One Bride for Three Firemen
Honestly, being in the antique firehouse isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. The roof leaks. It smells like armpits when it rains. And I don’t care what anybody says, stables always feel like stables. You know there is like a foot of horse shit underneath there.
Once I had a girlfriend, but just for a minute. She couldn’t fit in. She wanted to get in the middle of us, always felt out of place. She caused more problems than she solved, but that wasn’t her fault. She just wasn’t it.
Oh, and it didn’t help that Pete had this really embarrassing crush on her. It was honestly hard to watch.
But I just can’t leave these guys. They’re like my family. Even though they frustrate the fuck out of me. Even though sometimes Trigger is so stupid I want to kick him in the head. And Pete is such an arrogant dickhead, I don’t think anybody else would want to work for him. He probably doesn’t even realize the reason we never get shifts coming in to cover us from other firehouses is that he has pissed everybody off at one time or another. Only Trigger and I really know how to handle the guy. And to be honest, he can handle us. We stumble sometimes, but usually we are a solid team.
When it works, it works great. And this afternoon, I am beginning to think that maybe we are just missing one more piece.
Could she be that piece?
Trigger is all nervous and shy as we walk up the porch steps. He’s got a fire extinguisher dwarfed in his hand, holding it like a prom corsage. The big dummy. I kind of love him.
Pete stares at the doorbells for a second, trying to figure out which one belongs to Olivia. Sure, we could go through the landlord again, but none of us really wants to do that.
Finally he just shrugs and punches the one opposite from the one we used this morning. We wait. A minute goes by. I look down at my shoes, seeing if I can see my toes wiggling inside them.
To my great relief, I can see small, delicate bare feet through the wavy window glass on the front door as she runs down the staircase. My dick jumps in my pants. I am 100 percent optimistic about this.
She flings open the door and stands there, confused and panting. Again, her lips are open. I wonder if she does that on purpose? Does she know how beautiful that makes her?
“Um, hello?” she breathes shyly, pushing her wavy blonde hair back behind her ears. “Pete? Right?”
“Yes, hello,” he says cautiously. “We were wondering if we might, um, drop by? To say hello?”
She gasps a little, as though catching herself in a quick thought, then smiles and bites her lower lip.
“Well, this is a surprise,” she answers breathlessly.
I catch the blush that’s creeping up her neck from the open collar of her dress. It is a simple look, not fancy. The kind of thing a girl would waltz around in, all barefoot while she does things in the house. Flowers on cotton. A bow that ties it together.
“I hope we didn’t catch you at a bad time,” Pete continues, his voice a little lower and more gravelly than usual.
I swear, it’s like he’s warning her to kick us out. What the hell is wrong with him?
But instead, she shrugs and blushes, backing up and opening the door even wider. I catch Pete’s eye like to say I told you so, but he rolls his eyes and looks away.
The four of us going back up the grand old staircase creaks and cracks and generally makes a hell of a lot of racket. It’s not quite like the firehouse, which is eighteen-inch-thick brick walls and timber beams that could support the weight of a bus if they had to. This is a frame house, built for a family with children. Our place was built to drive a truck into.
Once inside the apartment, I get a chance to look around. I didn’t really take in any details this morning when everything was going on. It all kind of happened so fast. It is a simple space. Sunny and cheery. Not flashy or modern or stylish in any way. Just homey. The wood floors are covered in a few nice rugs. There are some paintings on the walls, nothing fancy. But pretty. Like she cares about the little touches. The curtains are sheer with flowers, making the sunlight a little bit blue when it falls across the floorboards.
On one end of the room is the kitchen, separated from the living room by a simple table with four chairs around it. There is a bowl of flowers in the center, next to a giant plate of chocolate chip cookies.