“What the hell is wrong with you, man? You’ve been walking around like someone pissed in your Cheerios for weeks.”

I looked up at Ike, not bothering to paste on a smile that would be fake as hell.

It had been exactly eleven days—I glanced at the clock—eight hours and twenty-seven minutes since I’d offered my heart to Hope Connor on a silver platter.

Eleven days since she’d driven a stake right through it with her laugh.

“Nothing’s wrong,” I muttered.

“Mmm hmmm.” Ike had been my best friend since elementary school. He knew me better than I knew me. Which meant, I wasn’t getting out of this conversation that easy. It was the reason I’d tried to avoid the man as much as possible the past couple of weeks.

Not that it had been a tough challenge. Ike’s volunteer hours at the station had dwindled down to just a few a week now that he was working full-time at the lumberyard and married with two kids, a third on the way. Sometimes it amazed me that Ike had managed to do all that in the time since we’d graduated from high school. When I looked back on the last ten years, my life’s achievements felt pretty thin in comparison.

The few times Ike had been here I’d been saved from talking about Hope, and how she’d crushed my heart, by a rash of minor emergencies. In the last two weeks, we’d run four rescue calls, responded to a couple fender benders, and fought one legitimate fire—a bonfire built by some drunk teenagers that had gone array.

Hope had given up on bringing George to tee-ball practice. Apparently, that task now fell to Ada, who sat in the bleachers and shot daggers at me the entire time. I knew better than to try to talk to Ada when she was pissed off, so I’d given her the same wide berth as her brother.

Besides, what was there to say? She’d clearly chosen her side and it was Hope’s.

Ada, like everyone else in town, had tucked me neatly into the bad boy box. A place I’d resided since I was fifteen.

Not that I could blame anyone for that. The second I lost my virginity, I’d embraced sex with a fervor that was probably a little bit unhealthy. That insatiable lust combined with my family history painted a picture of me I hadn’t bothered to change. Shit, up until a year ago, I’d prided myself on it, figured it made me smarter than the poor schmucks like Ike, who’d tied themselves to one woman for the rest of their lives.

Until Hope appeared in Bootlick, I’d been living in a fool’s paradise. Claiming life was easier without messy entanglements. I didn’t have to worry about fucking up relationships the same way my parents had because I never let myself go out with anyone I might seriously come to care for. And if I didn’t have kids, there was no risk of hurting them either.

“I have to admit, I’m not surprised you’re acting this way.”

I frowned as I locked eyes with Ike. “What way?”

“Pissed off. If I were you, I’d be kicking my own ass too.”

I wasn’t sure how to respond to that. Ike was probably the only guy in town who didn’t buy my press, didn’t believe all the gossip. Because he knew I was ninety-nine percent bluster. Knew I eschewed serious relationships because I was afraid I was too much like my father. He also knew I hadn’t slept with a woman—before Hope—in six months, even though there’d been a handful of women bragging about shit that hadn’t happened.

What Ike didn’t know—because I hadn’t known how to talk about it—was how I truly felt about Hope. My best friend didn’t have a clue that I’d fallen in love for the first time in my life.

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“Just answer me this first…how drunk were you, man?”

Nothing Ike said made a lick of sense to me. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Lauren.”

I frowned. For some reason, I thought we were talking about Hope. Figured Hope had given Ada an earful, and now Ada had recruited her brother to the Protect Hope Connor cause.

“What about Lauren?” I asked.

“Last Saturday night? Only thing I can figure is you were drunk as a skunk. Although, in all honesty, I didn’t think there was enough booze in the world to make you sleep with Lauren Roberts.”

My temper, which had been on a slow simmer ever since Hope walked away from me at the ball field, exploded. “What the fuck are you saying? I was in Kansas City Saturday night. Took Scotty to a Chiefs game for his birthday. We got a hotel room, then hit the stadium early on Sunday to meet up with some buddies of mine from the station over in Lawrence. Tailgated and played corn hole until the game, afterwards, we came home.”

Ike, who’d been polishing the truck, dropped the cloth in a bucket and walked over to the table in the corner to sit down. “Wait,” he said, shaking his head. “Why didn’t I know about the football game?”

I rolled my eyes. “Because your whole family is shit at secrets. I figured you’d go home, tell your wife in front of Clara, then she’d go into school and blab to Scott. I didn’t tell even Scott where we were going until we hit the city limits.”

I grinned, despite my anger, as I recalled Scott’s face when we rolled into Kansas City. I’d tossed him his present, tickled by his loud hoot when he pulled out the new football jerseys and saw the tickets lying underneath. My kid brother was probably a bigger Chiefs fan than I was and that was saying something. Those few hours we’d spent at the game together were the only bright spot in a very long, miserable couple of weeks.

“I’m confused,” Ike muttered.

“That makes two of us.” I claimed the other chair at the table. “Why in blue blazes would you believe a rumor like that? You know me better than that.”

Ike sighed. “Yeah. I do. But there seemed to be incontrovertible evidence.”

I laughed at his big word. “You need to lay off the Law and Order reruns. You’re starting to sound like a fifty-year-old man.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Wouldn’t hurt you to try out the grown-up thing. You wouldn’t be in this mess if you’d stop fucking around.”

“I haven’t fucked around in a long time and you know it.”

Ike leaned back in his chair. “That’s not exactly true, is it?”

He was right. I’d slept with Hope.

Ike persisted. “You never talk about her.”

“Who?” I asked, even though I knew exactly who Ike was talking about.

“Hope. Usually you’re the kiss-and-tell guy with me. I figure I’ve had a ringside seat to most of your antics—sexual or otherwise. You haven’t told me one thing about Hope.”

I crossed my arms, swallowing heavily. I hadn’t said anything about her because everything about her was different, foreign, confusing. So I took the easy way out, changed the subject. “What evidence was so convincing that you actually thought I slept with Lauren?”

Now it was Ike’s turn to hesitate, and I realized he didn’t want to tell me something.

I leaned forward slightly. “Spill it, bro,” I insisted.

“Hope came by here early Sunday morning to see you. She never made it inside because Lauren met her at the door. It was obvious she’d spent the night. According to Hope, Lauren said you would be too worn out for her.”

I stood up so fast, my chair crashed backwards. “What?!” I shouted.

Ike rose as well, his hands raised as if to calm me down. That wasn’t going to happen.

“Tell me you’re kidding, Ike.” Even as I made the request, I knew it was true. Lauren had been stirring up shit in my life since the first time I rejected her sophomore year. She’d invited me to homecoming and I’d said no. Because it was Lauren, she pressed me, assuming I’d already asked someone else and was just being too nice to dump that date to go with her. When I insisted there was no one else, that I just didn’t want to go with her, she snapped.

Ike and I decided it was because no one in the rich princess’ life had ever said the word “no” to her. Her parents gave her everything her little heart desired and—the truth was—she was pretty. All the guys in our class buzzed around her like bees to honey. Pretty blonde with a cherry red convertible waiting in the garage until she got her driver’s license. It was pretty much a no-brainer. Lauren was used to being pursued. By every guy except for me and Ike, who had already been head over heels in love with his wife, Anita, at that point.

Unfortunately, that no was first of about a million because Lauren liked the challenge, the thrill of the chase.

“I wish I was kidding. Sit back down, man. Let’s try to reason this out, okay?”

I picked up my chair, though sitting was the last thing I wanted to do. I started pacing the concrete floor. “I wasn’t here that night.”

“Who was on call?”

Ike and I looked at each other and groaned.

“Ernie,” we said in unison.

A head popped out of the back room. “You guys call me?”

I nodded at Ernie. “Get in here. You spend the night here Saturday?”

“Yeah. You know I did.”

“Alone?” I asked.

Ernie glanced from me to Ike and back again. There were station rules for the volunteers and top of the list was no hanky panky in the bunk room.

“I, uh…”

“Don’t bother lying. We already know Lauren was here,” Ike said. He was a hell of a lot calmer than me at the moment, so it was probably smart to let him take the lead.

“Dammit.” Ernie rubbed the back of his neck. “She promised she wouldn’t tell anybody.”

“What the hell was she doing here?” I asked loudly…and stupidly. I knew exactly what she’d been doing. And who with.

Ernie gave us a sheepish grin, not even pretending to be remorseful. “She came by after a few drinks at the bar. Must have been a quiet night at the Roxie’s Bar. She showed up here around midnight.”

“Was this the first time?” Ike was kicked back in his chair, looking way too relaxed. Meanwhile I was a powder keg about to blow.

“Well…” Ernie shrugged. “Kind of damned if I do if I confess to that, right?”

“So you’re Lauren Roberts’ booty call.” I dropped back down into my chair.

What a fucking mess.

Ernie’s grin was genuine delight. He was a good-looking guy, in a buff, surfer-dude kind of way. He was a local and younger than us by about five years. No doubt Lauren had been the fantasy girl in Ernie’s wet dreams when he hit puberty. “I can think of worse things to be.”

“You know there’s no sex allowed in the bunk room,” Ike reminded him.

“Yeah. I know. I’m sorry about that. You’re not gonna write me up, are you?” he asked me.

I shook my head. “No. But next time, do the hookup at your place.”

“I live with my mom.” Ernie was clearly upset to lose the bunk room.

“This place isn’t your bachelor pad. Go to Lauren’s.”

“She lives with her folks too!”

I rolled my eyes. “She’s got a whole damn wing in that monstrosity to herself. Her dad won’t even know you’re there.”

Ernie shrugged, looking a bit miserable. “Maybe not, but she doesn’t want people to know about us. That’s why this place works so well. If anyone sees her leaving, they’ll just think she spent the night with you.”

And that was the problem. “No more, Ernie. I mean it. Lauren’s spent her last night in this station. Got it?”

Ernie sighed and nodded, then returned to the back room, making me feel like I just took his beloved puppy to the pound.

I rubbed my eyes wearily.

“You still look miserable,” Ike said once we were alone again.

“Yeah. I’m not sure what Hope wanted to talk about Sunday morning, but her rejection came before that.”

Ike studied my face for a moment, then a slow grin slid into place.

“You’re enjoying my suffering?” I asked.

“You’re in love with the kindergarten teacher.”

Ike didn’t ask a question, so I didn’t bother to acknowledge that statement. Didn’t need to. He already knew the truth.

“Doesn’t matter. It was over before she saw Lauren sneaking out of here the other morning. She’s looking for a different kind of guy.” I recalled Ike’s comment earlier. “She wants a grown-up, someone who’ll be a good dad to her son, not some well-hung firefighter with a shitty reputation when it comes to commitment.”

“You’re selling yourself short, Jake. You’re great with kids. You’ve got a steady job and while you seem to think divorce and infidelity are hereditary, I’m here to tell you they aren’t. You’re not going to make the same mistakes your parents made because, unlike them, you’ve learned from them.”

Even if I could be that man, the one my best friend saw, Hope didn’t see me that way. She’d taken all the stories about my reputation and tossed me into the same category as George’s father. In her eyes, I was just another faithless man who would let her and George down.

“Did the two of you sleep together?” Ike asked.

I nodded. “I thought Ada filled you in on everything.”

“No. Sounds like I got limited information and only from the one source. Hope was okay with…” Ike gestured toward my crotch.

I rolled my eyes. “That wasn’t a problem.”

Ike sighed and it was obvious he was still confused. Hell, so was I. Maybe if we pooled our resources. “Tell me the parts you know and I’ll fill in the blanks.”

“So the two of you slept together and everything was good,” Ike started.

My mind drifted back to the night she’d come back after running out, drenched from the sudden rainstorm. Despite my aching heart, the memory was too perfect. Hope had looked adorable, water dripping from the ends of her long red hair, her clothes plastered to her body in a way that left nothing to the imagination.

“Okay. You just answered that question.” Ike shook his head, his grin still in place. “Jesus, man. You’re wearing your heart on your sleeve. Put the damn thing away.”

“It…God, Ike…it was the best night of my life. I don’t know how else to describe it.”

“And then?”

“Then I woke up in an empty bed. I was afraid I’d hurt her…you know…physically, but when we spoke at the ball field, she swore that wasn’t it.” My eyes were lowered, my hands clenched in fists in my lap.

“Of course, it wasn’t. It was actually the other part of the story that I thought made sense until you just told me you didn’t sleep with Lauren.”

I raised my head to look at him. “What other part?”

“Have you been texting with Lauren? Making plans with her?”

I frowned and shook my head. I reached for my phone and a light went on. There were a handful of texts between us. I looked at the timestamp on them. The last two had come through the morning after my night with Hope. And the whole conversation looked pretty damning when read without context.

“Hope saw these?”

Ike reached for my phone, his eyebrows rising as he skimmed through them. “Apparently, she woke up the morning after,” Ike finger quoted the next part, “‘the greatest night of your life’ when the phone pinged. She thought it was her cell. Picked yours up by mistake and saw this. Dude. You realize it looks like you had a date with Lauren planned…sex too.”

I stood up again, all the pieces falling into place. “It wasn’t a date. Far from it. Shit. All of this has been one huge misunderstanding.”

Ike rose as well. “Yeah. I think it has been. So what are you going to do?”

“I’m in love with Hope Connor.” I’d always avoided those words, certain I’d feel like a jackass saying them.

Ike slapped me on the shoulder. “It’s about time.”

I circled the room, looking for my keys.

“What are you doing?” Ike asked.

“Going to see her, to talk to her. To tell her how I feel.”

Ike chuckled and pointed to the clock that hung on the wall next to the big bay doors. “Settle down, Romeo. Hope is at work. I’m pretty sure you’d get her fired if you burst into the kindergarten classroom and swore your undying love in front of a room full of five-year-olds.”

While Ike’s argument made sense, I was in no mood to wait. “I have to talk to her, Ike. I can’t stand that she thinks—”

Before I could finish, the fire alarm sounded and I cursed. “Fuck.”

Ike rushed toward the rack that held our jackets and hats. I watched him without moving, my feet felt like they were sunk in mud, Hope the only thing I could focus on, think about.

Ernie ran out from the back. “Jake, we gotta hurry. It’s the school.”

“What school?!”

“Earhart Elementary,” Ernie explained. “It’s on fire!”