Sudden Response (EMS 1)

Over the past couple of days she'd done a lot of thinking and decided that she'd use some of her savings to get more training. She was going to keep her focus on emergency medical services, but she was going to make sure that if anything ever prevented her from working on the ambulance then she'd have a career to fall back on.

"I wasn't done reading that page," Eric grumbled.

"You can read it after I'm done," she explained even as she turned the page back so the big baby could read it.

He snorted. "I don't read romance novels."

She snuggled closer to him, laying her head back on his shoulder so that he could see the book. "Um, you're reading a romance novel now."

"No, I'm not."

"Then what do you call it?"

"Killing time," he said with a shrug.

"Uh huh, you could just as easily kill time by watching the game with the guys," she said, nodding towards the flat screen that had everyone else's attention.

"Why would I do that when we're getting to the sex scene? Would you turn the page already?" he demanded impatiently.

"Sex?" one of the guys repeated and just like that she had ten guys standing behind her as they shoved each other out of the way to get a better look.

This was why she never got to read during her downtime, she thought as she got to her feet, trying not laugh as the guys groaned in disapproval. She rolled her eyes when she caught them pouting. "Here," she said, sighing as she tossed the book to Jim, a firefighter in his thirties. "Just toss it on my bunk when you're done."

"Why the hell did you do that? We were just getting to the good part!" Eric bitched, moving to grab the book back only to find the men gathered tightly around the book.

"Are you coming or not?" she asked, not bothering to look back as she made her way to the ambulance bay.

"Where are we going?" Eric asked as he quickly caught up with her.

"You're buying me breakfast," she informed him.

"No, I'm not," he said, opening the garage door for her.

She turned to glare up at him. "I don't know how the two of you got so damn cheap, but you are buying me breakfast and that's final."

"Yeah, good luck with that, Sweetheart," Eric said, throwing his arm over her shoulders and she couldn't help but let out a little sigh of relief. Whatever insanity had taken over last week was clearly over. They didn't talk about it, but then again they really didn't need to.

They'd been friends for over twenty years and at this point some things didn't need to be said. That little incident in her kitchen had been a mistake, one that made her ache, but a mistake nonetheless and they both rather put it behind them and forget about it. It was just one of those things that was better left alone.

*******

"Thanks for dinner," Joe said, smiling contently as she nibbled on a ketchup drenched fry.

"You're not welcome," he grumbled, wondering how the hell she got him to pay for breakfast, lunch, an ice cream, and dinner.

Oh, that's right, he thought dryly, she stole his wallet and refused to give it back. Since he caught the little gold digger eying the Hungry Man's Breakfast menu at Rick's Dinner earlier when they grabbed lunch and heard her mentioning something about trying the supreme breakfast tomorrow morning he knew he was going to have to steal his wallet back while she slept.

Normally he wouldn't mind buying her whatever she needed. Of course he busted her chops, but this was his Joe and he made damn sure that she was taken care of, but today everything she did was pissing him right the hell off.

She'd obviously forgiven him since she was talking to him, smiling and even joking around like nothing happened and that had him seeing red. Any other woman would have brought up that disaster in the kitchen at least a hundred times by now. At the very least she should have wanted to ask how he felt about it, but had she?

Hell no, not Joe. She acted like it was over and done with. Did she really want to pretend that she hadn't sucked on his tongue and that he hadn't ground the hardest damn erection he'd ever had against her? Well, he didn't.

He knew he was being an idiot, but he couldn't help it. His pride was taking a beating on this one. Was he really that forgettable? The thought really pissed him off, well, pissed him off more. It irritated the hell out of him that the woman he'd been drooling after for years thought he was that forgettable. Every time she came near him he had to curl his hands into fists to stop from grabbing her and showing her how unforgettable he really was.

"I think we should talk about what happened," he said before he realized what the hell he was doing, but once the words were out of his mouth he decided that they were damn well going to have this little talk.

She shrugged it off as she finished off her last fry. "The nurse was an idiot," she simply said, referring to an earlier call they had where a nurse decided to light up a cigarette next to their patient while they were stuck outside of a nursing home waiting to be buzzed in. They'd both gotten into it with the nurse and were expecting a call from Bill, but he wasn't worried.

"That's not what I was talking about. I think we should talk about what happened last week," he explained and when she frowned in adorable confusion he added, "in your kitchen."

"Well, I gave that some thought," she said, collecting their trash and opened the ambulance door and walked off, leaving him frustrated. Any other woman and he would have thought that she was just trying to create a little drama by waiting to finish that thought, but Joe liked the ambulance tidied up immediately after a meal so that the empty containers didn't stink up the ambulance.

"And?" he prompted when she climbed back into the ambulance and pulled her hair back into a lazy ponytail.

"And I made a few calls and I'm going up to New Hampshire Friday for three days of training through one of the schools to get a few certifications," she explained.

Since that wasn't what he was talking about and the last goddamn thing on his mind at the moment it took him a few minutes to figure out what the hell she just said.

"You're going for certification?" She nodded. "For what?"

"Dispatch and teaching First Aid and CPR."

He frowned, surprised that she'd listened to him and was actually going with it. Well, that had been easy. Maybe a little too easy, he realized as he narrowed his eyes on her.

"Are you taking a job in dispatch?" he asked, already deciding that would probably be the perfect job for and most importantly it would get her the hell out of a truck where she didn't belong.