Page 28 of Single Mom for the Firemen

He shakes his head, his expression dark. I know what he’s thinking about. The same thing he’s always thinking about, the same thing that brought us here all those years ago. Letting people into our lives, getting close to them, and then…losing them. In the worst way possible. In the way that changes thingsforever, for the rest of your life, and gives you no chance of escape, no matter how hard you might search for it.

“Hey, man,” I murmur to him, and I plant a hand on his shoulder. “You deserve to relax. We all do. If she wants this, and we want this, then what’s the problem?”

“Agreed,” Mason replies as he heads back into the shower to finish up. When the door is closed behind him, Jake shakes his head slightly, clearly not convinced.

“If we get into something with her, and something happens…”

“Hey,” I cut him off before he can go any further. I know that indulging his anxieties only makes them worse, and the last thing he needs right now is encouragement.

“We’re fine,” I remind him. “She’s fine. And you need to get some rest, okay? You’ve got an early patrol tomorrow. Need you to be well-rested.”

“Right, right,” he mutters with a nod, shrugging me off. Turning his attention to his duties is usually enough to keep him in the moment, though I know it won’t last forever.

I watch as he heads into his room, and I pause there for a moment, leaning in the doorway. Sometimes I worry that he’s too far gone. That there’s some part of him that won’t come back from the day it happened. I can still remember it—I was on leave at the time, staying over with a friend before I drove home for summer break, and the smell of smoke woke me, even from a few dozen streets away.

And losing them…fuck, it’s never easy losing parents, but losingthem, of all people. Theo and Jamie. Our foster parents, the parents who had taken us all in together, even when nobodywould—even when the thought of re-homing these three surly brothers who had just lost their mother must have seemed like the least appealing thing in the world at times. They were there for us when nobody else was, only to die that way—it was twisted. Even to this day, it feels like vines curling in my stomach, the painful press of memory and grief weighing heavy on my shoulders.

I make my way into my room. No point standing around feeling sorry for myself about it—Theo would never have stood for that. No, I can almost hear his voice telling us thatthat wasn’t how we raised you.

But maybe Jake is right. Maybe there’s something about getting involved with this woman that is going to land us all in trouble. Because there’s got to be a reason she left everything behind to bring her daughter out here, especially for the first time. And her writing this story on us could leave us vulnerable to having shit out there we don’t want the rest of the world to know…

I push the thoughts to the back of my mind. I’m the only one who seems to be capable of notoverthinkingthis, and I am not going to lose that title anytime soon. No, when I said that all I wanted was a little fun—and that seemed to be exactly where she was too—I meant it. I don’t want to forget that.

And I don’t want to forget the look on her face when she pulled back from that kiss either. Because there’s something about seeing her that needy, that wanting, that does a number on my nervous system—and I’m not sure I want her to know about the power she has over me just yet.

14

VANESSA

“Hey!”Lara greets me at the door, falling into my arms in a giant hug. “Oh God, the drive out here was so crazy…”

“Come in, come in,” I tell her, stepping aside and gesturing for her to enter. Callie practically knocks her off her feet with a hug around the knees, and she laughs and swoops her up into a proper embrace.

“It’s so good to see you, Callie!” she tells her. “I’m sure you’ve grown since the last time I saw you, even in the last few days…”

Callie darts back out to the garden, where she’s been playing all morning, and Lara turns to me to greet me properly.

“It’s so good to see you, babe,” she tells me. “Come on, I have a bottle of wine for us—let’s have a drink, okay?”

“Sounds perfect,” I laugh, and we head outside to the back porch so we can watch Callie playing as we sip on our glasses of slightly purse-warmed rosé wine.

“God, it really is beautiful out here,” she sighs, leaning back in her seat and letting the sun warm her face. Callie, hearing hervoice, lifts her head and waves at us—we wave back, and then Lara turns her attention to me.

“So,” she begins, knowing that there’s only one place I’ll want to start. “Tell me how things are coming along with the story?”

“Oh, yeah, I think I’m really starting to get somewhere,” I reply. “I’ve done a couple of informal interviews with them, and…”

“Informal?” she cuts in. “How informal are we talking here? Do they know that you want to write a story on them?”

“Yes, of course they do!” I protest. “I wouldn’t try to sneak around and write a bio feature about someone without themknowingabout it.”

“Sure, sure,” she laughs, waving her hand. “But I don’t think I’d put anything past you. You’re fearless like that.”

“True as that might be,” I reply, grinning, “they know. And I’ve sat down with a couple of them, just for an informal chat about where they’re at and what they’ve been doing, you know…”

“And when you say informal,” she says, lifting her glass of wine to her lips and taking a long sip before she continues, “what exactly do you mean?”

“How do you…?”

---