“You don’t have to worry about it.”
“Oh, I don’t. I got a can of mace instead.”
Mateo wanted to laugh at the idea, but then again, he wasn’t a woman in a group of guys. “Don’t carry it into the fire, okay. Why can’t you be happy about this? Let yourself celebrate.”
“Celebrate?” she repeated.
“Yeah.” Couldn’t she unbend and try to blend like everyone else did. “McClunis, why don’t we grab a drink after this shift? We can talk.” The words came out of his mouth involuntarily.
He wanted to bang his head against the wall. Why the hell had gone there? To prove he was a total hypocrite. To tempt fate? To hit back at Isadora?
Then again, if he’d sabotaged his career, he might as well go ahead and slit his throat while he was at it.
Though judging by the way she was glaring at him, she might do it for him. “A drink?”
“Yeah. You and me, a drink.”
“I’m not a lesbian.” She said. “So no thank you.”
“It was just a friendly drink.”
“Was it? Because nothing that goes on in this firehouse is friendly. And I don’t mix business with pleasure, ever.”
“It was a drink. Any of the guys would have…”
“None of the guys have to worry that somebody suggested they use their cunt to get to the top by fucking an officer. Other than Conley, because he’d take it up the ass if he thought it’d help him get ahead.”
“Okay.”
“And you’re not going to retaliate? You won’t call me a butch bull dyke because I’m not feminine enough or willing to blow you?”
“I already have a girlfriend, and she’s not into threesomes. You met her. The police officer, Isadora Reyes,” Mateo lied again, rather than lose more face.
McClunis’s face showed she didn’t believe him. “Must not be serious if you asked me for a drink.”
“That’s between her and me, firefighter.” Mateo found his temper rising. “Forget about it.”
Yes, he didn’t know how he felt about Leslie. Her presence confused him and irritated him. She was unpredictable as hell and unsettling in so many ways.
Nothing like Isadora. Isadora probably would have taken him on the drink and challenged him to another scars contest.
Not shot him down like a dog in the street.
Leslie took a deep breath and said, “In case this is some type of thing y’all got together and decided you were trying out, I want to make myself clear. I will never ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever sleep with or take part in any firefighter gang-bang or perform sexual favors on you or any member of this firehouse. Not even if you were the last man on earth and the survival of the species depended on it. It doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with me or I’m not feminine like the captain suggested. It means that I’m not stupid enough to shit where I eat.”
She whirled around and stomped up the stairs to the catwalk and headed over to the empty conference room.
He stood in silence, trying to remember the last time he’d been so thoroughly shut down.
At least no one else had seen him getting his head handed to him.
“I was wondering when you would try your luck,” Carl Walsh said from behind him.
“I didn’t see you there,” Mateo said instead of groaning.
“Neither did the previous five guys on this shift. Or the three from B-shift. Or the two from C-shift.”
Mateo crossed his arms over his chest. So Carl had been monitoring McClunis. “How’d I do?”
