by Mia Madison
Kieran opens the car door for me and I get inside. My skirt has ridden up, exposing my thighs, so I go to pull it down.
“Don't cover up on my account,” he says and touches the hand on my thigh. He’s not physically stopping me from pulling down my skirt, exactly, but I still stop what I was going to do.
It's not as if it's indecent or anything, so I leave my skirt where it is, my nipples pebbling at his touch. I'm ridiculously pleased that my legs are still lightly tanned from a freak couple of days in April when I caught the sun.
When we get to the restaurant, it's clear he has made reservations.
“Were you so sure I'd say yes to L'Etoile rather than pizza?”
“Nope. But there's this modern invention, very handy in such situations. Not sure what it is, but they tell me it's useful when you need to cancel something.” He pulls the iPhone out of his jacket pocket and looks at it, as if he doesn't know what to make of it. “If you put your number in there, they say I can call you on it. Weird.”
He hands me his phone and we follow the waiter to our table, Kieran's hand on my back, guiding me. I'm acutely aware of the contact, his touch through my thin blouse. I put the phone in my bag.
“Hey, where did it go?”
“Confiscated until the end of dinner.”
“Did anyone ever tell you you'd make a wonderful teacher?”
“No.”
“Good. There might be a rebellion in the classroom if you take away their phones.”
“You like it when people follow the rules, don't you?”
“Like when there's a fire alarm going off, you mean?” But he's laughing this time. “Especially then. Other times I like a rebellious streak, even if I feel the urge to correct it.”
My heart quickens at his words. I'm sure he's talking about something other than correcting a pupil for speaking in class.
“Maybe I'll have to test your limits,” I say. “Rules are made for breaking.”
He raises his eyebrows and smiles. “I can't wait.”
The waiter interrupts our conversation with the menus. Maybe it’s just as well before things get out of hand.
The food is delicious. I haven't tasted anything as good as that in a long time, if ever, and I love the confident yet friendly way that Kieran deals with the waiter and sommelier. I try not to think about him bringing other women here and fail miserably.
“So, what happened to your arm to put you on education duty?” I ask.
“It was nothing, really. Just a wooden beam that collapsed, but I ended up with severe bruising.” He rolls his white shirt sleeve back and shows me. “They can't risk me not being up to full strength, especially if I have to pull someone out in a hurry, but it seems okay to me now. I want to go back.”
“Not too quickly, I hope. Who's going to play Fireman Kieran on those school visits?”
“That's true,” he says. “We can't let Traffic Teddy out alone.”
I catch Kieran's eyes straying down from my face a couple of times over dinner and wonder if it's just my cleavage he's looking at, or if my nipples look as obvious as they feel. The thought of him noticing them makes them harden more than ever. Maybe it's the wine I've drunk, but he is more intoxicating than any alcoholic drink I could have.
I want to finish dinner quickly so I can be alone with him. The anticipation is killing me. But I'm scared, too. Maybe he'll expect someone experienced, someone who will fall into bed with him without a thought, and I'll fall short.
“So, you're not Scottish,” he says over coffee. “You sound like you come from way over the other side of the Atlantic when you're excited.”
Damn! I was hoping my reaction to him wasn't so obvious. “How can you tell that? I've lived here since I was fifteen.”
“Some of the words you say. The way you say them. I don't know. They're just not quite Scottish. Is there a story there?”
“Not much to tell. My mother is Scottish, my father American. I was born in Seattle, but my father left when I was five. She stayed in the States for ten years, ten years too long, hoping he'd come back. He didn't. So she came back home with me.”
“You're not in touch with your dad?”
“No. He never came back.” I wince because it's hard to say it out loud.
“Sorry,” he says, as if he needs to apologize for all the shitty males in the world.
“It's not your fault.”
“I brought up the topic of families.”
“What's wrong with yours?”
“Nothing. Mine are the salt of the earth.” But there's something he's not saying. A shadow has crossed his face. I want my flirty fireman back.
Despite the delicious food and flowing wine, he hasn't drunk much himself, maybe half a glass. I ask him if he wants another glass of wine but he says, “I want to get you back safely.”
“I can get a cab.”
“No, I'll take you home.”
And as he pays and we get ready to leave, I feel somehow deflated despite his hands brushing me as he helps me on with my jacket. It's not the same as when he touched me earlier.
When he drops me at my door and I hand him back his phone, he doesn't mention me putting my number in there. Not once. Not even in jest.
What did I do wrong? Is he even going to take me on any more school visits? He didn’t mention anything at the end of the evening. I'll just have to go on with my assignment myself as best I can.
But it's not the effect on the project that is really bothering me about his coldness. It's that I need to kick myself, yet again. I have got to stop falling for guys who play games.
CHAPTER 6
Kieran
Oh, Hannah. I could fall for her so easily, but I'm not going to. Life is calm and easy right now and I want it to stay that way.
I like women. I take them out all the time, same as I took Hannah out, and normally I take them home to my place or theirs. And that's it. Those other women and me, we know the score, have fun, with no love lost. I enjoy their company in and out of bed and I'm pretty sure there are no hard feelings or if there are, they manage to hide it pretty well. After all, I tell them how it's going to be.
But by the end of the evening with Hannah, I know it's not the same as a usual date. Not the same at all.
If I take her to bed, chances are I won't want to let her go, and I don't need that kind of drama in my life. Who does? I guess the guys my age at the fire station do, with the pictures of their wives and kids taped to their locker doors. I just don't know how I'd feel about taping a picture to mine.
So I don't ask for Hannah's number. I can see the hurt in her eyes and I know I'll see her sweet, disappointed face in my mind for a while. But she'll get over that fast. I know she will. I can't see me settling down with anyone, knowing how badly things can go wrong. It's better if I let her down now before she cares. Before I care.
I expect my arm will be healed enough to go back to regular work in a few days. I just have to convince the doctor of that. And then I can pass on the road safety project to someone else, and I won’t need to see Hannah again. Mike will understand. Our fire chief has a few years on me, but he's one of us.
*
On Monday, I get the doctor to pronounce me fit enough for normal operative work and so I go in to the station to give Mike the good news.
“I'll put you back on day shift for now,” he says. “It will help to have you back. Jack is going on his honeymoon at the end of the week.”
“So, can you take me from the school visits rotation, too?”
“That would be a shame. I hear you were quite a hit this week, resurrecting Teddy of all things. Mrs. Porter called me. I forgot we had costumes still hanging about.”
“I found it in the storeroom. The kids loved it. A woman assigned to the road safety project from Alistair & Co—that marketing company involved with the project—wore it. She wanted to visit a school, so I thought she could make herself useful.”
Mikes raises his eyebrows. “Don't t
ell me. She had the hots for you and you took her back to your place after the visit.”
“No. I took her out to dinner, not back to my place. Or hers.”
“You're losing your touch.”
“Nope. Just thought better of it.”
“Well, if it is the same woman, Hannah Palmer, who has an appointment with me in two minutes, you're off your rocker.”
I follow Mike's eyes and turn, looking through the window in his office door. Yes, it's Hannah, and the eyes of every fireman in the place are following her as she walks past the bays toward Mike's office, oblivious to the attention she's getting. Fuck!
“Which of the guys do you want me to assign to the project? I'm sure they'll all have their tongues hanging out at the chance to work with Miss Palmer.”
“None,” I say without thinking. I can't bear the thought of her flirting with them, impressing them, making them want her as much as I do.
She acknowledges me with a cool “Kieran” when she comes in, but I detect a faint reddening of her cheeks that has nothing to do with the temperamental heating in Mike's office. It feels cooler than usual, if anything. Maybe the icy look she gave me is reducing the temperature by a few degrees.
“I found the costumes you asked about,” Mike says.
“Costumes?” I ask.
“I thought we could have a whole cast of characters to encourage the kids to show up.”
“Some of them look a bit moth-eaten, I'm afraid.” Mike says. “But it might still be cheaper to repair them than to rent extra costumes.”
“Can I take them away to get checked? My friend works in textile design. She's good at that kind of thing. I'll get her to bring her car later if that's okay, because I can’t manage them on the bus.”
“No problem,” Mike says. “They're all just by the door in the storage room. But why don't you give Hannah a lift home with them, Kieran?”
“Yeah, I can do that,” I say, silently thanking Mike for suggesting it, because it doesn't sound like she needs my help much now that she's decided to go with the costume idea.
Hannah gives me a curt thank you. Once bitten, twice shy, I guess.
“Sorry,” I say as we walk to the storage room.
“For what? Thank you for dinner, by the way. Best dinner I've had as a student, or as an intern for that matter.”
“You're welcome. Go out with me again.”
“Really? I don't think so. Thanks for asking.” She frowns, her eyes not meeting mine, not even a trace of a smile on her lips.
Fuck! I really have upset her.
The front of the room looks like it has been inhabited by a giant menagerie. Goodness knows where Mike found all these costumes. Teddy was the only one I spotted when I looked for the school visit. But there's a dinosaur, dog, cat, panda, and squirrel, too.
We take them to my car in silence and load them in. If I take her home with the costumes and don’t say anything, she'll be gone, for good, and I'll know I've blown it. I can't bear that idea.
“I just came in to tell Mike he can add me back into the work schedule again,” I say. “But I'm not on duty until tomorrow. It's a nice day. Why don't we drop these off at your place and go for a picnic?”
A picnic? Where did that come from? I haven't been on a picnic in fucking years. The whole thing just came to me. That's what I want to do with her. There's a freshness about her I want to see in the open air and sunshine. Under an apple tree or something. Given it's May, it's unlikely there'll be any apples or blossoms about, but that's how I'd like to see her. And now I'm desperate to know if she'll agree.
CHAPTER 7
Hannah
“Somehow, I didn't see you as the picnic type,” I say. Not that I'm sure what the picnic type is, but Kieran seems to belong at the college, at the fire station, at sophisticated restaurants, not wielding a basket full of sandwiches.
“That's you and me both, then. I think I was nine or something last time I had a picnic.”
“So you don't have all the equipment stashed away.”
“I have plenty of equipment stashed away, just not of the picnic variety.”
I can't help it. I laugh. “I'm sure you do. But I was thinking on the lines of a blanket and paper plates.”
“That can be arranged. I'll tell you what, I'll drop the furry zoo off at your place then I'll leave you to get changed while I go and get some supplies.”
“This won't do?” I look down at my skinny blue jeans and sweater. It's turning into a hot day, despite the usual cool spring weather in the north of Scotland. “I guess I could wear something lighter, given the weather.”
He gives me an hour and I scrabble around like a mad woman trying to work around the animal costumes in my tiny room, re-brushing my teeth and fidgeting with my hair. In the end, I grab a sundress and put that on. If I take a cardigan, the dress will do fine even if it turns a bit cooler.
“Perfect,” he says, when he returns to pick me up. He’s changed into shorts and a T-shirt to match the occasion.
“Where are we going?”
“Not a million miles from here.”
“The beach?”
“I thought about the beach, and the forest, but I thought we should have a unique picnic experience, one that few, if any, have done before.”
“Now you're worrying me.”
“No need. If you don't like it, we can go somewhere else.”
He wasn't wrong when he said not a million miles away; he drives for no more than five minutes.
“This is just an apartment building. Have you forgotten something?” I ask because there's nowhere to picnic here that I can see.
“No, but I remembered earlier I have access to the roof from my place. I checked it out—the couple before me turned it into a roof garden, and thanks to the good Scottish rain it's still green up there, even overgrown. Do you want to check it out? We can go to the beach if you prefer.”
“I'd like to see it.”
The ladder is already down when we go into his apartment. His living room is bigger than my room (though it would be hard to imagine a smaller one) and the room is not untidy like mine, more lived in than a complete mess. Nicely furnished and decorated, too, with pictures on the walls, pillows, and plants—an attempt to turn it into a home. I jealously wonder if there's a woman's touch involved and decide I don't want to know.
“If you go up the ladder and through the hatch, you can see if you like our picnic destination or not. I'll be right behind you.”
“Are you planning to look up my dress?”
“Only when you're not expecting it.”
“Perv.”
“I know. Good, isn't it?”
I manage to scramble up the ladder and he closely follows, making sure I don't lose my foothold. He's too close to stare up my dress. I sense his reassuring presence behind me every step of the way.
“I guess climbing ladders is nothing to you,” I say when we emerge onto the roof. It's a great space. There are a few leafy plants in pots around the edges and a foot-high parapet overgrown with ivy around most of it, with higher walls in one corner. “Is this all yours?”
“Yes, no one else has access. I've never thought about using it, but maybe I'll bring a hammock up or something and sleep out here on warm nights, or just lie and contemplate the stars.”
“Which warm night would that be, then? We had one in 2016—you can expect one within the next five years.”
He laughs. “I might have to get one of those patio heaters up here to do that.”
I'm far from needing a patio heater. He's hot! And the sun is beating down. I tell myself to be careful. It hurt enough when he went off without suggesting another date after the restaurant.
He's brought a few things up already. There's a blanket in one corner where it’s sunny and sheltered from the breeze by the walls. I catch sight of pillows, glasses, and plates.
“Were you so sure I'd say yes again?” I say when I spot them. “I'm too predictable. I'll have to
start saying no.”
“Please don't. It’s my least favorite word.”
“And what’s your favorite?”
“Oh, I don’t know. How about spelunking?”
“Spelunking? You mean exploring caves? That figures.”
“It’s just a word. I like the sound of it. What do you mean ‘it figures’? You’ve gone all American on me again.”
“Because going out with you always seem to involve me crawling into something—a hatch access to a roof, an over-sized animal head. You'll be suggesting going caving next, or digging an escape tunnel. I could be turned off”
He laughs. “Turned off? Were you ever turned on?”
“Briefly, for about five minutes, I had a real crush on you. But I soon got over it.”
“I'm hurt that your affections were so fleeting. When I'm about to feed you chicken sandwiches, quiche lorraine and chocolate mousse, too.”
“Well, if there's chocolate mousse in it, I might manage to pretend I like you for a few minutes longer.”
He kisses my nose and pulls me into his arms. And then his lips are on mine in a long, searching kiss, the kind I was hoping for after L’Etoile, and now I want him more than ever, even though I know he could hurt me by going cold on me again. He kisses me until I melt against the hardness of him, and I get so wrapped up in that kiss it sends any doubts scurrying away.
“Sorry, I promised you a picnic, didn’t I?” He smiles at me. “I think that usually involves food.”
“Yes, but not all picnics are made equal. Some are better than others. Who cares about lunch?”
“I do.” He laughs and kisses me again. “I'll be right back. A picnic is not a picnic without a sandwich.” He disappears down the ladder to get the food and cold drinks.
Kieran is such easy company. Everything with Simon was intense, as if my not following his every whim was a case for debate. He had to know better every single time. And now I suspect he needed to stop any kind of spontaneity in case I got out of hand and arranged something that might lead to him being exposed as the cheater he was. I still don't know if his wife knows what he was up to.