Page 18 of Faking the Heat

Kayla looks at me with an expression that could strip paint. “You are so cooked.”

We both stare at each other for a minute before laughing at the complete absurdity of this entire conversation.

Kayla shakes her head, but she’s smiling. “If you want to hit on the firefighter, do it. But don’t do it because he saved your ass or your dignity. Do it because you actually like him.”

“I don’t actually like him.” I say it, and it’s a lie.

She grins. “Then just do it because the trauma made you horny.”

“Kayla, it’s not like that.”

She points at my sketchbook. “Prove me wrong. Draw something that isn’t him.”

I look down. Somewhere, in the margin, my hand has drawn a perfect, hyper, realistic outline of Sterling’s jaw, complete with the morning stubble that no one ever gets to see.

I hadn’t even noticed.

Kayla barks a laugh, then gets up to refill my mug and take care of the customer at the counter. When she comes back, she sits, folds her arms, and just watches.

I stare at the sketch, at the neatness of the lines, at how the pencil has picked out the one feature I always made fun of but secretly admired. I close the book with a snap.

“Hey,” Kayla reaches across the table and puts her hand over mine, just for a second. “Remember. He’s not Derek.” She says, standing up as a bell chimes at the front door, signaling a rush of students looking for caffeine.

Chapter eight

Libido Logistics

Sterling

It’s been thirty days. The 24/48 rotation is supposed to be the best gig in the city, a full day on, two days off, a schedule made for people who want to have a life and save lives at the same time. But I’ve been stacking on more than my share, picking up for guys who need kid coverage or an extra night off for whatever reason, and it isn’t charity. It’s logistics. Every 24 hours I spend at the station is 24 hours I am not in the loft, not watching Mandy fold her legs under herself on my couch, not listening to her hum while she stress-bakes her way through a project deadline, not registering the fact that I have become the world’s lamest sitcom roommate, with a recurring cameo by my own libido.

A month ago, I thought I had it all figured out. It was just a dry spell plus a sudden influx of close-proximity to Mandy was an equation I could solve with old-fashioned discipline and maybe a few late-night self-administered distractions. When it didn’t work, I did what any thinking man would do, I sourced a sample set. Two women in three weeks. Both uncomplicated, both initiated with the explicit intention of purging the system. One was a nurse, one a city parks employee. We had drinks, a few laughs, the kind of clean, polite sex that leaves everyone in a better mood and no one needing to swap last names. Both times, I came back to the loft after, walked through my own door, heard Mandy laughing at her laptop from the kitchen, and felt, absolutely nothing.

No, that’s not true. I felt the particular flatness of a man who just tried the wrong medicine and now has to wait and see if the side effects will wear off. I thought about talking to a therapist about it, but the closest I got is talking to Jake, and he’s about as subtle as a car alarm.

My thumb is white where it’s pressing into the edge of the log. I shift on the bench, which makes a metal groan, and the logbook almost slides to the floor. I catch it one-handed, which would be impressive if anyone was here to see it.

Except someone is. Jake drops onto the bench across from me with the kind of unhurried ease you only get from a lifetime of showing up at exactly the right moment to make someone else’s day worse. He’s carrying a protein shake, which he sets down between his knees before he talks.

“Why do you look like you’re about to start a fight with the janitor?”

I don’t look up from the log. “Didn’t realize I was scheduled for a motivational speech this morning.”

He makes a sound that might be a laugh or might be the leftover bronchitis from last month’s fire. “You’re in here reading the maintenance log, man. You either have a secret lover in Facilities, or you’re hiding from your own thoughts.”

I flip the log shut and toss it onto the bench beside me. “Just catching up on the real drama around here,” I say. “You’d be amazed how often the ladder truck runs out of hydraulic fluid.”

Jake grins, slow and wide. “You wanna talk about ladders, or do you want to talk about the real reason you’ve been picking up extra shifts like a bargain shopper on Black Friday?”

“I like the overtime.”

“You hate the overtime. You’re allergic to it. Every time you do more than three in a week you walk around muttering about how the station’s air supply system is ‘one bad Tuesday away from killing us all.’”

I shrug. “City’s not going to save itself.”

Jake picks up his shake and gives it a gentle, almost parental swirl. “Or maybe you’re just dodging the situation-ship at home.” He says “situation” with a capital S, like he’s naming a hurricane.

“Nothing to dodge,” I say, but it comes out wrong, too quick, too thin, and the words evaporate before they hit the wall.