Page 12 of Heat Exchange
“Yeah, right.” She shook her head, looking around the bay. “There’s no Switzerland when firefighters are involved. Brotherhood first. Everybody else gets what’s left.”
And there was thatmore to itthat he’d suspected might be an underlying problem. “That’s not entirely true, you know.”
She arched an eyebrow at him. “And you know what it’s like to be onthisside of it how exactly? Doesn’t your family count money for a living?”
“It’s a little more complicated than that, but I see what you’re saying. But to us firefighters, that whole brotherhood thing kind ofincludesour families.”
“In theory, maybe.”
“Look, I love Tommy. You know that. He’s been more of a father figure to me than my own father has been, but he’s a hard-ass. Any...shortcomings he might have in the nurturing category might be his personality and not the job.”
She stared at him for a few seconds, that dark gaze locked with his, and then she smiled. “Good effort, kid.”
Kid?What the hell was that? She might have four years on him, but what was with the patronizing pat on the head? “It’s my take on it. Whatever.”
“This is exactly why I’m stuck back here again. Ashley can’t even show her face at the damn corner market—never mind the bar—without somebody trying to convince her Danny’s such a great guy and if she could just be more understanding and more supportive and give him another chance.” She took her hands out of her pockets to point at him. “Not a single one of you—not even her own father or brother—has told her that maybe she did the right thing forherand that Danny needs to make an effort to resolve their problems, or thatheneeds to be more understanding and supportive.”
Goddamn, but she was hot as hell when she got fired up. He tried to shove that awareness to the back of his mind, but it wasn’t exactly a switch that could be flipped. “I admit that sucks.”
“Yeah, it does.” She stopped pointing at him, but he could still see the temper on her face and in the set of her shoulders. God help Scotty should he walk back in at that moment. “But I’m here now. And since you say you know my family so well, you know I’m not going to let anybody shit on Ashley. If Danny gets his head out of his ass, then good. If not, screw him.”
She turned and walked away before he could say anything, not that he had any idea what to say to that. He actually was fairly neutral on the matter of the Walsh marriage, whether Lydia wanted to believe him or not. He liked them both a lot and he hoped they worked things out. And if they couldn’t, he hoped the split was amicable and they both found happiness. That was about it for him.
Even though she left without giving him a chance to respond, he had to admit he liked watching her leave. She was a little taller than average, and nice and curvy. The long, angry strides did nice things for her ass, and Aidan was once again left with a Lydia-inspired hard-on.
And there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.
The last thing he needed was to get caught jerking off in the bathroom. That had happened to a new kid once and they’d called him Palmer for so long they would have forgotten his real name if it wasn’t written or sewn on his gear.
“Is my sister gone?”
Scotty’s voice killed the hard-on as effectively as a cold shower. “Yeah. You’re not exactly her favorite person at the moment.”
“No shit.” Scott walked to the bank of metal lockers and yanked his open. “No wonder Todd drank so much and went looking for less bitchy company.”
Anger rose in Aidan’s chest and he turned away before it spilled out. Siblings fought and he was aware nobody knew your soft spots like family, but that was a cheap shot. It wasn’t Lydia’s fault her ex had turned out to be an asshole. And blaming her made Aidan want to plant his fist in his best friend’s face.
“That guy was a dickhead,” was all he said.
“Yeah, he was.” Scott sighed and slammed his locker. “I didn’t mean that. She just... God, she drives me crazy, you know?”
Aidan was starting to know a little something about being driven crazy by Lydia, yes. Just, in his case, for an entirely different reason.
Danny Walsh watched Lydia leave from the third-story window. He could tell by the way she was walking that she was pissed off and he knew she must have stopped by to see Scott. Those two pushed each other’s buttons without even trying.
Leaving the window, Danny turned off the television he’d had on for background noise while he cleaned up the living room area and then went into the kitchen. After giving the beef stew he’d made a quick stir, he turned the slow cooker to low. They used the slow cooker a lot because it meant not having to throw a meal away and start over if they had to go on a run before they got a chance to eat it.
He pulled out his phone and sent a group text announcing lunch was ready and then pulled out a stack of paper bowls and a loaf of bread. There wasn’t a lot of butter left in the tub in the fridge, so he jotted that down on the list they kept on the door. Hopefully it would be enough for today.
The guys started showing up, serving themselves from the slow cooker before taking seats around the huge and ancient kitchen table. Danny was pretty sure the chairs were all older than him, with yellow vinyl seats spackled here and there with duct tape, but they were sturdy and nobody had ever complained enough to merit stretching the budget for new ones.
“That’s all the butter there is,” he warned them. “So have a little more bread and a little less butter with your bread and butter.”
“Guys on night tour probably ate the shit with a spoon,” Scotty mumbled as he scraped half the butter off his bread and wiped it on Rick’s slice.
Danny ignored the jab, but he made a mental note to talk to Cobb and Gullotti later about the possibility of growing discontent in the house. The crew that manned Ladder 37 on the opposite shifts as Gullotti’s wasn’t pulling their weight when it came to domestic matters and that needed to be nipped in the bud. If these guys had to scrub the toilet, they all had to scrub the toilet.
“Did I hear a woman yelling in the bay earlier?” Jeff Porter asked, stretching across the table to spin the lazy Susan until it stopped on the seasoned salt, which he put on everything he ate.
