Page 2 of The Problem with Fire
I wasn’t a pervert, for Christ’s sake.
But then, what was the age limit for pervertedness?
A three-year difference?
Five?
Ten?
Twenty?
And did it depend on the age range? If a person was fifty but their partner was forty, that sounded more acceptable than if you were forty and your partner was only thirty, for goodness’ sake. And ten years might not seem like much to people, but if you were twenty-five and you were chasing a fifteen-year-old. They’d put you in prison for that shit.
So, what in the hell was age appropriate?
And if it was a forty-year-old man with a thirty-year-old woman, how did that stack up against a forty-year-old woman with a thirty-year-old man?
And if you were fifty and found yourself attracted to someone yourchildren’sage, then what? Was that wrong? Was it okay as long as your children approved?
Since I needed to finish my coffee and start my day, I closed my eyes and turned away from my kitchen window before I gave myself a goddamn headache.
I knew my neighbor was only thirty-five. I knew he was a firefighter, and a grown ass man, living in his own home, paying his own bills, and was a full-fledge productive member of society. And how did I know all this? My neighbor to the left, Kerry Florence, was a fountain of neighborhood information. And when Mr. Sayer Hayes had moved into the house to the right of mine, Kerry had done her best to welcome him to the neighborhood. And in the two months that he’s lived there, I’ve only exchanged a couple of hellos with the man, and that’s been it.
Being a firefighter, he worked weird hours, but every now and again, I’d catch him coming home from work or leaving for work, and it was all I could do to keep my tongue from lolling out like a love-struck cartoon character.
Sayer Hayes was everything you’d imagine a hot, sexy firefighter to be. He was well over six-feet tall, with muscles that couldn’t be contained no matter how loosely he wore his shirts. He had dark brown hair and bright blue eyes (that bit I got from Kerry because I’ve yet to talk to the man beyond the mumbled hellos), and a face carved from perfection.
In short, the man was smokin’ hot. And, God bless his soul, he was a firefighter to boot. What was more sexier than that?
And here I was, a mousy thirty-nine-year-old, who was heading towards forty in a few months. I wasn’t a complete hag, but I wasn’t gravity-free either. And I had a child who’d left proof of her existence behind on my wide hips, stretch-marked tummy, and not-so-perky breasts. And even though I worked out and did my best to stay in shape, age was the motherfucker of all wars. You could fight it all you wanted, but age prevailed like a damn five-star general.
Of course, my uncontrollable drool could also be a result of my three-year penis hiatus. After Thomas had dropped the bomb that he had wanted a divorce, I had spent that first year putting all my efforts into making the change as painless as possible for Leta. I had totally failed, by the way, but that hadn’t stopped me from doing my best as her mother.
I had also spent that first year doing everything I could to get promoted at work. My personal life had been a disaster, but I had managed to work my way up from a county clerk to one of the three Silias County building inspectors. The pay increase had been a godsend, and it had allowed me support Leta without the benefit of child support or alimony.
Even though Thomas had turned out to be a jackass, he had always been a good father, so I hadn’t fought him when he had demanded fifty/fifty custody of Leta. And with fifty percent custody, he hadn’t been required to pay child support. He also had offered to let me keep the house, but pride had been my best friend during that first year, and we had ended up selling everything and splitting it all right down the middle. It was how I had been able to buy the house Leta and I lived in now.
The second year had been spent digging into my new role at work, and still working on getting Leta through the shitty thing her father had done. After months of crying, raging, hurting, and going through all the other stages of divorce, I had found that the one thing I had resented the most was how Thomas hadn’t given us a chance at all. Instead of coming to me when he had first started feeling the signs of unhappiness, he had sat on his feelings until he had no longer felt anything for me. That was the crap that pissed me off. Not because I was still pining over him, but because he had ruined my daughter’s chance at having a happy family, and all because he hadn’t wanted to bother with trying to fix what had been going wrong.
The dick.
And this past year had been all about being happy. Other than Leta still being pissed at her father and being just a moody fifteen-year-old girl, life was pretty good. I had a great job, a nice house in a nice neighborhood, a healthy moody daughter, and a best friend I wouldn’t trade for anything in the world.
So, penis hasn’t been a priority these past few years, what with me trying to get my life back together. And on the weeks Leta was with Thomas, I worked that frustration out by going through batteries by the dozens. I was fairly certain me and my vibrator were a large part of what was destroying the planet’s environment, even if I did try to buy recycled double-As.
And even though Thomas had broken my heart, he hadn’t turned me into a man hater. He had turned me into a Thomas hater, but I hadn’t fallen into that trap of believing that all men were awful. I didn’t think all men were awful. I had just fallen into a nice, quiet, safe existence, and I wasn’t exactly eager to cause any waves after the tsunami Thomas had already put me through.
However, my need for a peaceful, uncomplicated life hadn’t made me blind, deaf, or dumb. And every time I saw Sayer Hayes coming or going from his home, my lady parts tingled. He was truly a magnificent male specimen, and he was just another reason for me to believe in God, because…
Oh. My. God.
My phone rang, blessedly snapping me out of my inappropriate thoughts about my young neighbor. “Hey.”
“We’re planning a camping trip for the week after next, when Leta goes back to stay with Thom-ass. Do you want to come with us?” Karma asked, no greeting necessary.
I let out a soft laugh. “One of these days, you’re going to accidentally call Thomas that in front of Leta,” I said, instead of answering her about the camping trip. “Then what?”
“She’ll probably get to calling him that all the time,” she replied.
