Ethan liked that. Liked that she stood up for herself with James.
“You all right?” Ethan asked, hoping his concern was clear.
She blew out between her lips. “It’s my fault. I threw it away when I should’ve dunked it in water. I didn’t mean for this to—”
“No worries. It’s all good,” he assured. “No more fire.”
“There are still a lot of worries.” She pursed her lips as the fireys went to work digging through the mess in the rubbish bin.
“I like to think that when dodgy things happen, it opens the door for better things.” He did. Although, the dodgy things in his life lately were just bloody pissing him off.
“That is remarkably positive,” Em said. “I’m not feeling it right now.”
“Not with that attitude,” he said with his best cheeky grin.
She chuckled. So it worked.
“I’m still a little punchy from the whole lit-a-fire part of the night. I’ll get to the better things someday.”
“Don’t betoohard on yourself until then,” Ethan said.
“Just a little hard?” She made an adorable little bit motion with her thumb and index finger.
“Just enough so you don’t light up the dumpster again.”
“The fire’s your fault?” James called from near the dumpster, disbelieving, his words clearly meant for Ethan.
“Yeah, mate, sorry,” Ethan said, going for bashful. “Won’t happen again.”
“This is yours, sir?” another firefighter guy asked, holding up a green, glow-in-the-dark, phallic slab of…silicone…with charring all down the shaft that left nearly nothing of the tip.
Ethan squinted a little and had an intense desire to protect his own prick by covering it with his hands. He looked from the object that was not a corn cob to Em.
“I did not see this coming,” James said under his breath, but loud enough for all to hear.
“Me bloody, either,” Ethan said. Of all the things Em could’ve used to start the fire, this was not on his list of suspects. “It’s…uh… I think that there was a… yeah, uh, it happens sometimes when… oh, bloody hell.”
He glanced to Em, hoping she might have some kind of story for him to share that wasn’t as embarrassing as all this.
She shrugged and obviously there was no story.
So, then, he was on his own. He heaved in a breath. Then let it out. Then heaved it in again. “Alright, I’m going to just be honest here…”
But what was that honesty he was about to make up?
“Believe it or not you can use one of those to…uh… stir the custards.” Dear God, that sounded awful. “Or, uh, it helps when I’m making dessert and need a little extra help to bring things—in..ingredients—together…” Oh, bloody hell this was sounding worse and worse. “I mean you can’t cut a steak with the damn thing, can ya?”
Was it getting hotter out there? He felt warmer, for sure.
James and Em both stared at him like he had tried to fix them a custard.
“It’s not his. It’s mine.” Emmaline held her hand out for the…thing…making a gimme motion to James. “Unless the department needs it as evidence?”
Did that happen?
“Actually, yeah, you should probably keep that.” She pulled her hand away, sliding it in her pocket. “That’s fine, you just keep it. You might need to fix a custard or something later.”
Ethan usually enjoyed using his words. It was part of his job. But he couldn’t find any of them at the moment.
