Page 143 of Set Me On Fire

A little girl with blonde hair or brown, with blue eyes or hazel, or even grey. I saw her romping through the park, Buster by her side, the sun shining in her hair. I saw her, my baby, and hadn’t realised how much I needed this. Fuzzy ultrasounds did nothing, yet somehow this… This had me dreaming about a future I hadn’t dared to consider until now. A quick cursory look and it was clear there were no genetic issues. She was healthy. I needed to go to the loo, have a nice neat cry in the toilet stall, and then send the guys a text with the news.

They were having a daughter.

Oh my god, baby, I thought to myself as I hurried towards the door,I’m sorry for any boy that looks sideways at you. Three protective daddies…

As if summoned, Brent’s door opened and Dave stepped out. I couldn’t disguise the look of disgust, knowing he was exactly what they’d want to protect her from. His lip curled into a sly smile and then he made a theatrical gesture for me to precede him.

“After you.”

I didn’t need to be told twice, finding my stride once I got into the hall. I walked away from the office, from him, from everything as I shoved the toilet doors open. Being one of the only women in the entire station was perfect, so nobody heard my choked sob as I flung myself into the nearest cubicle. I locked the door and pulled out my phone with shaking hands.

Girl…I typed out then erased from the group chat.We’re having a little girl.

Chapter 62

Noah

Girl…

I stared down at my phone, unable to believe what I was reading. We’d talked about getting testing done, but Millie hadn’t given us any indication she’d actually done anything about it. I couldn’t focus on that, not when this news was still fresh in my mind. The baby was just a small, vague presence for me right now. I knew it was growing inside Millie, had watched her body change and grow more beautiful every day, but this… It turned an amorphous pink blob into someone real. Millie’s cheeky grin on a little girl as I watched her romp through life. Someone just as daring, just as wild as her mother. My chest started to ache, that same feeling I felt any time I was around Millie, only more intense. My little girl… I’d be her daddy, and she’d?—

“There you are, you fucking cuck.”

For a second, all I could do was blink. Dave had strolled into the break room with a shit-eating grin on his face, like a shark that scented blood in the water. What the hell had set him off, I didn’t know. Neither did everyone else, as every firefighter inthe room went silent. Conflict happened. You couldn’t do a job as important as ours and not have people disagreeing, but we all knew how to resolve it. Talk shit out, usually with Brent as arbiter, and then move on.

Brent wouldn’t be stepping in for this fight, though.

Dave was perfectly alert, every sense in overdrive as he prowled closer.

“What the fuck are you on about?” I sneered, shaking my head and making clear I had no interest in dealing with him. He wasn’t what mattered. He never was.

“You, you dumb cunt.” My head snapped up. He had my attention now, throwing words like that around. Rhett got to his feet, moving slowly towards me, some of the other guys doing the same. Far too many stopped where they were, not even pretending to eat their lunch anymore. “I knew you were fucking pussy whipped by that open holed?—”

He was going to say something about Millie, that’s what had me moving. For a second, there was a flicker of memories of all the times I’d been bullied by idiots like him at school, but not for long. No one, especially not Dave, was going to keep me down again. I had the front of his shirt in my hands and was twisting it, choking off anything else he had to say as I shoved him against the wall. Dimly, I was aware that this was not smart. Nothing would announce what Millie was to me like this, but I couldn’t seem to care. Some raging need burned inside me, not satisfied until Dave was clawing at his neck, fighting for a breath.

“You don’t want to kill him.” Rhett appeared beside me before shooting Dave a scornful look. “I mean you do. Fuck, I want to as well, the fucking prick.” I stared at him, hearing a faint whine inside my head. “But he’s not worth it, Noah.”

That’s what had me letting go. Fighting in the station would mean a disciplinary hearing with possible penalties, and Icouldn’t afford that. Each one of us was desperate for Millie to quit this job. She was always exhausted, falling asleep on the toilet the other day. This was the time for her to rest, not work herself to the bone. I, we, would provide for her, the need burning hot in our chests, and to do that, I needed to release Dave.

“Don’t say another thing.” My voice was curiously calm. “Not one more. Get out of the fucking break room and away from me, or god help me?—”

“Baby’s not yours.”

How could someone look so rough and yet so gleeful all at the same time? I knew he had a nasty streak, but it was only now how fucking shit Dave was became apparent.

“What baby?” Rhett looked confused and so did everyone else, beginning to mutter, and that’s when fear finally bled in. “What baby, Noah?”

We had to keep this quiet; we’d promised Millie.

“There’s—” I started to say.

“That little bitch—” Dave sneered.

“Shut the fuck up,” I snarled. “Shut up!”

“Millie.” You could’ve heard a pin drop in the room, which made the fact that people were coming running down the hall apparent. “This cunt is panting after her like a bitch in heat, but she’s the slut bearing another man’s child and turning you into some beta cuck, willing to raise it.”

That would be how he would see the arrangement, as there was something fundamentally broken in Dave. He could never, ever understand what we had. It wasn’t even the sharing of a girl that was alien to him. If it was just me and Mills, he’d still struggle. There was no generosity, no good feeling, in him. Every man was an idiot to try to dominate. Every woman a hole to masturbate in. For a second, I felt a little compassion for him.

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