Firefighter's Virgin

“Go ahead,” I encouraged. “Tell me.”

“It’s awful.”

“Tell me, anyway.”

“No judgment?” she asked.

I laughed. “I promise.”

She gave another little sigh. “Sometimes I think that if we weren’t brother and sister, I’d probably never associate with anyone like Brent.”

“Ah…”

“I told you it’s horrible.”

“It’s not,” I assured her. “It’s honest, and the sad fact is, the truth hurts.”

“He’s been really nice agreeing to let me stay here, too,” Megan said.

I frowned. “Aren’t you paying rent?”

“Well, yeah—”

“And, you are doing all the cooking and cleaning, as far as I can tell.”

“Um—”

“Added to which you have a full-time job.”

“But—”

“So from where I’m standing, it sounds like you’re the one doing Brent a favor.”

I could sense that Megan was a little amused when she replied. “It’s not like he asked me to do any of those things,” she said, defending her brother. “I mean, I volunteered.”

“And, did he try and stop you?” I asked. “Or at least offer up some help?”

“No…”

“My point precisely,” I said. “He likes getting you to do the grunt work because that means he doesn’t have to do shit. And trust me, if Brent can get out of doing work—any kind of work—he’s all in.”

“You really do know my brother,” she said, with a smile in her voice.

It made me long to see her face. It amazed me that it had been nearly two months since I’d last seen her. The memory I had of her now was slightly blurry, like a foggy picture from a few decades back. I could remember basic features—the beautiful hazel of her eyes and the brown-gold sheen of her hair—but the other details of her face eluded me.

Was it possible to fall in love with a voice? I wondered. There were moments when I really felt that you could. She hadn’t brought up meeting me, and I realized that it was because she was scared I might misconstrue the request. The only reason I was hesitating at this point was because I needed to figure out what I wanted and how badly I wanted it.

“He brought a girl home last night,” Megan said, cutting through my thoughts.

“What?”

“He brought a girl home last night,” she repeated.

“Who did?”

“Brent did,” Megan replied. “Did you just zone out on me?”

“Uh…no.”