“I do. We rotate taking turns bringing dinner in for our shifts at the firehouse. I get ribbed pretty hard because I bring it from the pub to warm up rather than cook there. I cook some of it if I have to and am not in the way, but do it at the pub.”
“Please, sit.”
“Don’t be formal on my account.”
She laughed. “That’s being an excellent host and polite rather than us standing in the kitchen.”
He nodded and grinned, but moved to the living room.
He sat on the couch. Not in the corner, but not in the center either. The lift of his eyebrow was a challenge if she’d join him or go to the chair.
She sat on the couch equal distance from the corner but on the other side.
“Tell me how you ended up being a fireman? From my perspective you can do it all.”
“Hardly that,” he said, snorting. “And no one ever thought it either. I’m pretty sure ninety percent of our teachers banked on me being in jail a few times by now.”
“Nah,” she said. “You might have gotten in trouble a lot, but I remember nothing being terrible.”
“Depends on your definition of terrible.”
“Fights,” she said. “And since I’ve got two brothers with big egos and a lot of pride, they’d gotten in their fair share of fights too.”
“Most likely not on the school grounds. But yep, there were fights.”
“Can I ask why or what they were about?”
“Too many to count,” he said. “Let’s say when some of those in your social circle thought it’d elevate their status to toss me around in gym class or give me an elbow to the balls, they got it back tenfold.”
“Good for you,” she said.
She always wondered the other side of it. She remembered some kids involved in those fights were dicks in her mind. Yep, they got in trouble too, but it seemed like Chance always ended up with the worst of it.
“Your brother was fairly decent.”
“Which one?”
“Jayce. I didn’t know Gabe in school. But Jayce gave me space. Not like we talked or hung out but had no beef with each other either.”
“He’s that way.”
“He doesn’t work for the family business, I see.”
“You didn’t answer my question. Are you going to be that way?”
He sighed. “Sorry. Not much to say. I moved around a lot of jobs but wanted something more stable. Worked in a garage for years on cars. Did some construction. I’m good with my hands.”
Her eyes dropped to the one resting on his thigh. The other was holding his drink.
Big hands. Trim clean nails. A callus here or there.
When they were on her body during the first aid training, she’d felt safe physically, but the nerve endings tingling throughout her body might disagree.
“Not with a paintbrush though.”
He looked confused and then laughed.
“Yeah, well, the only reason I showed up for that class was because of you.”
