Page 19 of Blind Date with a #FIREFIGHTER
“I’m very attracted to you. I won’t force or rush you, but I’d like to know you better. Take you on an adult date. Is that so bad?”
“I’m not a cougar. I’m not a sympathy date or a convenient fu?—”
“Who the hell made you feel that way? Fuck.” He shakes his head. “Tyne.”
I force myself to calm down and take a deep breath. “Tyne’s comments didn’t help, but…Alex, how old are you?”
His lips tilt and he nods. “I’m twenty-nine. And you are?”
“I’m too old for you.”
“How old are you, Thea?”
“I’m thirty-eight.”
“So? That doesn’t seem too old to me.”
“Alex, you are just starting out. You’re young, attractive. You could have anyone.”
“I know what I want. What speaks to me, mentally and physically.” He lifts an eyebrow and continues. “You’re the one with the MSW. What have you learned or know about old souls?”
“They are people who mature more quickly, tend to feel things more deeply.”
“So, you know they exist.”
I study his face. There is a worldliness in his gaze, a pain. “Yes, I believe that circumstances can?—”
“Brad and I grew up in this neighborhood with another kid named Ben. We were terrors. Little hellions running wild. Brad and I were supposed to spend the night with Ben, but we got grounded when we were caught throwing apples at the windows of the house where the neighborhood grouch lived. That night Ben died in a fire he started.”
“The night you decided you’d be a firefighter?” I whisper.
“Yeah. They rescued him before the fire got him, but the smoke killed him. They tried and tried. I haven’t been young since that night.
“Every time, I lose someone in a fire, I get a little older. Age is a number, Thea, but it doesn’t control the aging process. Some people never grow up. Some grow up too soon.
“I’m very attracted to you. To the person you are. I don’t make snap decisions anymore. I don’t jump in without weighing the options and risks. Especially where my son is concerned. But I do know that a minute in time can change you forever. I’d like you to give us a chance. We keep it light around Aaron until we know more.”
I shake my head. I swore I would never relive the past. What was buried would stay buried. That cutting the ties completely and starting over as the new me was the only way to survive.
He just bared his soul to me.
Standing, I walk across the patio and back, to sit on the footstool in front of him. “I started out in Detroit. Not in a nice neighborhood. I liked school because I got to eat there. As I got older, I loved it for the knowledge, the books. The diversity.
“I was left alone at night because that’s when my parents did their best work. We moved a lot, and every time we did my name would change. I was socially awkward so kept quiet at school.
“I was early teens when I realized my parents were con artists, thieves. Shortly after, they were killed when a con wentbad.” I meet his eyes. “They were paid to burn a building down. They got caught in it.
“The courts got involved when a neighbor told the officers they had a daughter. I was interviewed by a kindly older woman, Marta, who was a child psychologist. The courts ruled I was not part of the scams but then they had to find a way to protect me from the people my parents worked with or had committed crimes against. They were worried about retaliation.
“The child psychologist was older and single. She took me in and showed me what a normal life should look like. Her passion was children. It became mine and I followed in her footsteps. When she died just before I graduated high school, she left everything to me. I promised to get my degrees. We often talked of the importance of childcare for the non-traditional workers.
He raises his eyebrows. “You, funded Safe Scape Child Care.”
“Yes. We have two sites and someday I hope to open more. There is a real need. So many kids… Sometimes the parents don’t know any better. Sometimes they don’t care.”
“What you’re doing is important, Thea. Marta would be proud of you.”
“It’s not just for her. It’s for what she ultimately gave me. Which was a chance.”
