.” She wasn’t a big beer drinker and the two she’d had at Kincaid’s Pub filled her quota for a while.

  He went to the fridge and grabbed them each a soda. “The pizza’s already on the coffee table and the game’s about to start.”

  Jessica ate a slice of pizza while they went through a big lead-in for the game. The announcers talked about a lot of people she’d never heard of and used terms that meant nothing to her, but she enjoyed watching them skate around on the ice before they got ready to drop the puck, as the guy on TV said.

  Then, after all the talking, the referee dropped the puck between two hockey players and they all erupted into action. It was so fast-paced she had a hard time keeping track of the puck and she winced every time somebody got slammed into the glass enclosure, but it was still fun. Every once in a while Rick would yell at the television, making her smile.

  Several times, she opened the browser on her phone to search for the definition of a term so she could get a better handle on what was happening. She’d first done it after the tenth or so time she heard icing, and she was looking up penalty kill when Rick caught her.

  “What are you doing? You’re not working during a game, are you? That’s absolutely not allowed.”

  She looked up from her phone. “No, I’m not working. I’m looking things up on Google.”

  “Things?”

  “Yes, things. I don’t know what the announcers are talking about and that makes it hard for me to follow. If I look up some of the terms as they use them, it’s easier to understand the game.”

  “You could always just ask me.” He winked. “I know what most of the words mean.”

  She lowered the phone to her lap and shrugged. “Isn’t it annoying if you’re trying to watch the game and somebody’s asking you really basic questions about it the whole time?”

  “Or maybe I look at it like I’m sharing my knowledge of the game so somebody else will learn to love it, too. Sharing the passion, so to speak.”

  Laughing, she locked her phone screen and tossed it onto the coffee table, trying not to think too much about Rick sharing his passion with her. Hockey. He’d been talking about hockey. “If I was some guy who’d come over to watch the game with you and had to ask what icing means, would you feel the same way?”

  “No.” He didn’t even pretend to think about it. “I’d tell him to shut up and read a book about the game before he came back again.”

  “So I guess I’m special, then?”

  “Absolutely.” He gave her a look that seemed to say whether they were talking about hockey or anything else, he did think she was special.

  The sizzle of sexual attraction she expected every time she and Rick locked eyes came, but this time it was wrapped in a warm, emotional feeling that scared the crap out of her.

  Not at all sure how to respond—either to his words or to her reaction to them—she turned back to the game. As confusing at it was, at least she knew the final objective of the men on the screen. Get the puck in the other team’s goal more times than they got it in yours.

  But in real life, she wasn’t sure what the objective was anymore. Maybe she needed men in suits with microphones to narrate it for her.

  * * *

  Something had spooked her, Rick thought, and based on the way her expression had changed, he had to guess it was when he said she was special.

  What he couldn’t figure out was why. She had to know he liked her. It wasn’t a coincidence they’d both showered before this game—something he’d noticed as soon as he opened the door. Hell, he couldn’t keep himself from kissing her, even when they’d agreed not to, and he wasn’t in the habit of kissing women he didn’t li
ke.

  Maybe she didn’t know how to take a compliment like that, which was sad. She was smart and funny and beautiful and caring and the people in her life should have been telling her that all along.

  “Do you want another slice of pizza?” he asked, hoping to get her to look at him so he could see her face.

  “I don’t know. I’d hate to be too full to try that liquid-cheese-in-a-bottle stuff.” She turned to look at him and he was relieved to see her humor reached her eyes. Whatever had bothered her seemed to have been fleeting.

  “I can’t believe you’ve never had it.”

  “I can’t believe you have.”

  “We all have things in our past we’re not proud of.” He paused to watch the Bruins’ goalie block a dangerous shot, and then turned back to her. “Right?”

  She shrugged. “My closet is skeleton and squeezable cheese free, I think.”

  “Oh, come on. You must have had a rebellious phase or dated questionable guys or something.”

  “Not that I recall. I think my father has even approved of all the boyfriends I’ve had, and I guess that’s probably unusual.”

  It was probably unusual for most women, he thought, but not for her. She didn’t seem to like making waves with her father. “I have a feeling I don’t fit into your usual taste in men.”

  “No, not really. I usually date younger guys who wear suits and ties to work. They drive environmentally conscious compact cars or sedans that mimic the look of luxury cars they hope to afford someday.”

  “Younger guys, huh?” Great. No pressure or anything.

  “Not a lot younger, but a few years, usually.”

  “I guess younger guys probably have a lot of stamina.”

  “I will neither confirm nor deny,” she said in a prim voice before amusement ruined the effect. “I think it’s mostly because my friends are a little younger, too, so I meet younger guys. And in my field, a lot of the guys my age are already married. Plus, like you said, there’s the stamina thing.”

  “Funny.” He took her hand and ran his thumb across her palm. “I guess there’s something to be said for stamina. Although there’s probably something to be said for experience, too. You learn things as you go along.”