It’s not my shitty house, I can see on the doorbell camera it’s right as rain. But worrying it could be the bakery has me craning my neck to get a better look at the urgent hum of activity at the end of the road. I slide the window down and stick my head out. Realise it’s the chip shop and the relief that floods me is fucking scandalous. And real. Some days those croissants are the only thing that get me through once breakfast is over and I’ve dropped Esme at nursery for the day.
I pull my head back into the van and settle in to wait, fingers tapping the steering wheel, my mind picking up speed again now it has nothing to occupy it beyond the sablé biscuits stashed behind the protein powder I haven’t touched in months.
You’re getting skinny.
I’m not. I still have ten kilos on Tam. But single dad life has eaten into my muscle mass, and I’m not all that sad about it.How can I be when the last time I set foot in a gym I caught my missus noshing off Roidy Dwayne?
That’s what Tam calls him, and it’s as funny now as when my glorious brother thumped that prick four Christmases forward in his miserable life. But the gym thing…it’s a bad memory, one that fucking haunts me, and I’m not in the mood to revisit it.
Not today, not ever.
Merde, I need a distraction. Before anger and humiliation start a new war for dominance. Emotions I’ve put to bed a hundred times. Andof coursemy brain defaults to the obsession only my love for my baby girl outshines. To sex, though it’s not as simple as that. It can’t be. If all I needed was good dick, I wouldn’t be dreaming of big man arms around me all the time. Hands far rougher than Tam’s on my face. A deep voice at my ear, whispering shit as pure as it is absolute filth.
Nothing iseverthat simple for me and I’m over it. Is it too much to ask the universe to give me a fucking break?
Apparently so. I reach for my phone and swipe the screen, searching out the app Tam almost caught me poking about in this afternoon. Aswingersapp, fuck my life. I don’t have the balls for Grindr. And I still like women, right? My sexuality has expanded, not shrunk, and maybe it’ll be easier to find a bloke to teach me a few things while he lets me bang his missus.
It’s a good thought.
A logical one.
But it squeezes my chest instead of lightening the load, and I swipe through chats and raunchy pics with a fucking anvil on my heart. I’ve never been good at casual sex, and even the prospect of a dude sucking my dick isn’t enough to make me want it.
Put the phone down.
I want to. Ineedto, for what sanity a full-time coke addiction didn’t pickle. But I find myself staring at the screen—at the photo an “adventurous” MF couple have sent my blandas hell anonymous profile. They’re fucking, obviously. And she’s gorgeous, all curves and lacy underwear. But it’s not her body that has me shifting in my seat. It’shim, and the way he’s laying his hands on her. The way he gazes down at her with that masculine stare, and?—
Rap!
A sharp knock to the open window startles the crap out of me. I jump like I’ve been tasered and my phone springs out of my hand.
It lands face up on the dashboard, the screen a bright and incriminating display of sweat, skin, and the dick I’ve zoomed in on.
Merde.
I lurch to flip it, knocking over the coffee I didn’t get round to drinking at work. Grab the bastard and look up expecting a nosy neighbour.
But no, it’s a firefighter. A tall, brawny one, minus his helmet, which leaves his auburn hair a coppery halo beneath the flickering streetlight, the offbeat glow illuminating a sharp jaw and cheekbones so chiselled they belong in a painting.
The rest of him isn’t bad either.
It’s a cold night, but his jacket’s open enough to reveal the muscular physicality underneath, and I just about expire even before his twinkly and kind green eyes meet mine through the open window.
The window he gestures for me to lower a little more.
I press the switch, heart thudding and a face full of heat that isn’t entirely mortification that he’s caught me scrolling filth.
It’s the way he props a shoulder against my van and folds his arms like we’re old mates having a chat.
It’s the smirk flickering at the corner of his hot mouth, as if he’s in on a joke he hasn’t shared with me yet.
“Chippie’s on fire.” His gaze slides between my face and my phone. “Gonna be backed up here for a while. Where are you trying to get to?”
I incline my head to the front windscreen. “Number six. Can I get there if I park somewhere else?”
“Not right now. But there’s no danger to property if you live that far down.”
“Thanks,” I manage, dry-mouthed and raspy, as the firefighter’s gaze slips to my phone again. Asthatsmile amps up enough to dazzle me, and apart from Esme’s birth, it’s the best split second of my life.
