Firefighter's Virgin

I heard the shower in the background and saw one of the largest showers I’d ever seen before in my life. The floor-to-ceiling tiles filled a ten-foot area that had both a rainforest showerhead above and massaging shower heads on the wall. It was one of those showers that I suspected had been in a magazine before and I really would have loved to spend a nice long hour feeling that water beat down on my muscles.

“Look at this.”

I handed him my phone as I tried to zip up my dress and grab my shoes all at the same time. There was no time to waste: I had to get this mess fixed before I lost my job. As fun as it was to hang out with Brandon, I had a son and a house and bills that I needed to pay and to do that, I had to keep my job.

“Well, I was with you, so of course, I didn’t send this. Are you angry? Is that why you’re leaving?”

“No, don’t be silly. I’ve been fighting the computer programs and all these errors at work. There must have been something I missed. I need to get to work and hopefully stop this from happening to anyone else. I’m really confused, maybe there’s a virus or something… I just don’t know what’s going on.”

“Don’t go. I need to tell you something,” Brandon said as he grabbed my hand and

pulled me to the small bench at the end of his bed.

The serious look on his face instantly had me worried that something in the message had been truthful. It couldn’t be, though; I knew Brandon and he wasn’t the type of guy who did illegal things – or at least I didn’t think he was. The more I thought about it, the more I realized I didn’t know as much about him as I thought I did.

“What’s going on?”

“You might not have a hacker that’s targeting your whole system. I think there is someone specifically targeting me.”

“Someone is after you?”

“Yes, there’s been a lot of strange things going on lately. Is there someone you can call to check if anyone else received a strange message? I suspect it was only you, and that it’s because you had contact with me.”

“Yeah, my co-worker Tom is going to be back on Monday. I could have him take a look at it.”

“I’d do that. There’s a lot I haven’t told you.”

“Like, a lot about you? What do you mean? Is the message true? Are you doing something illegal?”

I couldn’t stop asking him questions. They were coming to my mind faster than I could think through them. There was a secret Brandon had been keeping from me and I wanted to know what it was. My heart had already started to open up to him. I’d given in to all the things I said I would never give in to. This couldn’t all be some scam for him to cover up illegal activity; I knew it couldn’t be that. Or at least, I thought I knew.

“No, I’m not doing anything illegal. I’ll tell you everything I know, but I warn you I don’t know all that much. I’m just as confused as you are.

“My trading account had a red flag on it and there was a scary-looking guy who lied and pretended like he worked for the federal government. When I let him into the house, he threatened me and Josh and then left. My credit card was frozen, as well, but I thought that was unrelated, and now I just don’t know.”

“Who would want to do this to you?” I asked as I tried to process everything.

If someone was out to get me, I would think that I’d have some sort of idea who it was. Maybe I wouldn’t know the exact person, but I’d know if there were people I had made so angry they didn’t like me. Certainly, Brandon had to have some clue to who might put this much effort into ruining his life.

“I don’t know for sure.”

“What do you mean? How could you not know?” I yelled at him.

I hadn’t yelled in years and it scared me how emotional I had gotten all of a sudden. This guy had won my heart – I couldn’t deny it – and now he was telling me there was at least one person on earth who hated him so dearly that they wanted to cause this kind of chaos in his life. That was scary to me.

Hate and love were emotions that stayed tied together. It was hard for someone to hate strongly if they hadn’t loved the person previously, or loved someone involved in the situation. I remembered this tidbit from my psychology classes in college. Hate and love were connected, so it was a big deal that Brandon couldn’t tell me who he might have loved and hurt so badly that they would take this sort of revenge.

“I tried to be an honest businessman who did deals that were good for myself and other companies. I can’t think of someone in that area who would be this angry to personally attack me.”

“And, your private life? Have you hurt anyone recently?”

Brandon laughed and turned back toward the shower in the bathroom without answering me. I followed him and stood there while he ran his hands through his hair and contemplated what he wanted to tell me.

“I’ve hurt a lot of people. If I’m being honest with myself, I’m sure there are plenty of women who are angry with me. I honestly don’t know who would be this angry, though. I’m sorry, Delilah. I haven’t been the greatest of men over the last few years.”

His eyes looked gloomy and dark as the memories of his past filled them. I knew that feeling, though. As much as I wanted to judge him for his past, I couldn’t judge a man who had acted just as I had since losing my husband. There were probably plenty of men from the last year who were angry with me. Certainly, I didn’t think they would sabotage my life, but women were much different creatures. A scorned woman wasn’t someone you ever wanted to deal with blindly.

“I understand. Was there someone recently?”