Page 24 of Last First Date
He makes a terrible looking “O” face to go with his thrusting hips, and if that’s what women have to look at when they bang him, then he’s going to be single forever.
I go ahead and roll up my sleeves, but don’t take off my shirt just yet. “Joke’s on you, Daniels. I don’t even have parents. God himself created me by hand and then set me on earth just to please women.” I pause and wait just long enough so that everyone’s listening. “Like your mama.”
“Go choke,” he says in a flat voice, stretching out his arms and legs like he’s about to compete in the Olympics.
I shrug, perfectly casual. “Cut the shit, Daniels. You know I’m just fucking around.” I meet his eyes squarely. “I don’t know your mama, and everybody knows that.”
He takes a deep breath, then another. He keeps moving into these deep lunges like he’s getting ready to compete in the high jump instead of a dirty fire station dance off. “Damn right you don’t.” He nods at me once. “Nice try though, trying to throw me off my dancing A game.”
I nod back at him. “Yeah, you caught me. What can I say, Daniels? You’re famous for your dance moves.” I put my hand up and lift one leg, giving the station a little Funky Chicken. I put on my most serious face, and give them all my best competitive stare down.
With the situation de-escalating this quickly, the guys all get back on board with jeering at each other over the dance competition. Sanders fires upPour Some Sugar on Meon his phone and busts out some surprisingly slutty looking dance moves.
It’s a train wreck, but I can’t help watching Darcy as she laughs at Sanders’ lame efforts to imitate twerking. I like her so much better this way—relaxed, having fun. She’s just a regular girl here, not trying to force herself into some uncomfortable place that her mother wants her to inhabit. I mean, does she want to be more like her mother or just make her mother happy? And either way, I can’t for the life of me figure out why she would want to be anything other than who she is right here, right now. She seems perfect to me.
About halfway through the song, Mehringer bumps Sanders out of the way and does a slow dive to the ground, followed by a burst of enthusiastic floor humping that sets off the entire crew. I can’t believe how many of these guys have stripper moves at the ready. Maybe that’s something that comes up later on in my training?
Daniels starts up Ginuwine’s Pony, of course, and slides to the floor, pulsing his crotch up in the air in time with the slow funk of the song. Jesus, the whole thing is so cheesy and embarrassing and I’m not even Darcy, the supposed victim of the dick-thrusts. But it looks like she’s having a good laugh about the whole thing instead of freaking out, so maybe she’s the coolest girl who’s ever existed.
Well, okay, it gets a bit bad for me when she shoves a dollar bill in Daniels’ pants, but so be it. I figure I owe him for the jokes I was making about his mother, even if I didn’t mean to make him mad. So for today only, I’m not going to murder him with my bare hands when Darcy touches his pants.
When he moves away from her, Daniels gestures to me to take his place. But I shake my head, then move away from Darcy and the rest of the crowd.
Instead I reach for the station’s pole and lift myself onto it, then curl my body until I’m holding myself out horizontally. My chest and back muscles burn, so I ease back onto the pole and wrap my leg around it, sliding down and then kicking myself up again into a slow spiral.
The music stops, but my impromptu pole dancing session continues in complete silence. Finally, the awkwardness gets to me and I do a quick flip and land on my feet. Thank heaven the entire crew applauds instead of running me out of here with pitchforks and torches.
“Pay up,” I say as casually as I can. But my eyes are latched onto Darcy like she’s the only reason I’m here. Because maybe that particular display of my strength and my body was all for her benefit.
Daniels shoves me a little with his shoulder as he hands over his part of the money. Then he leans in close and pitches his voice low enough that I’m the only one who will hear him. “Tell the truth, Abernathy. It’s not just about dancing lessons with you and Darcy.”
I freeze and swallow hard. I force my face into stillness, the absolute casualness of a man who suddenly has everything to hide. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” There. That sounded almost like my normal voice.
He shoves me with his shoulder again. “Sure.” He nods at me once. “We’ll talk about this later then. Over a beer. But believe me, we are definitely going to talk about it.” He gives me a long look, and then taps the side of his nose with one finger.
Is he doing some kind of secret code gesture thing with me? Well, whatever. I’m not averse to having Daniels as a friend instead of a pain in my ass, but I’m not going to out Darcy about her stupid dating lessons.
Especially because I’m tapping out. I can’t act like it’s okay for her to want to be with Hesse Kotner. He may be everything that she thinks her mom wants, but even I can see that he’ll stifle her and smother her in no time. She’ll turn into one of those bland Stepford wives with him, and I can’t stand by and watch that happen to her.
I force myself out of that shitty train of thought and approach Darcy, a little extra swagger in my step. “So tell me, how was it for you?”
Her lips curl up around her next words. “You know Abernathy, if you have to ask then it couldn’t have been that good.”
Bigs guffaws and one of the guys offers me a little ice for that burn, but then the tones go off and we all pause, then shift immediately into work mode.
Faster than thought, we are on the truck and out the door, ready to do what we do best. When my eyes pass over Darcy, she’s already a million miles away, her eyes fixed on the plume of smoke breaking up the horizon line ahead of us.
This is who she really is, after all. She’s one of the best firefighters in town, and that’s something that none of the rich dirtbags in her life will ever get to appreciate first-hand about her the way that I do.
Damn it, even if this is all I get of her, I’m a lucky man.
Darcy
We had to call in the other township stations, but eventually we got the blaze contained at the manufacturing warehouse. Fortunately, it was off-shift so only a few people were working there, and all of them were out of the building before we even arrived.
But the lieutenant’s job comes with extra responsibilities. I’m in charge of how the other firefighters approach the building, who runs the hoses, who enters where and when. It’s stressful and I spend about half the time at the scene worried about what’s happening and the other half beaming with pride at my crew.
They may be the Island of Misfit Toys, but these men are damn good at working a fire. The guys—all of them—showed themselves to be level-headed and calm. I’m proud of them, and once the job winds down, we all pile into the truck again, sweating and filthy and pleased by hard work done the right way.
