Chapter 4: Andy

Hannah showed up at my door just as expected. Early, impatient, and immediately scanning my apartment for signs of last night.

She was like a bloodhound. Could smell pussy from a mile away, and always managed to call me out on my sexcapades. It didn’t matter if I had been fucking a girl last night, or a week before. She always knew, and to be frank, it scared me sometimes. There were nights I imagined Hannah standing by my bed while I slept, knife in hand, ready to cut off my cock. Why I had gotten myself involved with her in the first place was beyond me.

Because she’s great in bed. And has the breasts of a Greek goddess.

Both true, but not enough to make up for the Pandora’s Box of craziness that was lodged somewhere in that head of hers. The first time I had introduced her to Bobby, he had waited patiently until she excused herself to go to the bathroom, then turned to me and told me to get out while I still had all my body parts. I had laughed it off. In retrospect, I probably should have taken him much more seriously.

“Where is she?” Hannah asked after a quick inspection of the living room. It had taken her only five minutes and one room to figure it out. I was in the kitchen, pouring a cup of coffee and almost spilling half of it.

“Who?” I asked.

“The hussy you were with last night.”

I turned to her and raised an eyebrow. “What hussy?”

Hannah pointed an angry finger at me. “Don’t start with me, Andy. I know you had someone here last night.”

“You’re imagining things again,” I shot back, already beginning to fume in frustration. I shouldn’t have been acting this way. It was none of her fucking business who I brought home. We had agreed a long time ago that we wouldn’t be exclusive, but apparently, she had come to the crazy conclusion that the rule only applied to her. And I was playing along.

“Stop treating me like I’m some nutcase,” Hannah hissed. “Just man up and tell me who she is. Another college student? Were you drilling holes in younger fields, Andy?”

“Okay, first of all,” I said, turning around and shooting her an annoyed look, “where I drill holes is none of your fucking business. Second of all, you’re the one who wanted an open relationship, remember? It’s not like you’re fucking Mother Teresa, okay.”

Hannah screamed in frustration and threw her purse at me, narrowly missing my head as it hit the cabinet behind me then fell on the coffee machine. I jumped back when it toppled off the counter and smashed into pieces on the floor, coffee spreading everywhere.

“What the fuck, Hannah?” I yelled.

“You asshole!” she screamed at me, racing past the kitchen counter and throwing punches at me. “You fucking bastard! I do everything for you, and you don’t even have the respect to tell me you’re fucking other women!”

I grabbed her wrists, turned her around and pulled her into an embrace that left little room for her to move. She fought my hold, reminding me that she was a lot stronger than she looked, but I kept her in place.

“No one was here!” I yelled at her. “For fuck’s sake, just calm down!”

“You’re a fucking liar, Andy!”

“I said, calm down!”

She struggled a little more, but eventually gave up completely and just stood there limp in my arms. After a few seconds of silence, her shoulders began to shake, and I could hear soft sobs escaping her lips. It wasn’t like Hannah to show weakness, and although she was crying now, she would do everything she could not to show it. I didn’t dare turn her around. She’d scratch my eyes out if I let her go.

“Nobody was here,” I said, kissing her head. “I promise. Just you, baby.”

She sobbed a little more, sniffed loudly, then nodded. “Let me go,” she whispered. “I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?” I asked, still hesitant.

“Let go, Andy,” she said. “If I wanted to hurt you, I would have.”

I believed her, so I let her go.

She pushed away from me, hit me with her elbow for good measure, then walked back into the living room. She kicked off her shoes and began pulling her shirt off.

“Woah, slow down,” I said.

She stopped and turned to me, her shirt around her neck and giving me a full view of her beautiful breasts behind a lace, black bra. I felt myself start getting harder instantly.

“I have to be at work in half an hour,” I said.

She dropped the shirt and shot me an angry glare. “Since when did that stop you?”

“Since the Chief’s started giving me crap after last night.”

She frowned. “You’re a hero,” she said. “The great Andy Stetson.”

“The Chief seems to think otherwise,” I smiled. “I think he used the word reckless and hotheaded a few times, too.”

Hannah looked at me, her eyes boring into mine, trying to figure out if I was lying or not. The truth was, last night had taken me out of it, and if she did drag me to bed, she would tell instantly that my mind and body weren’t into it.

Hannah clicked her tongue, pulled her shirt off and threw it onto the couch, and began unbuttoning her jeans as she made her way towards the bedroom. “You have two minutes to get your ass inside,” she said.

I sighed, ran a hand through my hair and looked down at the mess on the floor. One day I was going to have to find a way to get rid of her without having to worry about being run over while crossing an intersection.

I shook my head and followed her into the bedroom.

***

“She’s got your balls in a jar by her bed,” Bobby joked.

The station was usually quiet during the nightshift. Mansfield wasn’t a town prone to sudden fires, last night being an exception to the rule. So, most of the work was slow, usually devoted to cleaning the trucks, inspecting the equipment and making sure everything was okay, and of course lazy card games while half the crew dozed off. Of course, on the nights when the Chief was around, we all brought our A game. Fortunately, this was not one of those nights.

“I resent that remark,” I said, closing the hood of the engine I was inspecting and cleaning my hands on a rag. “I’d like to think it’s pity. That’s why I put up with her. Pure pity.”

“Right,” Bobby winked. “I mean, I’d be devastated, too, if I had to have sex with her every day to keep her calm. The amount of effort that goes into something like that, I mean, really. So much hard work and devotion.”

“Fuck you, Bobby,” I smiled.

Bobby laughed and slumped down on the couch we had propped against one wall of the station’s garage. It was a haggard, old thing, a save from an office fire a few months back. The only thing that hadn’t gone up in flames, and we decided to adopt it. It was a survivor, much like the men who worked in this station, and some of us saw ourselves in it.

“So, she had no idea about college girl?” Bobby asked.

I shrugged. “She guessed it, was pretty damn sure about it for a while.” I pulled up a chair and propped my legs up on the couch. “Besides, I think I rose to the occasion pretty well.”

“Took her down with your fire hose?”

“You need to remember that we’re not in junior high anymore,” I said.

“Speaking of which,” Bobby yawned. “What are you going to do about the reunion? Show up with Boobs McCrazy?”

“I’m thinking I might just pass on going altogether,” I admitted.

Unlike common belief, I had never been a popular guy back at school. Sure, I played football, might have been considered a jock by some, but I had mostly stayed to myself. Bobby was the only friend I had come out of school with, and I think the fact that we were both firemen kept that friendship going. A lot of the old class were still in Mansfield or around it, and I had lost touch with everyone. I wasn’t looking forward to seeing anyone again.

“Come on,” Bobby smiled. “Town hero that you are, I’m sure you’ll have crowds flocking to you.”

“Flex my muscles a bit and make the women swoon?”

“Precisely,” Bobby laughed. “And if worse comes to worst, I can always step in and make you look good.”

“Forever the devoted wingman.”

“I know my strengths,” Bobby shrugged. “Won’t try to hide it.”

“So, you’re actually going?”

Bobby shrugged and stretched. “Might be fun,” he said. “We’re completely different people now, man, you and me. Would be interesting to see how everybody else’s changed.”

“Let me make it easier for you,” I smiled. “The cheerleaders are probably married with kids and bored out of their minds, the jocks are definitely working their way up the blue-collar ladder, and the nerds will be driving in with Mustangs and Bentleys.” I leaned in. “You and me, we’re going to get lost in the crowd and probably go home early.”

Bobby winked. “Maybe hook up with some of the bored housewives.”

“Knowing you, you’d probably by them a drink and listen politely while they tell you about how their husbands ignore them.”

Bobby chuckled at that and was about to reply when his cellphone rang. He looked at it, frowned, and quickly got to his feet. “Gotta take this,” he said.

I watched him disappear behind the truck, just a little curious as to who was calling. Bobby rarely took a side when answering his phone, and I began to toy with the idea that maybe he had found a new love interest or something. He definitely deserved it, especially after the crap he had gone through with his parents’ death. Sometimes I worried about him, and I knew that living alone in that house was getting to him. There were times I’d catch him taking on extra night shifts, and I knew it was because of the company and not the job. I couldn’t remember the last time I called him and found him at home.

It’s not like you’re any better.

Which was true. I had learned to stay the hell away from any home a long time ago, back when my father was a drunken ass who could still piss standing up, and my mother was the mousey housewife who always forgave him. I used to listen to him hitting her from my room upstairs, balling my eyes out and hiding under the bed. When I was old enough to take a proper beating, but still too young to fight back, he came for me, too. It was junior high when I finally stood up to him.

I remembered the day clearly. I had been in my room, and my old man was going about his usual late-night beatings downstairs. I had tried to shut out my mom’s cries, had tried to ignore the gamut of insults he was throwing at her, but in the end, it had been too much. I guess it was anger, maybe fear, but definitely a loathing towards how much power the man had over me and my mom. I remembered screaming at him from upstairs to stop. I remembered the anger on his face when he came up after me. I remembered the rage that had given his fists an extra bit of strength as he slammed them into me.

And I remembered being so pissed off and scared that I had fought back and pushed him down the stairs.

My old man died in a wheelchair from a heart attack. My mother disowned me, which I thought was a fucking hoot. When she died, I didn’t even attend the funeral. All things considered, I didn’t have a family. The people who called themselves my parents were only two idiots who brought me into this world, probably by mistake, and had left me with nothing when they left. The station was my home; the men and women who served in it my family. I had made my peace with that a long time ago.

I turned around just as Bobby made his way back around the truck, a look of concern mixed with what I could only assume was anger on his face. It was a foreign look to me, and immediately put me on edge.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“It’s Andrea,” Bobby said.

I stood up quickly. I had hardly known Bobby’s little sister, but I had heard enough to make me take the look on his face a lot more seriously. Bobby had told me about her marriage, the abuse she was taking, and how, like my mother, she didn’t seem to want to do anything about it. I knew Dennis Canfield. We went to school together, and despite the good looks and charm, he was a Class A asshole.

“Is she alright?” I asked. My mind immediately went to hospital rooms and broken bones. I had warned Bobby about this several times, but I knew that if Andrea didn’t ask for help, didn’t want it, then there was very little he could do.

“She’s calling from the road,” Bobby said, still glaring at his phone as if he were watching her through it. “Says she’s coming home. That she’s leaving Dennis.”

My eyebrows shot up. “Good going, Andrea.”

Bobby pocketed his phone and looked past me, his eyes moving rapidly right and left while he contemplated the situation. “Yeah,” he said.

“Hey, man, that’s a good thing,” I said. “You want her out of that.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Bobby said, shaking the stupor out of him. “I just didn’t expect it. She seemed so strung up on that asshole, I figured the only time she’d call me was to tell me she was in the hospital.”

“I get it,” I said. “But she isn’t.”

“No, she isn’t,” Bobby nodded.

“You’re supposed to be happy about this.”

Bobby looked at me, through me even, lost in his thoughts. “No, I am, really,” he assured me. “It’s just very much out of the blue. And in the middle of the night. I think she just packed her things and left.”

“Good.”

“Yeah, until he follows her.”

I smiled. “When he does, we’ll be here waiting,” I said. “I’ve put one wife beater into a wheelchair. I have no problems doing it again.”