“Oh!I thought you had done something on the computer,” Clara said.The corners of her mouth curved down and she nodded approvingly.“Very impressive.”
Annie didn’t know what to do.Her cheeks burned red, her head felt hot, and she couldn’t come up with any words to say.
She did the only thing she could think of: she walked back into the kitchen.
Unfortunately, she could still hear what they were talking about.
“Do you often take glamour shots, lying on the fire truck like that?”Clara asked, her voice crackling with laughter.
Annie shut her eyes.If only she could disappear into the kitchen cupboards, or into a dark hole somewhere, and never emerge.
The shame was too heavy, hanging around her neck like an anvil.He was going to know that she’d shown her mom those pictures.He was going to think she was a silly schoolgirl, fawning over him.
Then she heard Miles’ laughter.
“No, I do not often lay on the fire truck and take glamour shots.”
“You should,” Clara said promptly.“You have a knack for it, not to mention the physique.”
Annie spun around, daggers coming from her eyes, but no one was looking at her, especially not her mom.
Miles shook his head, rubbing his face in his hand.“It’s not a hobby of mine.I did it for the department.We needed to fundraise to repair one of our fire engines.I got talked into doing a firefighter calendar.They promised me no one on the island would ever see the pictures.”
Bella snorted a laugh.“And you believed them, Dad?Don’t you know pictures on the internet are forever?”
He sighed.“I do now.”
Annie walked back into the room, her spine straightened.“Leave him alone, Mom,” she said sternly.Then, to Miles, “I’m sorry.You don’t have to talk about this.”
Miles’ eyes met hers.He held her stare for a moment, a smile dancing on his face.“It’s okay.It was my own foolishness that got me into this situation, though Bella put a fun twist on it.”
He looked at Bella, and she grinned, picking up her sloppy joe and taking a big bite.
“How much did it get you?”asked Clara.“Did you at least get enough money to fix the fire engine?”
He shook his head.“Not even close.The price for replacement parts has skyrocketed.”
“Can you get a replacement truck, then?”Annie asked.
“That’s even worse.There’s a five-year lead time, and the price has gone from $300,000 a few years ago to a cool million dollars today.Ladder trucks are two million now.”
Annie gasped.“How can that be?”
“Lots of reasons.There’s a private equity company who decided it’d be a good idea to buy up all the suppliers.Once they owned most of it, they increased the prices.”
“That’s just un-American,” Clara said, shaking her head.“Gouging firemen across the country!For heaven’s sake.”
“Un-American, and possibly monopolistic.We have a case filed by the local prosecuting attorney to sue them for anti-competitive practices.”
Annie chanced another look at him.“That’s promising.”
He nodded.“It is.”
“You still don’t have a fire engine that works, though,” Bella said.“And since I’m so skilled with digital marketing and advertisement, you should let me fundraise for you.”
“Not a chance,” he said with a grin.“I’m not going to risk seeing my face splashed across the ferries again.”
He picked up his sloppy joe, the bun looking comically small in his large hands, and took a bite.
