Chapter Nine
Cait woke the next morning to her phone chiming. As she reached for it, she wondered if it was even still morning. It felt like it had to be at least noon, and she hoped the text was from Gavin letting her know he was outside with coffee and a box of doughnuts.
It was only nine thirty and the text was from Carter. Where’s the cleaning stuff?
She’d told him she wanted the bathroom clean before she got home and that she’d probably be home by ten or eleven. He was cutting it close. Under the sink where most people keep cleaning stuff.
Whatever.
She tossed the phone back onto the nightstand and stretched, surprised by how well rested she felt. Despite fearing she’d spend hours tossing and turning thanks to the memory of Gavin’s voice on the phone and his parting text. But she’d been so relaxed after an evening of doing nothing that she must have drifted off.
Despite having soaked so long in his tub last night that she was probably still waterlogged, Cait treated herself to a quick shower, just to see what it felt like. The steaming hot water pulsing over her skin was even more amazing than the bubble bath had been, and she stayed in there until she realized she didn’t know exactly when Gavin was coming home. Maybe not until she told him she was gone, but she couldn’t be sure.
She was getting dressed, debating whether or not she should strip the sheets off the bed—she didn’t know where he kept clean ones, or if he just washed this set and put them back on—when her phone chimed again.
This time it was Gavin. You awake?
Depends. Are you outside with coffee and doughnuts?
I will be in 30 mins.
Twenty-five minutes later, there was a knock on the door. She liked that he didn’t just use his key, she thought as she opened the door to let him in. And, as promised, he had a cardboard holder with two large coffees in it and a box of doughnuts.
“Hey, Sleeping Beauty,” he said as he kicked the door closed behind him and walked to the table to set down their breakfast. “You look like you slept well.”
“I did. How did you sleep?”
“As well as can be expected for a guy trying to sleep on a couch with a raging hard-on.” He turned to face her, the corners of his mouth turned up. “That was mean.”
It was out there now. She’d known things would be different between them after last night’s conversation, but seeing the heat in his eyes right now left no doubt. He wanted her. She wanted him. At some point in the very near future she was going to end up back in that big bed of his, and she wouldn’t be alone.
“You had it coming for making my ass a firehouse joke.”
“Trust me, I was the firehouse joke. Your ass is no joke.”
She rolled her eyes, but took a seat at the table and pulled one of the coffees out of the holder. “Cream and sugar?”
“Yeah. I realized after I should have gotten it black and let you add whatever you wanted here, but it was too late.”
“Milk is never as good as that really fattening cream all the coffee shops use.”
After hanging up his coat, he joined her at the table. “I bought that stuff one time, but you have a little more guilt when you have to look at the label every time you add it to your coffee.”
Popping open the doughnut box, she perused the selection. “Two of each kind?”
“That way we won’t have to engage in mortal combat if we like the same kind.”
“What if I want both jelly doughnuts?”
His eyes narrowed for a minute and then his mouth curved into a smile that promised nothing but mischief. “Then we’ll have to negotiate my surrender, if I agree to your terms.”
It was utterly ridiculous that a conversation about jelly doughnuts should be such a turn-on, but Cait was hard-pressed not to squirm in her chair. Then he took a big bite out of a chocolate glazed and she laughed at the chocolate stuck to his mouth.
They talked about nothing much while they ate two doughnuts each and drank their coffee. The movie she’d watched in the tub—the mention of which had put that hot, hungry look in his eyes—and the miracle of plumbing that were his dual shower heads.
She ate the second doughnut more slowly, trying to stretch out the time they had left together. Once breakfast was over, there was really no reason for her to stay, but she didn’t want to go without...something. At the very least a plan to get together again.
Once her coffee was gone, Cait reluctantly got up. She threw away the cup and napkin, then rinsed her hands at the sink. When she turned, Gavin was standing close, his hip resting against the counter. He wasn’t close enough to crowd her, but closer than a casual acquaintance.
“I’m glad you enjoyed your night here,” he said softly.
“I did. Thank you.” There were other things she’d enjoy doing here, too.
“You should come back anytime. I mean that. Just pop in.”
He was nervous. She could tell by the tightness in his jaw and the way his pinkie was tapping against his jeans.
Screw this. She was tired of dancing around it.
Reaching out, she snagged the front of his T-shirt and hauled him close, rising up on her toes to press her lips to his.
That was all the invitation he seemed to need. There was no hesitation or feeling each other out. His mouth claimed hers with a hunger that matched her own. He had one hand on her hip and one in her hair, and she ran her hands up his back.
His kiss was hot and intense, and she dug her fingertips into the muscles of his back. His hand tightened in her hair in response. He moved closer, pinning her body between his and the counter as one of his knees slid between her legs.
Yes and finally were the only two words Cait had left in her vocabulary as his tongue skimmed over hers.
When she caught his lip with her teeth, Gavin moaned and his thigh pressed harder between her legs.
She wanted him naked. Now would be good, although she’d be happy to go first if he wanted her to.
He broke off the kiss, lifting his head and dropping his hand from her hair to her shoulder. She wanted to say something, but her brain was fuzzy with desire and she was a little out of breath.
He ran his thumb over her lower lip. “I’ve been thinking about kissing you for quite a while, and it was still better than I imagined it would be.”
“You don’t have to stop.” And he didn’t need to stop with her mouth, either.
He made a sound that was part sigh and part low growl. “What time do you have to be home?”
“I don’t have a curfew, seeing as how I’m a grown woman and so is my mother.”
“So here’s the deal.” He paused for a second, as if he wasn’t sure what he wanted to say. “I promised myself I wouldn’t hit on you while you were here, until you’d left and I found a different reason to get you back here.”
“You asked if I was naked in your bed and told me you had a raging hard-on. And we were just kissing.”
He actually blushed, which she found adorable. “Okay, I promised myself I wouldn’t touch you, then. And you kissed me first, so I’m not counting that. But the longer we’re here, the harder it gets.”
“Literally?” she asked, and then she slapped her hand over mouth when he laughed. “Sorry.”
“Yes, literally, smart-ass.”
“Leaving the apartment is kind of a technicality, don’t you think? I had my sleepover and now it’s over.”
“I...want to say yes, but I had some strong feelings about what a douche move it would be for me to take advantage of you having some time to yourself, so it’s going to be a thing for me.”
Watching him struggle with his sense of honor—as overrated as she thought this particular battle was—gave her a warm, fuzzy feeling. He was trying so hard to be a gentleman. “What if I go drive around the block and come back?”
He laughed, but shook his head. “You want to grab a pizza?”
Pizza. She wasn’t sure if somebody had told him pizza was her dietary Achilles’ heel or if it was a lucky guess, but it was a sure thing, as distractions went.
Hell, yes. She very much wanted to grab a pizza, but she’d already had so many cheat days that month, she wasn’t sure she could really call them cheat days anymore. They didn’t always eat well on shift—fast and easy rarely equaled healthy—so she tried to make halfway decent choices on her own time. And there were the doughnuts she’d already eaten to consider.
“You know you want to,” he said when she didn’t respond right away. “I can see it on your face.”
“It’s not even noon. And we just had doughnuts.”
“It’ll be lunchtime by the time we get there.”
She frowned. “Where, exactly, are you planning to get pizza?”
“Brockton.”
“You’re taking me to Brockton for our first date?”
He broke out the charming smile. “So it is a date, then?”
“Yeah, I’ll have pizza with you. And it’s a date.” When he scowled slightly, she cocked her head. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m trying to figure out if there’s any way I can make it the second or third date.”
“Nope.” She shook her head firmly. “Veggie omelets together wasn’t a date. That was an apology. And beer at Kincaid’s could have been our first date, but you blew that. And being here now isn’t a date. So pizza in Brockton will be our first date.”
She really hoped Gavin didn’t have a thing about putting out on the first date because she had plans for him later. And if he was still trying to be a gentleman, then...well, they’d just have to negotiate terms for his surrender.
* * *
Cait wasn’t sure what was so special about the place Gavin brought her, but she’d enjoyed the drive. They took his truck and, after skipping over the country stations as quickly as possible, he found a radio station with songs she didn’t hate. He kept the music low, anyway, while they talked—mostly funny stories from their childhoods. They both had very bossy older sisters, so they bonded over that.
He held her hand, their arms resting on the center console, and every once in a while, he would run the tip of his thumb in circles against her palm.
It wasn’t a bad way to spend almost forty minutes on the road. And he’d been right. She was hungry for actual food by the time they pulled into the parking lot.
She didn’t even think to wait for him to walk around and open her door for him, but he met her in front of the truck and held out his hand. When she threaded her fingers through his, she felt a fleeting sense of panic.
It hadn’t been so long ago that the mere sight of him was enough to annoy her. And yet here they were, holding hands like they were a couple. Were they a couple? Or was this just an extension of the very mini vacation from her life he’d offered her with his apartment?
She didn’t know, but it felt right and she was enjoying herself, so she was going to go with it.
“So what kind of pizza do you like?” he asked, once they’d been seated at a fairly private table and given menus. They were seated across from one another, and his leg rested lightly against hers.
She shrugged, because she wasn’t really picky. “I like most toppings that aren’t vegetables. Except mushrooms, I guess. They aren’t my favorite, but I can live with mushrooms in a combo with something else. My mom loves them, so I’ve had to develop coping skills over the years.”
“How about buffalo macaroni and cheese?”
“I like...” She stopped, frowning. “Wait. Do you mean on a pizza?”
“Yeah. Baked macaroni and cheese with buffalo chicken. And, bonus, it doesn’t have any vegetables.”
“When I said I like most toppings, I meant normal ones. Pepperoni. Sausage. Maybe some bacon. I’ll even have a slice of Hawaiian in a pinch, though I personally think pineapple on a pizza is a little sketchy.”
He raised one eyebrow, and then his mouth curved into a smile. “Do you trust me?”
“No.”
Gavin’s eyes widened. “Seriously?”
“Pizza’s serious business. It takes time to build that kind of trust.”
“I can’t earn your trust if you don’t let me try.”
She considered that, and he was right. “Okay, I’ll try it. But just know I can hold a grudge for a long time.”
He winked at her as the server approached. “I won’t let you down.”
They both ordered sodas and he took care of ordering the pizza. Cait shook her head at the offer of bread, because of the doughnuts, and because putting baked macaroni and cheese and buffalo chicken on a pizza probably didn’t do much for its calorie count.
When they were alone again, he reached across the table and took her hand in his. It seemed as though he was a very touchy-feely person, which was sweet. Cait wasn’t, really, and her mom and Duke hadn’t been much for touching in public. But she liked the contact, and the fact he wanted it.
But when he ran his thumb over her nail, she wanted to curl her fingers and hide her hands from him. “I’m not really good at the whole long-fingernail thing, I guess. Or nail polish.”
“So? Some women paint their nails and some don’t. Some guys have beards and some don’t.” He chuckled. “I tried once, before I joined the fire department. I don’t grow a cool, hipster beard. Mine’s more like somebody glued dust bunnies to my face. Fuzzy and splotchy and...not a good look.”
That made her laugh. “I got a manicure once, with my mom. She got a gift certificate from my stepdad and brother for Mother’s Day a few years ago and made me go with her. It took forever and the nail polish lasted maybe two days.”
The corner of his mouth lifted. “Interesting word choice, made. Most of the women I know love to go to the salon or the spa or whatever the hell you call it.”
She pulled her hand free and curled it into a fist, to hide her nails. “I guess I’m not like most of the women you know.”
“No, you’re not.” He pried gently until she uncurled her fingers, and then he ran his thumb over her palm. Cait wondered if he could see the shiver that ran down her spine. “So you don’t paint your nails or grow them long. So what? You take care of your family with these hands. You save lives. You flip off firefighters. I like your hands.”
She wasn’t sure if she wanted to cry or climb over the table, straddle his lap and kiss him until they both forgot what they’d been talking about.
“Tell me the Joe Grassano story.”
She was confused for a few seconds by the abrupt subject change, though the name seemed familiar. “Who?”
“The firefighter you pushed down the stairs.”
“That was an accident!”
He laughed, because he obviously knew that. “As I heard the story, you and Tony were going down the stairs and Joe got in the way. You bumped into him and then you yelled something, stuck your arm out and he fell down the stairs.”
“That is not what happened,” she said, but after a few seconds of thought, she frowned. “Okay, that is what happened. But it’s all in how you say it, I guess.”
“How would you say it?”
If it was just a random firefighter asking her that, she’d probably get defensive. But she knew Gavin didn’t believe she’d deliberately pushed Joe Grassano down the stairs. “We were carrying the stretcher down the stairs, and...let’s just say the guy could have used a calorie tracker. I bumped into Joe, which jostled my patient. And, yeah, I think I yelled something at him because what moron stops on the stairs in front of two EMTs carrying a stretcher? But I saw the oh, shit expression on his face and realized he was off balance, and I was reaching to grab his turnout coat—with my back jammed up against the stretcher to help stabilize it, I might add—when he fell. My fingertips did brush the coat, but I didn’t push him.”
He grinned, leaning back in his chair. “I didn’t think you did.”
“If I thought you believed I pushed the man on purpose, I wouldn’t still be sitting here.”
“For the record, Joe knows you didn’t push him.”
“I know. We had ice cream the next day and laughed about it. But I know how you guys like a story.”
“How come Tony was at the back, though? It seems like he should have gone first since the stretcher being at an angle puts more weight on the person in front.”
That got her back up a little, even though she supposed it was a valid question. “I went first because that’s where I was. You think I should have stepped aside and let the man handle it?”
His eyes widened and she saw the instant he realized his misstep. “Whoa. That’s not where I was going with that. Jamie would kick my ass.”
The name was vaguely familiar. “Jamie?”
“Jamie Rutherford...Kincaid, I guess. Scott’s wife. She’s LT at Ladder 41, but she filled in at E-59 when Walsh got hurt. She’s a great firefighter—one of the best—and she would kick my ass if she thought I implied a woman couldn’t do the job. Or your job.”
“As she should.”
“But when you’re a team, you’ve got people with different strengths and weaknesses—uh, not that carrying victims would be a weakness for you... I’m going to shut up now.”
She laughed, letting him off the hook. “Tony was at the back, but he also had all the gear slung over his shoulder and I had none. And yes, going down multiple flights of stairs makes it more difficult, but being at the front enables me to set the pace, and Tony has the strength to hold his end not only up, but back if necessary, so it isn’t pushing me down the stairs.”
“You guys have worked together awhile?”
“Four years. We don’t even really need verbal communication at this point. We’re a good pair, I think.”
He nodded, his face serious. “Do you guys spend time together off the job?”
Cait felt her eyebrows shoot up, and she cocked her head a little. The day was going so well, so she really hoped he wasn’t going there. “What exactly are you asking me, Gavin?”
* * *
Gavin kept his mouth shut for a few seconds, until he could work through what had just happened. He was having one of the best days he’d had in a long time, but right now he felt like he was leaning out over a cliff and Cait was deciding whether she’d reach out a hand to pull him back in or not.
“I was just asking if you guys hang out when you’re not working. Like, Grant was at my place yesterday before you got there. And I had dinner with Rick and his wife, Jess, a few weeks ago because I helped him do her closet shelving stuff. We all hang out at Kincaid’s and shoot pool. Like, are you friends in addition to being partners?”
Her face relaxed and he hoped that was a sign he’d given the right answer. “Okay, I’m sorry. You’d be surprised how often people say shitty things to one of us, with the whole wink wink nudge thing. I can get a little cranky about things.”
“No, you don’t say,” he said, laughing and squeezing her hand so she’d know he was messing with her.
“I was going to say I can be a little touchy, but I know you’d turn that into an invitation.”
He grinned. “Absolutely.”
“Anyway. Tony is married, and he and his husband have two kids who call me Auntie Cait. We’re friends, and I go to the kids’ birthday parties and their barbecues and stuff, but he and I don’t generally hang out apart from his family just because we work together all day. There are more of you, so you can switch up who you’re drinking and playing pool with, you know?”
“That makes sense. The important thing is that you have such a strong working relationship. Makes the job easier, for sure.”
Somehow they were leaning toward work talk, and he didn’t really want to do that. They were both first responders so they had that in common, but it also meant work talk could become all they talked about. He’d dated a dispatcher for the PD once and the relationship conversation had gotten stale very quickly.
But he didn’t really want to talk about their families, either, because he didn’t want her thinking about her mom and brother right now. She’d had a relaxing night and a fun day, so far, and he’d seen the emotional toll worrying about them took on her.
He wanted her to keep enjoying herself because he was really hoping she’d go back upstairs with him when they got back to his place, rather than getting in her car and going home.
“I can’t believe you’ve never been here,” he said, for lack of anything else he considered a safe subject.
“I guess I’ve probably heard the name, but I don’t come down this way a lot and when there’s good pizza less than two blocks over, you don’t feel a need to broaden your pizza horizons.”
“I really hope today doesn’t ruin your usual pizza place for you forever.”
She laughed. “There you go, being cocky again.”
“Confident,” he corrected.
When the pizza arrived, she looked at it and groaned. “I might actually have to go for a run to work off those calories and I really hate running.”
“I hate to tell you this, but there’s no way you’re going for a run after you eat this pizza. We’ll probably have to sit here a few minutes before we can even walk to my truck.”
“Look at this thing. I have to do something to offset these calories.”
Even though he could think of a lot of ways they could burn a few calories together, Gavin kept his mouth shut. But the struggle must have shown on his face because she looked at him and rolled her eyes.
“You’d have to be really good to work off a slice of this.”
“Go ahead and have two slices,” he said with a grin.
She arched an eyebrow at him. “Is that confidence again?”
“No, that’s cocky.”
He knew as soon she took her first bite and made a low sound of appreciation that his spur-of-the-moment idea to bring her here had been the right decision. Just getting to spend the extra time with her in the truck had been enough, but the jolt of pleasure he got at seeing her enjoyment was a sweet bonus.
“Good, isn’t it?” he asked when she’d practically inhaled a few bites.
“It’s okay.” Her eyes crinkled with amusement, though, because she knew it was a hell of a lot better than okay.
They each had two slices, and Gavin was tempted to go for a third, but then he’d be uncomfortably full and he really hoped he had plans for the evening.
“I invited you,” he pointed out when she reached for the check. “So it’s my treat, if that’s okay with you.”
After a few seconds, she pulled her hand back. “Thank you. It was delicious.”
“You can take the leftovers home to your family, if you’re not afraid they’ll turn their noses up at your regular pizza from now on.”
She laughed as they pushed back their chairs. “I don’t know if it was that good, but I feel like we should do some laps around the parking lot because I’m so full.”
It felt natural to take her hand when they got outside, and she laced her fingers through his. They didn’t do any laps, but they did take their time walking back to his truck. It wasn’t a warm day, by any means, but it wasn’t bitterly cold. Or maybe it was just the heat of hopeful anticipation keeping him warm.
And the closer they got to his apartment—and her car—the more intense that hopeful anticipation got, until he would have been drumming his fingers on the wheel if he wasn’t holding her hand.
Once he’d found a place to park and killed the engine, he tried to come up with something smooth to say. The truck was parked between his building and her vehicle, so he’d either be walking her to her car or walking with her to his front door. He knew which direction he wanted to go, but he was inexplicably nervous and his brain couldn’t come up with anything that sounded charming or casual.
“You want to come up for a while?” Please say yes. Please say yes.
She said yes.