Page 51 of Heat Exchange
He was deliberately being a pain in the ass, he knew, but she had it coming. In the three days since they’d had their less-than-pleasant discussion about her not wanting to be a firefighter’s wife, they hadn’t mentioned it again. But he hadn’t forgotten about it, either.
You can forget that blow job I owe you.
Ouch. She wasn’t playing nice anymore.
This was a big fire.We saved a woman,so we might be on the news.Iwas only thinking of you.
You’re only thinking of being a pain in my ass.
There was a pause, and then a second text came through.
But I’m glad you saved the woman and that you’re okay.
So the blow job?
I’m working.Gotta run.
He chuckled and snapped the phone back into its holster. He should know better than to play games with a Kincaid. They weren’t above playing dirty if it meant they won.
“Still the blonde?” Scotty asked, sitting next to him on the bumper.
Aidan was totally blank for a second, and then he nodded. “Uh, yeah. The blonde from the market.”
“She have a name yet?”
“No. I haven’t seen her again. We’ve just been texting here and there, but it’s gone on too long to ask her at this point.”
“Maybe you’ll get lucky and she’ll send you a Facebook friend request or something before you get together and she figures out you have no clue what her name is.” Scotty shook his head. “Women don’t like that too much.”
Aidan downed some more water so he didn’t have to answer. The less he said to Scott at this point, the fewer lies he was forced to tell. He hated it, more than his best friend would probably believe if he ever found out, and sometimes it literally made his stomach ache.
“I guess we should see if those guys need a hand,” Scotty said, nodding toward the men still working on making sure the fire was totally out. “But let me know if you and the blonde from the market want to go out sometime. I’ve got a few women I could call so I’m not the third wheel, and it could be a group thing. And, since I’ve got your back, I can find a way to introduce myself so she has to tell me her name herself. Problem solved.”
Shame burned like acid in his stomach. Scotty had his back. He always had. And now Aidan was goingbehindhis back. “Yeah, I’ll let you know.”
* * *
“THISISGOINGto blow up in your face. And in his. It’ll be bad, Lydia.”
Lydia knew Ashley was right, but she didn’t want to hear it right now. She had only a couple of hours before she had to open the bar and, since Aidan was home, she wanted to spend those hours with him. They were trying to limit the late nights after the bar closed because, as they’d both agreed, they were too damn old to stay up half the night, even for sex, and still function the next day.
“Nothing’s blowing up in anybody’s faces,” she said.
“Look at you. You’re like a teenager going to the prom and all you’re going to do is hang out for a couple of hours before you go to work. You can’t tell me you’re just having some hot sex to get it out of your system now.”
“Sure I can. I just haven’t gotten it out of my system yet.”
“Whatever.” Ashley yanked the vacuum cleaner’s cord out of the wall. “It’ll be no big deal for you. You’ll just run back to New Hampshire. Aidan will be the one left here with a broken friendship and, honestly, he’ll probably end up having to transfer to a different house.”
“He’s a grown man, making his own choices,” Lydia responded, but the words made her feel a little sick inside. Under the bitchy tone, what her sister said was probably true.
The words stayed with her on the way to Aidan’s, and she sat in her car for a minute after parking it on the main street where there were plenty of businesses offering excuses for being there.
It was hard to tell how Scotty would react if he found out Aidan and Lydia had been hooking up. They were both assuming he’d be pissed, but maybe he wouldn’t care. Hell, maybe he’d even be happy, thinking the relationship might go the distance and Aidan would be his brother-in-law. Lydia didn’t think so, though. Or at least she wasn’t willing to bet on it, with the stakes being so high for Aidan.
She walked down the street and turned the corner to Aidan’s building. After jogging up the back stairs to the third floor, she gave a quick knock and let herself in. Aidan walked out of the bedroom when she called for him, looking annoyed.
“Hey,” he said. He gave her a quick kiss, but his mind was elsewhere. “I can’t find my damn phone. And I can’t call it because I don’t have a landline anymore.”
