One Bride for Three Firemen

“Fucking stupid!” the landlord yells out, walking toward the kitchen. “What the fuck are you doing? You could have burned the house down!”

The guy brushes against Pete, who is vibrating with rage now. I’ve never seen Pete like this before. He looks at the woman, then looks at the guy, then puts his body in between the guy and the kitchen. Honestly, it looks like he’s ready to kick the guy’s ass.

“Where’s the fire extinguisher?” Pete snarls.

The guy stops up short. “Excuse me?”

Stephan walks over to stand next to Pete, and now they are both daring the guy to keep talking.

“Landlord regulations say that you have to provide a fire extinguisher in each unit,” Stephan informs him. “So where is it?”

“Listen, I’m not the one who started this!” the guy announces. “This is her fault—”

He throws out one arm to point at her, and even though she is across the room, she jumps in dismay.

“You’re all right,” I tell her automatically, and make sure he can’t see her from where he is anymore.

“It’s a four-hundred-dollar citation,” Pete announces. “Maybe you want to find one?”

“Listen, this is my house…”

“Maybe you already have one? Or you can get one before we leave?” Stephan adds, letting the guy know that we are giving him a chance.

The guy shifts from foot to foot, balling his hands into pointless fists at his sides. Though we’ve never had to beat somebody’s ass to teach them a lesson (in pursuit of official duties of course), we could.

Finally he turns around and rushes back toward me, glaring at the little lady behind me. She keeps her distance, using me as a shield. I am more than happy to be that for her.

“I want you out of here!” he hisses just before he leaves. “You did this!”

She squeaks in fright and Pete strides across the room quickly.

“Sir, I asked you to locate the required equipment,” he roars. “Don’t make me escalate this situation any further!”

“FINE!” the guy bellows, leaving the apartment and slamming the door behind him.

Chapter 6

Olivia

The cookies seemed like such a good idea. As soon as I woke up in the morning, I remembered all of yesterday: the teenage jerks in the shop, getting fired, then practically getting evicted.

But then I remembered I still have five… No, make that four days left. I can find a way out of this. After all, Roger and I used to be engaged. And he loved my cookies.

We only dated a few months before he popped the question. He owned a small car dealership at the time and I brought my little Honda in there for repairs. He explained they didn’t service Hondas, but got one of his guys to give me a tow to another shop, which seemed nice.

Roger had a house and always had nice cars. He liked to take me to the best restaurants and always wanted me to dress really nice. He acted like I am dumb, which I am not, because I don’t have a college degree.

But I did like the flashy way he showed me off, at least for a while. Even the proposal was flashy—he hired a violinist to come up to our table at the most expensive restaurant in the area. I should have known something was up when he asked that we be seated in the middle of the room.

When he got down on one knee, he was talking really loud. I said yes. Everyone applauded.

He had this big house and asked me to move in. There was a vacant apartment upstairs and no one would think we were living in sin or anything if I lived up there. It was a pretty expensive apartment. It barely left me anything after rent. But it was only supposed to be temporary.

But once I was in, he seemed to grow tired of me pretty fast. Within another few months, we had stopped hanging out every night. A few months later, he said he thought maybe we were rushing things. He asked for the ring back.

But somewhere, deep down, I think he really cared for me at one time. It didn’t work out, and I am sure that happens all the time. But certainly he must be willing to sit down and talk about this like adults? Maybe we can work something out. Certainly he won’t evict me like I am nobody, like I am some stranger.

He used to say I was the best cook he ever knew. He said I would take really great care of our kids one day. It was just about the highest compliment he ever gave me. He’s not great with compliments.

First thing this morning, I got up and started creaming the butter with the sugar, making the whole standard chocolate chip batter. Butter and brown sugar are the foundation of a good batter.