Page 41 of Heat Exchange
“Hey,” Aidan said, not wanting to reintroduce the one-word versus two-word greeting conversation.
“Are you guys ready to go?”
Aidan and Scotty exchanged a look, and then Scott closed the fridge. “Sure. We’re ready.”
On his way past, Aidan grabbed the shopping bag and shoved it into the fabric sleeve hung on the wall so somebody could reuse it, and then he followed the others to Gullotti’s truck. He had a four-door, short-box Chevy, but it was still a little cramped with three of them in the backseat. Gullotti drove, of course, and Porter automatically got shotgun because he was too big to shove into the backseat, which left Aidan, Scotty and Danny getting very cozy in the backseat. They forced Scotty into the middle since he was the shortest by maybe an inch.
“I’m going to get wrinkled,” Scotty complained, lifting his butt to try to straighten his dress pants.
“Next time we’ll order you a limo,” Danny snapped.
“Ouch. Aidan’s in a strangely good mood and you’re in a particularly bad mood, and I’m sandwiched in the middle. What a fun day this is going to be.”
“You know I had to go by the house this morning,” Danny said after a few minutes of silence, “since I had my uniform but forgot to grab the shoes. It’s the second time I’ve had to knock on the door of my own house and it sucks.”
Aidan guessed that was understatement, which was Danny’s style. “How was talking to Ashley?”
He really wanted to ask if Ashley had said anything about Lydia, like maybe she’d been out late the night before, but he didn’t. Not only because her brother was sitting between them, but because his first instinct should be sympathy for a friend, not worrying family gossip might reach Scotty.
“It was awkward,” Danny said. “I feel like when she looks at me, she’swillingme to say the right thing, but I don’t know what the hell the right thing even is.”
“I’ve been married twelve years,” Porter said from the front seat, “and I can almost guaran-damn-tee you the right thing to say is ‘I love you.’”
“She knows that.” All four of them made ayou might be wrong about thatsound of some sort, and Danny shook his head. “How could shenotknow that? I married her. I go home to her—or I did before this—and I don’t run around on her.”
“When it comes to expressing emotions,” Gullotti said, “you’re kind of like...a stone wall. There are some cracks and gaps here and there, but mostly it’s just rock.”
While he was talking, the phone vibrated in Aidan’s hand. He couldn’t wear its holster with his dress uniform and the pants pockets were so shallow it had a tendency to fall out when he was sitting, so he was holding it for the ride. As soon as it went off, he tilted it so Scotty wouldn’t be able to see the screen.
Busy?
Making a mental note to change her name in his contacts to anything but Lydia Kincaid—and feeling like a douche bag for thinking of it—he looked out the window to get his bearings. Then, using just his right thumb because of the screen angle, he tapped in a response.
Hold on 10 mins.
“Who’s that?” Scotty asked, because of course he would. They were buddies and he was easily bored, so he always asked. He kept his voice low, though, because the other guys were still talking about Walsh being a stone wall.
“A woman I met at...the corner market. She was buying sour cream and onion ripple chips and I like those.”Sour cream and onion ripple chips?He needed to stop talking.
“And you didn’t tell me you met somebody? Is she from around here? What’s her name?”
“I, uh, forgot her name.”
“Didn’t you put it in your phone when you put her number in it?”
“No. She said her name and wrote her number on my hand with a pen. By the time I put her in my contacts, I forgot it.”
“You’re an idiot. How did you list her?”
“Blonde from market.”
Scotty snorted. “She’ll be really impressed if she sees that. You should put a passcode on your phone if you haven’t already, so she can’t snoop in it while you’re in the shower.”
“It’ll be a while before she’s around while I’m in the shower. We’re just in the ‘hi, remember me?’ phase.” That might buy him a little time before Scotty would expect to meet her or run into her at the bar.
When they finally arrived at their destination and climbed out, Aidan was relieved to see a crowd of firefighters milling around outside. Letting the others go ahead to say hello and talk with guys they didn’t get to see all the time, he stayed by the truck and pulled up the contacts on his phone. He felt like an idiot, but the first thing he did was change Lydia’s name toBlonde from marketbecause if they were sitting around and Scotty wanted to look something up or get a score check, he’d just grab whichever phone was closest, no matter who it belonged to.
Ihave a few mins, he typed into the reply box of her last text.
