The Complete Firehouse 56 Series Page 3

  “I can go,” I offered.

  “No way,” Dad said firmly. “You’ve been doing too much around here as it is. You should take the night off.”

  I started to protest, but he stopped me:

  “That’s not optional. I know you want to take care of Mom, but you need to take care of yourself too, sometimes.”

  “In fact,” he added, crossing the kitchen and popping open the refrigerator, “I think there’s a prescription for you in here, too…”

  He ducked behind the refrigerator door and rummaged around for a few seconds, then he emerged with a bottle of wine.

  “Here it is,” he said, flashing his signature playful grin as he presented the bottle to me. “Pinot grigio. They prescribe this stuff for over-worked daughters who need to take a break before they run themselves into the ground.”

  I couldn’t help but smile. Even in the most trying times, my dad had a positive energy that was contagious.

  “I’ll take care of Mom tonight,” he said. “Why don’t you pour yourself a glass and relax? Maybe sit outside by the pool, get some fresh air and sunshine, go for a swim…”

  I wanted to protest, but I realized that I couldn’t argue with my dad. Ever since my mom had been diagnosed, cancer had completely taken over my life. Taking care of Mom had become my top priority, whether that meant cooking, cleaning, driving her to appointments… I had even given up my apartment and moved back into my parents’ house, so I could be there to help around the clock. I knew that I needed a break, and I knew that I needed to take care of myself, too.

  So, I took my dad’s advice. Fifteen minutes later I had changed into a pink bikini and old pair of denim cut-offs, poured myself a jumbo-sized glass of pinot grigio, and headed out to the backyard pool.

  Even though it was late in the day, the summer heat still prickled my skin when I stepped outside. By the time I had made my way across the pool deck, a thin sheen of dewy sweat had started to form on my exposed skin.

  I undid the button on my denim shorts and rolled the waistband slightly down my hips, so the sun could reach my bikini line, then I sprawled out on one of the Adirondack chairs by the poolside.

  I had brought a book to keep my mind occupied on something other than cancer, and after getting adjusted in the chair I cracked the paperback open to the first page.

  After reading and re-reading the same page for what felt like the hundredth time, I finally dropped the book into my lap and huffed a sigh of defeat. Even the promise of escaping to some fictional, cancer-free universe wasn’t enough to stop my mind from wandering. I was supposed to be relaxing, but all I could think about was the conversation I had with my mom at the hospital.

  I tossed the paperback aside and reached for the glass of wine, hoping that the pinot grigio would offer more relief than the book had. My fingers wrapped around the glass, squashing the tiny beads of condensation that had formed in the heat, and I took a long gulp.

  There we go, I thought, as the wine immediately sent a calming tingle through my veins.

  My eyes started to wander as I took another hearty sip, following the fence line that separated our backyard from the next-door neighbors. The Hudson family had lived next door for as long as I could remember, and the Hudson boys -- Brady and Josh -- had been like brothers to me when I was growing up.

  Mrs. Hudson had passed away when the boys were young, and my mother had taken them under her wing and treated them like her own, insisting that they join us for dinners and family outings. I didn’t have any objections; I was an only child, and there weren’t any other kids close to my age in the neighborhood. I was just grateful for the company.

  The three of us drifted apart naturally as we got older, but I had always stayed on friendly terms with Brady.

  For some reason my eyes stayed glued to the Hudson’s house as I took another sip of wine. My mind was racing with memories from growing up. Then a voice shattered my concentration:

  “Lookin’ for me?”

  I nearly choked on my mouthful of wine. My eyes darted towards the opposite corner of the fence and landed on something tall, dark, handsome and shirtless.

  Speak of the devil. It was Brady Hudson. And he was walking straight towards me.

  In my mind, there were two versions of Brady Hudson. There was the Brady I practically grew up with and regarded as a brother. And then there was the Brady who was standing in front of me; the Brady who looked like he had wandered in straight off the set of Magic Mike.

  His washboard abs glistened with sweat, and his muscles were rigid with thick veins. His denim jeans were dirty from working in the yard, and the waist hung a little too low. My eyes followed the sharp contours of his Adonis belt, and when I moved my gaze even lower and noticed the bulge in his jeans, I felt a sudden pang of heat tingle through my pussy. I snapped my legs together, reacting to the unexpected jolt of excitement.

  He’s practically your brother! I tried to remind myself, but my body wasn’t listening. I couldn’t stop myself from squirming in the chair, so I popped up and took a giant gulp of liquid courage as I strutted towards the fence.

  “Hey Ladybug,” Brady grinned at me. He leaned his elbows forward on the fence post and flashed a smile that turned my insides into white hot lava.

  Ladybug had been his nickname for me since we were kids. The summer before first grade, our backyard had become infested with the little red bugs. I was obsessed with them, and I had decided that I was going to convert my backyard sandbox into a ladybug sanctuary. I was about halfway done with constructing a makeshift building for the bugs out of random objects I had picked out of the garage, when all of a sudden, the sky filled up with dense grey storm clouds. A few minutes later, the rain had started pelting down.

  Brady must have spotted me running frantically around my backyard, because he came out in the rain to ask what the hell I was doing. I explained through tears that I was trying to capture all of the ladybugs and bring them to the sanctuary I had constructed, before the rain washed them away. Brady was a few years older than me, so he was old enough to know that I was being absolutely ridiculous. But he didn’t say a word about it. Instead, he ran around the yard, helping me collect handfuls of ladybugs and carry them to safety. My obsession with ladybugs had ended a few months later, but the nickname stuck.

  I smiled at the memory, then I said: “Hey yourself.”

  “How’s your mom?” Brady asked. “I heard she’s in remission.”

  “She just finished her last round of chemo,” I nodded. “We brought her home yesterday. I think she’s still adjusting, but…” my voice trailed off. Mom had been battling cancer for five years, but I had never mastered the art of talking about it without getting emotional.

  I took another swig of wine, and my eyes got hooked on his abs again. My teeth dug into my bottom lip, and some crazy voice inside my head wondered what it would feel like to run my hands over the contours of his sculpted chest.

  “I’m so glad she’s finally home,” Brady said. His face lit up when he smiled, and the happiness that twinkled in his grey eyes looked genuine. Then he added: “Your mom really means a lot to me. I’ll never forget the way she looked out for Josh and me, after our mom died…”

  “She’s got a big heart,” I agreed. “She’s always looking out for others, or taking care of people… she can’t be happy unless she knows that everyone around her is happy, too.”

  My voice trailed off when I remembered the conversation we had in the hospital. I had basically just repeated the same thing my mom had told me: that she wanted me to be taken care of and happy.

  My heart thumped in my chest and I glanced back up at Brady. Suddenly a crazy, ridiculous idea started forming in my head.

  Mom loves Brady… she always has. He’s practically already part of the family, I thought. I threw back another gulp of wine. I wasn’t entirely sure where my thought process was taking me, but it felt dangerous.

  Brady cocked his head and smiled
again as he said something, but my brain was too preoccupied to listen. Part of me was trying to build up the courage to spit out the idea that had formed on the tip of my tongue, while the other part of me bit down on my lip, trying to stop myself before I said something crazy.

  I drained the last sip of wine in the glass and then, before I had time to hesitate, I blurted it out:

  “Hey Brady, I need to ask you for a favor.”

  “Name it.”

  “Will you marry me?”

  His eyebrows shot up and I knew that whatever he was expecting me to ask him, it wasn’t that.

  CHAPTER FIVE | BRADY

  My cock was still twitching in my jeans when I led Cassidy back to my place, under the pretense of refilling her wine glass. I sure as hell needed a drink after the proposition she had made me.

  “Sorry about the mess,” I said, sliding open the screen door at the back of the house. I let her step inside before me, then I followed behind. “I wasn’t expecting guests.”

  I wasn’t expecting a marriage proposal, either, I added silently to myself.

  I had definitely been caught off guard by Cassidy’s request. Sure, we had been pretty tight when we were kids. And even though we had drifted apart since then, I still felt a little spark whenever I saw her.

  Ok, maybe a little more than a spark. I thought Cass was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, and I had felt that way since seventh grade.

  She had those big green eyes that drove me crazy, and all that long black hair that was just begging to be yanked from behind. She stood a solid foot shorter than me, maybe more, and she had a body like an hourglass; tits that were just the right size to fill each hand, a narrow waist, and an ass that looked more delicious than peach pie.

  Cassidy Laurent was the creme de la creme, and compared to her, every other woman in the world was as plain as instant pudding.

  But Cassidy wasn’t like any other woman. She was like a sister to me. We had practically grown up together, and that’s why I had always considered her off-limits. I felt strangely protective of Cass, the same way I would feel protective of a baby sister. I wanted to keep her away from guys that were no good for her… guys like me.

  Besides, I was pretty sure she had stuck me in the ‘friendzone’ a long time ago. She never seemed to bat an eye at me.

  “Have a seat,” I said, taking the wine glass from her hand and indicating towards the kitchen table. She didn’t obey. Instead, she leaned forward on the granite kitchen countertop and blinked up at me, watching as I popped open the fridge and extracted a bottle of white wine.

  Still just as stubborn as ever, I thought to myself.

  Cassidy was probably the most stubborn person I had ever met. The first example that came to mind was that crazy ladybug farm she had tried to build in her sandbox as a kid. It was a comically misguided idea, but I knew that there was nothing I could say to dissuade her from doing it. When Cassidy set her mind to something, she followed through and did it. So, what did I do? I joined her.

  I admired Cassidy’s stubbornness. And I also admired her choice in swimwear. The little pink bikini she was wearing fit snug over her tits, and her hardened nipples popped through the spandex like little strawberries.

  I imagined peeling back one triangle of the bikini top and clamping her erect little bud between my lips, so I could get a taste. I wondered if her tits were sensitive; would she moan if I traced the tip of my tongue around her areola?

  Fuck, I felt my cock start to stiffen. There were a multitude of reasons why I couldn’t let myself think about Cass like that, and the most pressing one was the fact that my denim jeans were no match for the size and force of my fully erect dick fighting against the seams.

  “I hope you don’t mind chardonnay,” I said, forcing myself to focus on the wine instead of her strawberry nips. “It’s the only wine I have.”

  “You don’t seem like a chardonnay kind of guy,” Cassidy said, narrowing her eyes curiously.

  Guys aren’t supposed to drink chardonnay, I thought. Guys just fuck the women who drink it.

  I kept that thought to myself as I peeled the foil wrapper off of the wine bottle. It seemed inappropriate to talk about fucking other women when there was technically still a marriage proposal on the table. Instead, I said:

  “I’m more of a beer guy.”

  I wedged a corkscrew into the bottle and twisted, then I shimmied the cork out. Cassidy watched silently as I filled two glasses; first hers, then a second one for myself.

  “Anyways,” I slid the wine glass towards her across the countertop. “I know you didn’t follow me home just, so we could make small talk about my alcohol preferences.”

  She gulped. She was nervous, and I felt obligated to lighten the mood with a joke:

  “I think I know what this is about.”

  “You do?”

  “Sure,” I teased. “I think you just want to marry me, so you can get into my pants.”

  Her cheeks turned bright pink, illuminating the dust of freckles that I found so unexplainably adorable.

  “No!” she protested. Then she added an unconvincing: “Eww, gross!”

  I just smirked.

  “Come on, Cass. We both know you’ve been trying to get into my pants since high school.”

  I was totally kidding, but the way her face kept turning redder and redder made me wonder what was going through her head. I had to stop watching her squirm before I ended up giving myself a reason to blush.

  “I don’t want to get into your pants,” she told me firmly.

  “Then why do you want to marry me?”

  “I want to get married, so my mom will get off my freaking case about settling down!” she blurted out in an exasperated voice.

  She sighed heavily, and her shoulders slumped down.

  “Is this because of the c-word?” I asked. Cassidy nodded.

  Cancer. Got it.

  “She told me that she won’t be at peace about cancer or the possibility that she might… you know…”

  Die, I understood, and I nodded.

  “...until I’m married. She wants to know that I’ll be ok when she’s not around anymore.”

  “I can’t imagine how that must feel,” I shook my head slowly. “When my mom died, it was so… sudden. There was no time to plan for it or say goodbye. She was just here one second, and gone the next. But cancer…”

  “Cancer kills you slowly,” Cassidy finished for me, sniffing. “It gives you just enough time to realize what you’re leaving behind.”

  “Your mom is such a strong woman,” I marveled.

  “I know,” she said softly. “I just want to make her happy. She’s been through so much in the last few years: the cancer, remission, then the cancer coming back… If me getting married brings her a little bit of peace, then I’d be selfish not to give it to her.”

  “Ok,” I said. “But why me?”

  “Because she knows you,” she said. “She loves you like a son. Besides, she always used to joke about us getting together someday. I think she secretly had some weird twisted fantasy that you’d be her son-in-law.”

  “I don’t blame her,” I joked with a smug grin. “I’d want me as a son-in-law too.” Cassidy rolled her eyes, but the pink tint continued to spread over her cheeks.

  “But what about you?” I asked.

  “What about me?”

  “Do you actually want to get married?”

  “Of course not!” she said, her voice instantly defensive again. Then she backtracked: “I mean… someday. Not like this, obviously. But… if I ever met the right person…”

  I nodded. That sounded an awful lot like the same canned answer I would have given if I was the one put on the spot. In fact, it sounded a lot like the generic answer I had given to Josh when he drilled me about settling down.

  So here we were: two people who had no real interest in getting married, but had every intention of making a very special wo
man happy for what might be the last little bit of her life.

  I took a seat at the kitchen table. I had meant what I told Cassidy earlier: Judy Laurent had had been a guardian angel to Josh and I when we were younger. I’m not sure where we would have ended up without her.

  Learning that Mrs. Laurent had been diagnosed with cancer had been devastating; almost as devastating as it had been when I lost my actual mother as a child. I had a hell of a lot of respect for Mrs. Laurent, and I could understand why Cassidy was willing to do whatever she could to give her mom a tiny bit of peace. Considering how Mrs. Laurent had spent her entire life taking care of the two of us, it seemed like the least either of us could do.

  “So how would this work, exactly?” I asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean… would I get wife benefits?”

  “Wife benefits?” she wrinkled her nose skeptically.

  “Yeah,” I grinned suggestively. “You know… homecooked meals, clean laundry, blowjobs after long days at work…”

  “Shut up!” she squealed, her face turning bright red again. “You’re disgusting!”

  “You didn’t answer my question,” I pointed out.

  “I’m not your maid, Brady,” she said firmly. “And I’m not sucking your dick.”

  Even as she said the words, she couldn’t seem to stop herself from flicking her tongue over her lips, like she was already imagining how I’d taste in her mouth.

  “Hmmm,” I sighed thoughtfully, pretending to weigh my options as I swirled the chardonnay around in my glass, then I took a sip. My face immediately twisted in disgust.

  “Blech!” I choked. “How do women drink this shit?”

  She glanced down at her own glass and took a sip, then her nose wrinkled too.

  “Fuck this,” I said, taking both of our glasses by the stems and dumping them into the kitchen sink. “I refuse to get engaged while drinking a shitty $3 bottle of wine.”

  I opened the fridge again and dug around in the back, this time pulling out a bottle that I had buried all the way in the back. It was nothing too fancy… I wasn’t the kind of guy who could justify drinking a bottle of champagne that cost more than a monthly utility bill. It was just a bottle of Bollinger that the chief had given me a few months back to celebrate my six-year anniversary at Firehouse 56. The guys had taken me out for drinks that same night, so I had never gotten around to popping the bottle. And I hadn’t had an occasion to open since, or a person worth sharing it with. Until now.