Pulling my hand out of his grasp, I waved it dismissively. “We can talk about all of that over dinner. I hope you brought your appetite.”
I set the bottle on the medium-sized circular table with a black cherrywood finish and matching chairs.
“I made Tuscan chicken, mashed potatoes, and a salad for dinner.”
“Sounds delicious.”
“Sit, I will pour the glasses of wine and fix our plates.”
“Let me help with the wine at least,” he insisted, grabbing the bottle from the table and putting his other hand at the small of my back to maneuver me toward the kitchen. “Just show me where the bottle opener and your glasses are.”
I opened one of the drawers of the counter. “Here’s the bottle opener. The glasses are on the top shelf of the cupboard right above your head.”
He easily reached the top shelf of the cupboard, taking down two wine glasses. I moved to the dining space, placing the salad and dressing at the center of the table, along with two bowls. Next, I plated our food and just as I was about to take the plates to the table, a hand on my arm stopped me.
“Let me,” he insisted, removing the plates from my grasp and walking them to the table where our glasses, half-filled with wine already sat. I was almost bowled over when he stood behind the chair with my plate, pulling it out for me, waiting for me to sit.
“Thank you.”
“Thank you for cooking dinner. It looks delicious.”
“It was nothing. Mm, this wine is pretty good.” I held the glass up in front of me. I usually went for white wine, but this was a dry sherry that I thought complemented our dinner quite well. I leaned over to put salad in each of our bowls along with the dressing I prepared.
“This is delicious. You made the dressing?”
I laughed that he sounded impressed. “Yeah, just some lemon, garlic, avocado, and a few other things blended. I’m glad you like it. How was your day?” I asked after a few moments of eating in silence.
“Was pretty slow today at work.”
“That’s a good thing, right?” A day with minimal fires or emergencies sounded good to me. Apparently, Eric didn’t think so.
He snorted. “Trust me, you do not want to be sitting around the station with a bunch of firemen who have nothing to do.”
“Oh man, I can only imagine the trouble you guys can get into.”
He laughed, wiping his mouth with a napkin. “Don, he’s the prankster of the group. We’re all sitting in the kitchen at the table eating lunch, talking smack. Our usual. Don gets up as if he’s making a phone call. A few seconds later he runs into the kitchen, squirting something on the floor behind him, and then halfway up one of our newer rookie’s legs then runs out. Seconds later we see flames rushing up the trail he left behind right up to the rookie’s leg. It was lighter fluid.”
I gasped. “No freaking way!” That sounded dangerous, but Eric was laughing about it.
“The rookie had his protective gear on. He wasn’t in any danger, but he did freak out until I leaned over and dumped my coffee on his leg, putting out the fire.”
“That’s what you all do in the firehouse? Light one another on fire?”
“Sometimes. You don’t want to know the other things we can get into.”
I laughed some more as he told me a few of the other antics of the guys in his station. The poor rookies seemed to get it the worse, which was always the case, I figured.
“Are you close to your parents?” I asked during one of our lulls. I wanted to find out more about him besides his being a firefighter.
“Not particularly.” He gave a one-sided shrug. “I mean, I love them, and they love me, of course. I visit them a couple of times a month.”
“Do they live in Williamsport?”
“No. My dad finally convinced my mom to move out to the suburbs of Collingwood. It’s only thirty minutes outside of the city. Close enough that my mom can commute back in three times a week for work.”
“What does your mom do?”
“She’s a professor of linguistics at Williamsport U.”
