He starts talking about fire safety, and although he’s a decent enough speaker, I can’t concentrate long enough to absorb anything he’s saying. Instead I just stare at Maddy, who’s laughing in all the right places and applauding when appropriate. When she claps, her tits bounce. Goddamn, just looking at her makes me so hard I can barely stand it.
I must be staring at her a little too hard, because after a minute or so I can feel Curry watching both of us. I force the sensation out of my mind. He’s nothing in the long term—just a bitter old puke. When I win the election, I’ll have him tossed out on his ear.
Pilsner wraps up his speech by asking for donations, and a stack of envelopes starts making the rounds. I take one and pass it on down the table. Across from me, Curry breaks his silence, nodding toward my arm, which is covered in fresh and half-healed scratches.
“What the hell happened to your arm, King?” He glances at Maddy, as if he might think she had something to do with it.
“Cat,” I offer, hoping he’ll drop it.
He doesn’t drop it. “Man, it must really hate you.”
“Feeling’s mutual.”
Maddy’s smile wilts; she doesn’t like it when I talk bad about Thor. It’s hard not to—even after all the time and work I’ve put in, the damn monster still despises me.
“You like his cat?” Curry asks, apparently noticing Maddy’s reaction.
“I like all animals.” I can tell he’s put her on edge. He has that effect on people. “I’m studying to be a vet.”
Curry laughs outright. “Really? Why the hell would you want to do that?”
She tilts her chin, her mouth taking on that stubborn look I recognize all too well.
“Shit, you couldn’t pay me enough to spend the day covered in cat shit and dog vomit.” He shudders.
Maddy’s ears are turning red. I clench my teeth. Curry has no right talking to her like that. Plus he sounds just like her dick-bag father.
“You’re way out of line. Shut the fuck up.”
He narrows his eyes at me. “Or what? You’ll report me to the chief?”
Diez, who’s sitting on my other side with a couple of empty chairs between us, tunes in on the conversation just as I half rise from my chair, leaning over the table toward Curry and his stupid face. “I said lay off her. You want me to say it a little louder?” I’m about a breath away from lunging at him and punching him into the dirt.
“Jesse,” Maddy says.
“King,” Diez says at the same time. She grabs at my arm, her fingers tight. “Not the time, King. Back off.”
I ease back, but I can’t look at Curry. If I do, I’m going to rip his balls off. “Fine,” I say to Diez. I reach for Maddy’s hand, and she takes it. “Let’s go get some air.”
My leg’s hurting again, every step a lancing pain as I stomp out of the building and toward the line of fire trucks. Some of the guys were doing demos with the trucks earlier—they were crawling with kids when I got here—but now pretty much everybody’s inside eating their pancakes and bacon.
“He has no right talking to you like that.”
She shrugs it off. “It’s not that big a deal. It’s not like I don’t hear the same thing from my father every damn time I see him.”
I shake my head. She’s so cool—why doesn’t everybody see it? “Curry’s an asshole.” I wince as my foot hits an uneven patch on the sidewalk, wrenching my leg once again. “I wouldn’t have even been in the hospital if it weren’t for him.”
“What do you mean?”
Damn it. I hadn’t intended to say that. Don’t really want to drag Maddy into this bullshit with Curry. But it’s too late now. “I saw him knock down the support beam that fell on me. Pretty sure he did it on purpose.”
She stops abruptly, gaping at me. “Seriously?” Her voice is quiet but intense, and after she speaks, she looks around to see if anyone’s close enough to hear. No one is—this area’s mostly deserted right now. “Why would he hurt you on purpose?”
“He wanted to get the interim fire chief position. He hates that I got it instead.”
“That’s a shitty reason to hurt somebody. Did you report him?”
“I did. I don’t have any concrete evidence, though.” I sigh. “Maybe I’m just paranoid. Maybe he knocked the beams down to clear the area.” I keep rerunning it in my head, wondering if I really saw what I thought I saw. I’ve known Curry a long time, and he’s always been a dick, but would he really hurt me on purpose?
With a shake of my head, I abandon the line of thought. He’s gone bad. And he did this to me.
Maddy’s hand strokes across my back, soothing. “I hate this,” I tell her. “I can’t do my damn job. I can barely get out of the house. Even when I’m in the house, I can’t do jack shit. There’s nothing I can do about it right now. I’m just…I’m fucking useless.”
“Oh, Jesse, no, you’re not. You’ll get better, and then things will be back to normal.”
“Yeah, sure.” I know she’s right, but it’s hard to focus on that when I’ve got nothing but pain and frustration to look forward to in the foreseeable future. “What the hell is normal these days, anyway?”
She loops an arm through mine, drawing me against her. “Going home, sitting on the couch, cuddling your cat…”
I laugh outright at that. “That’ll be the day.” Then I give her a sidelong look. Other things have changed in my life recently aside from Thor not pissing in the house quite as often. There’s Maddy.
“You know what would make me feel better?” I ask her quietly.
She quirks an eyebrow. “I’m not sure I want to know.”
“I’ve always wanted to fuck somebody in a fire truck.”
She stops dead again, just as shocked as she was the last time. “You’re kidding, right?”
“No.”
“It’s broad daylight. There are…there are kids around?” The sweeping gesture of her hand encompasses exactly zero kids, because they’re all inside eating pancakes or participating in the indoor games that were set up to give the fire department folks a break before the next set of demos.
“Looks pretty deserted to me.”
“They could come out any second.”
“They won’t. There aren’t any more demos until two o’clock.” Hah. For once I did my homework.
“What if somebody else catches you? You’re about to run for fire chief. You could lose your job.”
“It’ll be fine.” I can’t get the idea out of my head now. “None of the guys will say anything even if they do see us.”
“It’s awfully cramped quarters. You could hurt yourself. Maybe if we went into the back of the paramedic truck? Isn’t it kind of like an ambulance back there?”
“Aha! You’re thinking about it!” In great detail, apparently.
“I am not seriously considering this, if that’s what you’re trying to say.” But her face is pink, so I know damn well she’s seriously considering it.
“You’re talking logistics.”
“Purely hypothetical.”
“Su-u-ure.” I glance toward the truck then back at her. “I’ll tell you what. Let’s go take a closer look and see what the logistics really would be.”
Of course, I already know what kind of room there is inside the ladder truck. There’s a whole back row behind the front seats where three firemen can ready their gear on the way to a fire. Plus there’s nobody around, and it’s much harder to see into those backseats than it is to see into the front area of the cab. So I’m pretty sure we can manage it. All I have to do is convince her.
Once we start up into the cab, though, I can tell by her face that she’s already more than half convinced. “It’s a lot roomier in here than I expected,” she says.
“Ha. See? I told you.” I push up behind her, pumping my hips against her butt. I’ve got an erection burgeoning, and I want to be sure she knows it.
She starts to take a step down, back out of the truck, but I’m blocking her way. “People will see us,” she protests in a hissing whisper, but the back of her neck is turning pink, and I know she’s giving my plan serious consideration. That’s enough to ratchet my horniness up about a thousand percent, so I bump my hips against her ass again.
“C’mon. Let’s do it. It’ll be fun.”
“I don’t know…”
I snake an arm around her and stroke my hand down her belly, stopping just shy of the top of her jeans. “Nobody will see. I promise.” I kind of hope somebody will see, but I’m not going to tell her that. I’m a sick fuck sometimes, but that’s okay. I’ve learned to embrace it.
She’s quiet for a second or two. I hold still, letting her think. Finally she takes another step up into the backseat of the cab.
Yes.
I move up behind her as fast as I can without disturbing my leg too much. My mind’s already racing to come up with ways we can do this that won’t set back my healing or, you know, cause me excruciating pain. I’m game, though. I can be creative when I have to be.