The Problem with Fire - M.E. Clayton Page 0,4

And she had finally given up when she realized I was never going to end up with a nine-to-five. So, since Amy, I’ve been making do with casual dating, but even that was getting old. However, it was hard to find a woman who was confident enough doing her own thing, that she didn’t flip out if she didn’t get to see me for three days. All signs pointed to older women who had their shit together and weren’t interested in hovering or having enough boyfriend pictures for their social media.

I guess that’s why I was so obsessed with my neighbor. She checked off all my boxes, and then some. Between having a fulltime job and a teenage daughter, I seriously doubted she’d have time to feel slighted if I didn’t respond to a text fast enough.

And it wasn’t that I didn’t want to bother. It wasn’t like that at all. But being a firefighter was not all calendar photo shoots and false alarms. Though rewarding, our shifts were brutal. The bonds and camaraderie were solid, and the risks were real. And like any other profession where the man next to you made the difference in whether you’d see tomorrow or not, it was a brotherhood. And believe it or not, some women got jealous over that kind of bond shared with somebody else. I gave my all to my job and I just wanted a woman who could understand that, rather than resent it.

And while children have never been a must for me, I still wanted a partner I could come home to every night and just love on. If she gave me children, great. If she didn’t, great. Children weren’t a deal breaker for me, one way or the other. I really just wanted a sense of family. And if that family consisted of only me and my partner, well, that was still a family. If it consisted of me, my partner, and twenty kids, that was still a family. And that’s all I really wanted. The feeling of belonging to something bigger than I was.

My phone rang-too early in the day, in my opinion-jerking me out of my obsessive thoughts about my sexy neighbor. “Hey. What’s up?”

“If Mom calls me one more time to tell me how it’s so nice to have at least one son to talk to, I’m going to drive over to your house, and then, to whatever city Nathan’s in, and kick your guys’ fucking ass,” Gideon snapped into phone. “Call your goddamn mother!” He hung up before I could tell him Mom was playing him because I just talked to her yesterday. I also knew for a fact that Nathan always called her before and after a series.

But before I could decide on whether to call him back or not, my phone rang again. I answered it still wondering what Mom was playing at. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Kellan’s voice greeted over the line. “Some of us are headed to Choker’s tonight before we hit our stride tomorrow.” Firehouse shifts varied from city to city or county to county, and in Silias County we were required to work three on, three off, four on, three off, and they were twelve-hour shifts. The family men made the effort to make it home each night after their shifts, but most of us just slept at the firehouse while we were on. It was more convenient that way.

“I don’t know, Kel,” I said, not really feeling the social vibe. “I’d rather hang out at the end of our stride than right before it.”

“Oh, come on,” he cajoled. “You’re talking like an old man.” Kellan was a year older than I was. “Besides, Daria, is going.”

“If that was supposed to be an incentive, it’s not, Kel,” I replied dryly.

“Dude. Sayer, man,” he kept on. “The girl is hot.”

I scoffed. “And she knows it,” I said. “Kellan, man, she likes the attention a little too much.”

He chuckled over the phone. “You don’t gotta marry the girl, Sayer.”

“She’s also the firehouse administrative assistant, Kellan.” I shook my head even though he couldn’t see me. “No way am I shitting where I eat.”

“Dude, you’re going to die a virgin.”

“Eat a dick.” Kellen knew very well that I wasn’t a virgin. We’d known each other for the entire eight years that I’ve been a firefighter for Silias County. We’ve partied together often in the past.

“The sexy neighbor still not giving it up?”

I groaned.

One stupid, stupid, stupid drunken night, I had confessed my obsession