Page 14 of The Fire Captain's Unexpected Baby
With one last glance at the monitors, I put my mind at ease that he will be just fine here overnight. Aaron and I say goodbye for the night and step out of the hospital into the crisp night air.
“I’m sorry we had to leave like that,” I tell him. “It’s just that Mr. Oakley has no one else. I had to come check on him.”
“Some things are more important.” Aaron shrugs. “Let me at least take you home now.”
“No need.” I try to push the memory of the kiss out of my mind. If he takes me home, there is a good chance that we will repeat that on the porch, and that can’t happen. “We stopped fake-dating the minute we left the wedding.”
“I don’t have to pretend to date you to do the right thing and take you home. This might be Crown Hill, but you shouldn’t walk alone in the middle of the night.”
I look around. The darkness had fallen rapidly, and now we are bathed in the emergency room’s fluorescent lights. He’s right; I shouldn’t be walking these streets alone at this hour. Levi has told me enough stories that have given me pause.
“If you really don’t mind,” I finally say, resigned to the idea of having to fend off my own lustful thoughts.
* * *
Aaron
Paige and I ride in silence to her house, the tension so thick I could cut it with a butter knife.
I would never assume that she would invite me inside, not after a fake first date or even a real one. But I also know that I’mgoing to at least walk her to the door and hope for another mind-altering kiss.
“This is me,” she announces.
I steer my car along the curb and put it in park, making it obvious that I intend to get out with her. She makes no protest when I walk around to open her door.
“You live so close to the station,” I remark, trying to fill the silence as best I could.
“Not always a good thing,” she mumbles.
She fumbles for the keys in her bag, not pausing to say goodnight to me on the porch. Before I know it, she’s pushed the front door open, and we’re both standing inside. This isn’t quite what I bargained for when I drove her home.
“Thank God you’re here,” her mother says, coming down the stairs. “Noah wouldn’t sleep without you?—”
When she sees me standing at the bottom of the stairs with Paige, she stops talking altogether. She freezes mid-step, clearly not sure whether she should go back upstairs or leave.
“I have to get going,” she announces loudly. “I think I forgot to turn the air conditioning off.”
“You really don’t have to leave,” Paige says. “I just got here.”
“Got to keep the power bill under control,” her mother insists as she grabs her things from the table and slips on her shoes.
To my surprise, Paige laughs as her mom hurries out the door. There’s not a hint of tension or unease when we’re left standing there alone.
“Gosh, I love her to the moon, but she’s not discreet at all.”
She laughs with genuine amusement, a beautiful sight after the tension of our time at the hospital. She continues to laugh until she has to wipe a tear from her cheek.
“I guess that’s where I get it from, though. Summer says the same thing about me,” she adds.
I don’t know what to say to that. We’re standing in her house after she has invited me in. The night has been nothing short of a surprise, from the moment she crawled out from underneath that table. I’ll admit that I’m grateful I got to help her set things right with the man who left her in that hotel room.
But that kiss?
I’d pictured it when she was half-dressed on the bed, but I’d had no idea howrightit would feel. How her lips would yield under mine. How it would feel like puzzle pieces finally connecting.
A kiss that feels like a product of an overactive imagination.
Where do we go from here?
