Page 12 of Burning with Desire (Forbidden Heat 1)

I stood up and paced a moment trying to catch my breath and clear my head. It was true that I was always trying to improve my fitness for my job, but I had a lot of energy and tension in my body and mind, mostly because I was trying to deal with this super strong attraction to Julie, who I had only met once, and I didn’t know how to deal with it. She was perfect in every way that I could tell. She was smart, sweet, kind, funny, interesting, and beautiful. And there was something extra, something special about the way that she looked at me. I just felt this sweet closeness to her that I couldn’t explain. Work out had always been the best form of therapy for me, so this time it made sense to turn the tide and true, it was helping, to some extent. At least until the guys started to press my buttons. They were good friends, but they knew how to mess with me and get me to talk about things I’d just not want to mention.

“Unless, you have a new girlfriend you don’t want to tell us about,” Evan said with a smile.

I gave him an annoyed look, and his eyes lit up. He was now going to be pulling that thread harder.

“I’m fine,” I said.

“Yeah, you seem fine. We’ve worked with you for a long time. We know when you are feeling extra stressed. Now, what is her name?”

“There is nobody,” I said. “You guys know that I’m not dating anyone right now. I…I’m just not ready.”

Evan nodded. “But Susie said

you were passing notes during study hall. What was that about?”

I couldn’t keep a straight face. Evan was a character.

“Wow, that is good,” I said. “You should write for Jimmy Fallon or somebody.”

“I’m in negotiations,” Evan chuckled. “But dude, it’s been two years. You need to stop wallowing in the muck. You know what Amanda would tell you if she could. People aren’t meant to spend their lives alone.”

“I’m not alone; I’ve got Zoe. Nothing more important than her.”

“Of course not, but that’s not what he is saying,” Doug added. “You need a woman in your life. It isn’t ever going to replace what you had with Amanda, but you have room in your heart to love other people, too. And you are deserving of love as well, man.”

I looked at him to scan his face, to see how serious he was. This man was truly speaking from the heart. You’d never know it by just looking at these tough firefighters, but many of them were truly sensitive souls. Sometimes I wished I had a bit more of the sensitive in me. But then again, maybe I was too sensitive and that was my problem after all.

“Thanks, but right now there isn’t anything I can do about it. I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready to move on.”

“You won’t be ready,” Evan said. “If you are waiting for the day where you wake up and it’s all sunshine and rainbows and you’ve got a spring in your step that tells you that it is time to move on, that today is the day—you are going to be disappointed and living your life forever alone. You have to make that decision to burst out of your comfort zone and move forward. There is no other way. It’s not going to be comfortable. It will hurt. You will feel like giving up. But little by little, you will start to cope with it.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Maybe you’re right. I’ll try.”

We finished our workout and then decided to grab some lunch before my training would start. Zoe was with her aunt Katy all day until about two. Then she would drop her off at my place and Julie would show up to relieve her. She had some work to do today as well. I would have just asked Julie to stay with Zoe all day, but Katy adored spending time with Zoe and she loved spending time playing with her cousins. So it was a great situation for everybody that way. I would only have to spend a bit of time with Julie that evening after I came back from the three hour training class.

“Hey, man, that waitress is checking you out,” Evan said.

We’d barely sat down and I was going over the menu trying to decide what would not make me feel like I had erased all the progress I’d just made with my workout, when Evan pointed out that I might have an admirer. I rolled my eyes and ignored him for a few seconds while I continued to peruse the menu in front of me.

“Seriously,” Evan insisted.

“I don’t care,” I replied.

“Well, she is coming this way.”

The waitress sauntered over and when she arrived, I could see that she was quite attractive. But I was not in the mood to entertain her notions about us, if she had any, maybe going out or even hooking up. It was becoming so easy for me to ignore a woman’s attention that I hardly even noticed it anymore when they displayed such an interest.

She took Evan and Doug’s drink order before turning to me and asking me, “What will you have?”

The way she said this let me know right away that she wanted me to say “You”, but I did no such thing. I just ignored this flirtation and said, “I’ll just have some water.”

“Water? Wow that is so boring. You should live a little, cowboy,” she continued. I noticed that as she spoke with me she leaned over a little bit and flashed some beautiful cleavage for my eyes to behold. I was not immune to the fact that this was very visually appealing to me, but it was not going to happen.

The other guys were staring at me eagerly, waiting for me to make some kind of a move so they could portray me as being a hero to them of some sort. But they were going to be disappointed. “Yeah, that’s all I need to drink.”

“Ok, and what about your lunch? What do you fancy today?” The waitress asked, her voice almost purring the words as she poured it on a little bit too much.

“I’ll just have a salad with salmon,” I said.

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