Page 36 of Just This Once

“You’ve got...” He gestured toward his own face with a gentle smile.

Heat flooded my cheeks as I snatched my napkin from beside my plate and furiously wiped at my mouth. Sure enough, a streak of mustard stained the white paper.

Whip finally removed his hand, and I glanced around the table. Everyone was amused by my mishap, and I wanted to crawl under the table and die.

Dad leaned back in his seat and patted my hand that was clutched around my napkin. “She’s all right. Melly’s in good hands here if she needs the Heimlich.”

Whip laughed in agreement. “Yes, sir. I know what to do if she chokes.” He turned to me with devious, knowing eyes.

Take it. Choke on it.

The memory of the deep rumble of Whip’s voice as he spoke those deliciously dirty words hummed through me.

I stood abruptly, rattling the table after bumping it with my knee. “I’m good. Thanks. Can I take your plate?”

I scooped up Dad’s plate before he could answer and escaped to the kitchen.

I stomped across the kitchen floor. It was impossible. How could I be so turned on by someone I couldn’t stand? Whip waseverythingI didn’t want or need, yet somehow every word out of his mouth liquefied my insides and turned me into a needy puddle.

I tossed our used paper plates in the trash and paced in the kitchen. Maybe it’s just hormones. Maybe in some sick way I’m trying to get back at Craig for cheating on me with my supposed best friend and blamingmefor being boring in bed when I didn’t want a threesome with her. Maybe Whip bewitched me with his gigantic pierced dick, and none of this is my fault.

Yes! Love this for me. It’s his fault—definitely the magical penis.

I bent and touched my toes, stretching my back and trying to refocus. I tipped my face toward the ceiling and exhaled. “Fuck.”

“Emily,” Mom admonished from behind me.

I straightened and offered a sheepish smile. “Sorry.” I rolled my shoulders and sucked in a deep lungful of air. “I’m just having a weird day.”

“I can see that.” She waited for me to explain myself, but I stayed silent. Finally, she sighed. “Dad is taking Whip to see the Chevelle, though I know it’s really a ploy to sneak a cigar.” She unwrapped a white platter. Piled high were her black-and-white brownies—a favorite of Mom’s. Half were dark chocolate fudge brownies with little hearts cut out of the middle, which were replaced with a blondie heart. The other half were blondies with fudge brownie hearts. “Give them a few minutes to think their secret is safe and then take these out to them, will you? I’ll start cleaning up.”

My molars ground together. The last thing I wanted to do was offer up a heart on a platter—brownie or otherwise—to Whip King.

FOURTEEN

WHIP

“Now,my wife doesn’t know these are out here, but there’s no harm in a bit of solitude.”

He stared down at the glowing cinnabar ember of his cigar, then chuckled. “Ah, who am I kidding? I can’t keep a thing from Marilyn.” He tapped the side of his nose. “That woman’s got a nose like a bloodhound, but she lets me think I’m getting away with it.”

I hummed in acknowledgment despite the fact I found his relationship with his wife curious. It was clear even after the years spent together, he was still wildly in love with his wife. Whether it was the long shifts away from home, media influence, or the general hero worship, it was a widely accepted misconception that firefighters were heartbreakers.

In some sick way it was probably what led me to become a firefighter in the first place. When given the choice, people will always choose someone else over me. I didn’t need to get attached only for them to decide I wasn’t worth the effort after all. The misconception that by nature I must be a philandering womanizer made it easier to keep things light.

Noncommittal.

The real joke was on me, though. In my experience the men and women on my crew were some of the most loyal humans on the planet. Joe Martin was a prime example. I’d heard him tell the story of how he met his wife and was instantly captivated. Despite the crew occasionally cracking jokes and bemoaning their spouses, Chief had never once whispered an ill word about his wife.

I couldn’t remember a single positive thing my father had uttered about my own mother.

Leech.

Thankless.

Whore.

Those were the broad strokes in which my father painted my mother—the woman who’d disappeared under the cloak of night without so much as a goodbye to the children who had loved her.

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