Page 32 of The Fireman and the Flirt

“I just heard the story the other day. It was funny.” The tale of how he got that name was also a little hot. Cary had a wild side. “It’d happened after I left for Ala–”

“Derek,” she said firmly, shutting me up. “It’snotfunny. First of all, Cary was outed against his will by his secret boyfriend. Then he was teased relentlessly for the rest of high school because of it. It metastasized into this big story. People thought he had sex with a car or did other freaky shit. When he tried dating years later, there were some guys, guys who never went to South Rock, who would bring it up. It was awful.”

Oh shit. I hunched over my coffee cup, furious with myself.

“No wonder he doesn’t want to work with you.”

“Fuck. I am such an asshole.” I felt my whole body sink into itself, immediately overcome with an anvil of guilt.

“You really didn’t know?”

I shook my head no. My eyes pleaded with her to believe me. It took a few seconds, but she eventually softened.

I wanted to kill Mitch. Did he know about the teasing? Probably not. Mitch would never be cruel to someone. Knowing Cary, he probably laughed it off, played the good sport because that was the kind of guy he was. And I was an asshole.

I clamped my eyes shut and silently cursed myself. “I really fucked up.”

“Yeah. You did.”

10

CARY

Despite working in real estate, my house wasn’t anything to write home about. It was on the older side, on the fringes of town, and could use some upkeep. I’d spruced it up with a remodeled kitchen and a pair of cute flower pots outside the front door. My credit score wasn’t great when I’d purchased, which limited what I could buy.

My family and I never really talked about money because we never had that much. My dad painted houses, and my mom did alterations out of our basement. There were never enough houses or pairs of pants most months. I learned how to shop for deals and look presentable on a budget, though I never had the effortless cool of a rich kid who lived a frictionless life. Being closeted and kinda weird meant that I already stood out without trying, so I didn’t want to stick out with a bad wardrobe. When I turned eighteen, I was inundated with offers from credit card companies, and I discovered the magic of plastic—without being told that paying them off on time was actually, like, really important. Real estate had allowed me to get out of that hole. Now I could shop where the rich kids shopped.

There was a constant boulder of guilt sitting in my stomach around the gearhead debacle. My parents worked hard to provide for their son, and he turned around and became a laughingstock. I made sure to shield them from my petty high school drama, never letting them know what happened, never burdening them with my pain. They worked too hard to have to spend their free time wading through my teenage bullshit.

It filled my heart with the purest kind of joy when I helped them sell their house for a tidy profit years later, which enabled them to buy a unit in a very nice senior community.

I’d been tempted to buy myself a unit in one of the hot, new luxury condo developments popping up downtown, but a part of me preferred living away from town. I liked to be social, but I also liked my solitude. There was a fine line between loneliness and solitude. Solitude was something we chose; loneliness was something that happened to us. I was constantly riding that line.

Most mornings, I could step into my backyard, which faced quiet woods, and have a little kumbaya moment of zen.

This morning, though, I didn’t find zen when I stared out into nature. I checked my email first thing when I woke up, which probably wasn’t a good habit to keep up. I was technology-obsessed, a member of the hyperconnected twenty-first century, and that was that. Hannah kept me abreast of Derek’s house hunting mission. Each new update chipped at my heart, the way creeping on an ex’s social media page always made me feel lacking. I hated to say it, but I missed him.

I got dressed in an aquamarine button-down shirt and black slacks. Bright colors would cheer me up. I drove into downtown Sourwood, admiring the large candy canes hung on all the lamp posts. I didn’t mind that it was mid-November. Let the holidays begin on November 1st!

As per my routine, I parked in the PRG lot and beelined to Caroline’s for my daily iced coffee to go.

Caroline’s was a greasy spoon diner which on the surface wouldn’t be thought of as a great place for coffee. In fact, I was the only person who ordered iced coffee to-go from them. The brother of Caroline’s current owner owned a coffee bean supplier in Manhattan and provided the restaurant with rich, delicious coffee from the heart of Costa Rica. Let the other mindless yuppies wait in line at Starbucks for average coffee. Caroline’s was my little secret.

“The usual?” Kathy, the waitress at the counter who’d been there forever, asked.

“I’ll take two today. I need the extra caffeine.”

“Make it three,” said a familiar deep voice behind me.

I wanted to be strong and not get turned on by the sound of Derek’s voice and the sight of his lumbering body. But we couldn’t get everything we wanted.

“Oh. Hi,” I said, taking in Derek’s black Dave Matthews Band t-shirt, which highlighted his strong chest as well as his protruding stomach.

Why did Derek’s eyes have to sparkle? Sparkling eyes should be illegal.

“They have good coffee,” he said.

“It’s because they source it from a special coffee bean distributor, so it’s better than the standard coffee that other places have.” Fuck. Why was I giving all these details? I had to be better at being the strong, silent type. “But yeah, it’s good.”

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