Page 92 of Heating Up (Nugget)
Dana mouthed,Deputy?
“Deputy fire marshal. It’s my official title,” he told her. “But you can just call me Aidan . . . or lover boy.”
“Hey, fellows.” He ruffled Cody’s hair. “You know Dana Calloway?”
They stuck out their hands like teenage gentlemen and greeted her. The older one, Justin, looked just like his dad and had to be at least sixteen.
“When are you boys starting at the firehouse?” Aidan asked.
“Tomorrow,” Cody said. “Justin can only come for a few hours because he has Junior Rodeo practice. Will you be there?”
“Not until Tuesday, but maybe I’ll drop by. See how you’re doing. Sean and his brother, Seth, coming too?”
“No, sir,” Justin said and left it at that.
“You two bowling?” Dana asked.
Cody pointed a few lanes away, where Clay and his wife, Emily, sat, eating a plate of nachos. They waved and Dana waved back.
When the boys rushed back to their game, Aidan asked, “Who’s the woman?”
“Clay’s wife.”
“I thought she was dead.”
“That was the first wife. She died in a car accident with her lover.” Carol had told Dana the whole sordid story. “The second wife’s child was kidnapped close to five years ago, when she was with her first husband, living in the Bay Area. They never found her.”
“Whoa, seriously? That’s horrible,” Aidan said.
“God-awful. I don’t know her, but people say that she and Clay are very much in love. It’s good they have each other, don’t you think?”
“Sure. It can’t hurt.”
Spoken like a true guy, Dana thought. They found their lane, traded their shoes for ugly rubber ones, and tried to figure out the scoring system.
“Haven’t you ever done this before?” Dana asked because she didn’t know the first thing about bowling but had always wanted to try. Never having excelled at sports, she wondered how hard rolling a ball down a wooden lane could be.
With Tim, she’d told herself the same thing about golf. It had looked ridiculously easy hitting the ball into a hole, until she’d tried it.
“I haven’t been bowling since I was a kid,” Aidan said. “It wasn’t the kind of thing Sue was in to.”
“How come?” To Dana, it looked fun. Not serious or competitive, like tennis. Or strenuous, like mountain biking. And it didn’t involve short white skirts or spandex.
He let out a humorless laugh. “Too working class. The closest we ever came was a game of bocce ball at a winery on a vacation in Napa.”
“Was that a problem for you?” She shouldn’t have asked. Soon, he’d be crying in their pitcher of lemonade about how much he missed Sue. Griffin had had a few of those moments. Instead of running for the hills, Dana had given him her shoulder. That had certainly worked out well.
“The vacation in Napa? I’m not much of a wine drinker, and that’s about all there is to do there. She liked it, though. The working-class thing? No . . . yes . . . I don’t know. We were different. But different can be good . . . exciting . . . sexy. My folks loved her.” He scrubbed his hands through his hair. “I don’t know why I just told you that. Let’s practice for a while. Hopefully the scoring will come back to me.”
She didn’t know why he’d told her that either. It would’ve crushed her if not for the fact that Aidan remained completely attentive. He laughed when her ball bounced down the lane and headed straight for the gutter. Lifted her into the air and kissed her when she got a strike. And danced with her when he got one. They’d become quite a spectacle, and although she didn’t like being the center of everyone’s attention, she liked being the center of his.
They played two frames before they realized the scoring was automatic, which was pretty stupid because it flashed up on an overhead screen. Dana supposed they’d been too distracted by each other to notice.
The McCreedy boys stopped at their lane on their way to the snack bar and talked to Aidan some more. They wanted to know about being a firefighter. Were the fire engines hard to drive? Were there really poles to slide down at the firehouse? And had Aidan ever saved anyone?
He answered all their questions and asked them what grades they were in, and asked Justin about Junior Rodeo.
“How do you rope a steer?”
