Chapter 1: Corinne
I burned the pizza on purpose. It hurt me inside to do it, too. But how else do you get the fire department to show up at your house? I'll happily go to my grave without feeling any guilt for what I did.
"Corinne, I know you know how long to cook a Papa Murphy's pizza for. You've been cooking them for years," Ryker says with a heavy sigh and a shake of his head as he looks at the charred remains of my triple pepperoni pizza that had become a casualty of war. He almost looks as forlorn as I felt. "What happened?" I knew he was asking for his paperwork for the fire department, but I was enveloped in my personal drama.
I sneak a peek down the hallway to see if my roommate and best friend, Alexandra, has finished sorting things out with Ryker's partner, Shane. I didn't want to clear the scene in the kitchen too quickly, or else all of this would have been for nothing. "What? I burned a pizza. What do you think happened?" I can't keep the snark out of my tone even if I wanted to. I'd known Ryker for years and it didn't help that his questions, albeit necessary, were also kind of stupid.
Grabbing my chin, Ryker turns my head to look at him and meet his eyes. "Corinne, look at me when I'm talking to you." His dark and stormy blue eyes were quite the sight, even after all this time. They're the kind you write embarrassing poetry about in middle school for language arts class, then all your classmates make fun of you even though they have the same sexually repressed feelings that they don't know how to explain. Or, you know, something like that...
I could feel a twinge of desire course through my body at the tone of his words. Having grown up with Ryker being my older brother's best friend, he'd been around the house a lot in my youth. I'd seen his body when he was a gangly teenage boy. Now that he was one of Sweet Creek's local firemen, he filled out that uniform like he was born for it. Muscles bulged from every place they could bulge from, even that special place that I fantasized about before I was old enough to understand what it could do. "Could you keep it down? I'm trying to play matchmaker for Alex."
Ryker narrows his eyes at me and shakes his head in mild disgust. "Don't tell me you burned this pizza to get your roommate and my partner together."
There it was again, that tone of voice of his that left my pussy aching with feelings that I couldn't exactly define even to this day. I knew it was lust, but I also knew I couldn't feel that for Ryker. "Shh, Special K, before somebody hears you," I called him by his childhood nickname, a stupid nickname I'd come up with because too many people thought his name was a misspelled version of Ryder. Maybe it'd make these feelings I was having go away. Or at least put a lid on them until he could get out of my kitchen and I could go back to fantasizing about him in the peace and quiet of my bedroom where he wasn't standing in front of me with his smoldering eyes and sexy, broad shoulders.
He crosses his arms over his chest and wears that look that says he means business. "Corinne Marie Harrison, you are in trouble." God damn, that tone...
Now that he mentioned it, I was also going to be smelling burnt pizza for the next month every time I opened my oven, but I wasn't loudly announcing that to the entire apartment. Why was it every single time I did something wrong, this man had to be the one to bust my balls about it? He did it while I was growing up, too. Whenever I'd get in trouble with my parents, he'd stroll past my room and make fun of me for it.
"Can you calm down for a sec, Ryker? It's not a big deal. Alex and Shane have been talking to each other for weeks now, but they haven't made the move from 'just talking' to dating. They needed a push. So I got my brother to tell me when you'd be working next and decided to play the role of matchmaker myself. If they're not going to do the heavy-lifting, then I will. I'm in remarkably good shape for someone who's hasn't been to the gym in 22 years." Literally, never. Ryker looks exasperated now. I was good at pushing his buttons; it's a shame they don't let you go to the Olympics for stuff like that.
"I can't believe you got Nathan involved." He grabs his radio and calls in to say that he and Shane are wrapping up the house fire. "Actually, I can believe that you got Nathan involved. How did you know that Shane was my partner?"
If that's what he wanted to know, if that's the part that seems out of my wheel-house of knowledge, then he hadn't paid enough attention to me over the years. "Women know everything, sweetheart. You're not going to get me in trouble, are you?" I narrow my eyes at him. "I had good intentions. And I paid $10 for this setup and I don't even know if it worked. What if I don't even get a date out of the deal?" I look down the hallway once more, biting my lower lip and wondering if it'd be fair to ask Alexandra for a refund and another pizza.
"Oh, you're getting a date out of the deal," Ryker chuckles and shakes his head at me again. "You're going out with me or I'm informing the department that this was staged."
My jaw drops in shock as I look him up and down. I know he's probably got better things to do with his time, real fires to put out and such, but how dare he threaten to spill the beans on me. "Snitches get stitches, Ryker." I don't care how good he looks, he's still the same little kid who told on me for lighting a match in the backyard in the summer of 2004. Or, you know, an entire package of matches. I should have known then that he was going to become a firefighter.
He gives me a once over, looking me up and down as though he wants to devour me on the spot. "You're lucky I don't take you over my knee and give you what you deserve, Corinne, which is a well-spanked bottom."
At this point, Shane and Alexandra walk out from the back bedroom and I don't have time to do anything but blush and let my jaw hang open like a fish gasping for water. "Everything okay in here, Ryker?" His partner asks.
I'm beginning to wonder if I've made the wrong choice here. Maybe I shouldn't have played matchmaker, I should have just let my best friend figure it out for herself. Now I think I'm screwed, and not in the way I want to be. Or... no, he can't possibly...
"It sure is, Shane." Ryker gathers up the paperwork he started on the fire and tips his hat at me. "I'll text you later, Corinne. Clear your schedule for tomorrow night. I've got the perfect date in mind." Then he winks and gives me a little half-smirk thing that makes my knees weak. How dare he. Like my stomach needs any more reasons to turn to jelly.
I can see Alexandra's face light up and I know she's got a million questions, but right now I just want to melt into the floor. "Thanks for your help, Ryker," is all I can muster, "I'll see you tomorrow." I know I had a crush on him all those years ago, and sure, I've fantasized about him a time or two since, but he's my brother's best friend. Isn't there some kind of rule about dating your brother's best friend? Isn't it illegal? Shouldn't it be?
When they leave, I collapse onto the kitchen floor with my charred pizza and my fluttering heart. I can't handle a date with a demanding, dominating Ryker Thomas. He's too sexy. He's too intimidating. He knows too much about who I was back in my nerdy days. Why did I have to do something nice for my best friend? And why did it have to backfire on me?