Chapter Seven Maren
Chapter Seven
Maren
“We need to clean the house,” Calvin “Fitz” Fitzgerald says the second I open my bedroom door in the morning. With the bucket of supplies in his hand, he rounds the corner into his and Will’s bathroom. He’s my grumpy roommate, but he’s marrying a sunshine, so he’ll even out.
“This means my BFF is coming home!” I clap my hands several times before propping myself against the doorframe.
Fitz eyes me over his shoulder while squeezing cleaner into the toilet bowl. Over six feet tall, with thick brown hair, blue eyes, and a sexy scowl, Fitz could be a centerfold for a firefighter calendar, just like Will. But his personality isn’t as sexy. He’s a smoke jumper who would rather read a book than socialize.
“I think she’s my BFF,” he mumbles.
“She’s your fiancée.”
“Can’t she be both?”
“No.” I smirk. “When will she be here?”
“Any minute.”
I laugh. “Thanks for the short notice. She’s going to have to deal with my messy bathroom mirror. Is Will awake?”
“He didn’t come home last night.” Fitz scrubs the hell out of the toilet. His fiancée, Jamie, loves a clean house. When she lived here full time, she was the cleaning drill sergeant.
“Are we worried that he’s been in a car accident, or are we happy he got laid?” I ask.
“Nah, we would have heard about an accident by now. He probably stayed at the firehouse to make us think he got laid.”
I giggle. “You’re so mean.”
The front door creaks open.
“She’s here,” I whisper, eyes wide.
Fitz stands, drops the toilet brush into the bucket of supplies, and quickly washes his hands. “Why don’t you make yourself scarce for an hour or two?”
“Why?”
He glances up at my reflection in the mirror and smirks. “It’s about to get loud.”
I roll my eyes. “Why don’t you have your loud sex in the shed?”
“My bed is bigger.”
The creaky stairs alert us to Jamie’s proximity.
“There’s my BFF!” I meet her at the top of the stairs with a bear hug. Jamie’s a travel nurse, enjoying the rest of her twenties and the opportunity to explore new places before marrying Fitz and starting a family. They spend most of the winter together; then she takes assignments when it’s fire season. But she agreed to a six-week position at a psych hospital in Seattle before the start of fire season because the pay was too good to pass up.
And because I like to make my friends squirm, I keep a firm hold on Jamie, knowing she’s dying to be in Fitz’s arms and his bed after six weeks apart.
Fitz pries her from my hold.
Jamie giggles. “Missed you, too, Maren. How have—”
Fitz smashes his mouth to hers, hands tangled in her long black hair, a few inches longer than when I met her.
She moans, and he walks her backward into his bedroom and kicks the door shut. Then the door makes a thunk sound like something hit it.
She did. He’s going to screw her against the door before they make it to the bed.
I don’t plan on standing this close to the bedroom, listening to their loud sex, but I take a few seconds to envy that kind of passion. No one thought Fitz would ever marry or attempt a committed relationship. The firefighter profession, in general, doesn’t have a great track record with long-lasting relationships.
“Oh god, Fitz ...” Jamie moans.
Suppressing a grin, I jog down the stairs to grab a coffee.
When I’m half-caffeinated and under a blanket on the sofa, I text Ozzy since he hasn’t texted me. Not that he needed to, but it’s nice to get a follow-up after a date if it was a good one.
I know scavenging for chickens wasn’t the dream date, but I hope he gave me points for originality.
Maren: G-morning
I start to vomit a long message about how much fun I had last night despite Reagan and his chickens, but I delete everything except the basic good morning.
Ozzy: Who’s this?
Maren: Lol it’s Maren. You should flesh out my contact information
Ozzy: Maren who?
I laugh. It’s funny—I think.
Maren: The chicken lady. Am I that forgettable?
Ozzy: You have chickens?
Maren: Cute. What are you doing?
Ozzy: Yard work
Maren: Sounds like fun
Ozzy: It’s not
Ozzy: My daughter is helping me. She’s the best daughter in the world. When we are done I’m buying her pizza and dessert breadsticks
Maren: You’re a nice dad
Ozzy: I’m an okay dad. I should let my daughter ride her bike to school by herself
Maren: How far is the school?
Ozzy: 2 miles
Maren: I’m sure that’s a hard decision
Ozzy: It’s not. I don’t know why I haven’t let her do it
Maren: I don’t want to keep you from yard work. Thank you for the pizza. I hope you’re getting a different kind tonight
Ozzy: When did I have pizza?
I stare at the message. He needs to use emojis. Is this his idea of texting humor?
Maren: Last night. Did you fall off your bike on the way home and hit your head?
Ozzy: I don’t think so
Ozzy: Did I meet you at the bar?
I set my phone on the coffee table like it’s too hot to hold. What’s going on?
Ozzy
“Dad?”
“Huh?” I cut another wad of dried ornamental grass and shove it in the lawn bag. “Lola, you’re supposed to be helping me. What are you doing?”
“Who’s Maren?” she asks.
I freeze for a second before slowly glancing over my shoulder and squinting at her sitting on the bottom deck step, staring at my phone screen. “Why are you messing with my phone?”
“I wasn’t, but then it vibrated with a message from someone named Maren. And she called herself the chicken lady when I asked who she was.”
“Lola, you’re not supposed to mess with my phone,” I say before grumbling a few expletives beneath my breath as I trek toward her, peeling off my leather gloves.
“I’m helping you by being your secretary.” She gives me a toothy grin and bats her eyelashes while I pluck my phone from her hands.
Based on Maren’s responses, she thought she was talking to me, and why wouldn’t she? Except Lola’s responses make me sound like a dumbass.
Ozzy: It’s me. My daughter took my phone and was responding for me. So sorry
“Who’s Maren? You had pizza last night? Does she like you? Why is she texting you? Does she have chickens? We should get chickens. Ellie has chickens. They eat the eggs.”
“You’re not riding to school on your own.” I glare at her.
“But Dad—”
“And you’re not getting dessert breadsticks tonight because you snooped in my phone and pretended to be me. And you haven’t helped me do anything outside yet.”
Lola narrows her eyes and parks her hands on her hips. “You. Are. A. Big. Meanie.” She spins on her heel and stomps up the deck stairs.
Instead of responding to Maren’s cringe emoji, I call her.
“I am so sorry,” she answers without a hello.
“That’s my line.” I laugh, inspecting the tulips blooming along the back fence. “It’s fine. She won’t let it go, but I’ll keep her grounded in her room until she promises never to mention your name again.”
“You know how to make a girl feel special,” Maren says.
I scratch the back of my head. “That came out all wrong. It’s not you; it’s Lola’s recent obsession with my dating life.” And my sex life.
“I don’t blame her,” Maren says. “I’m curious about your dating life too. Have you had any recent dates? Been caught in the rain? Wrangled any chickens?”
My smile grows exponentially. “What are you up to today?”
“Oh, I thought you’d never ask. I’m finishing my coffee while my roommate and his fiancée have loud sex upstairs. I should probably make them a snack. They’ll be famished when they’re done, at the rate they’re going. I bet you’re jealous that you don’t get to enjoy my level of fun.”
I kick at the clump of mulch under the tree. “No. I get a different kind of fun in the form of having to explain pornography to a ten-year-old.”
“Oh my god, what?”
“She woke up after midnight and needed a drink of water, and she found her grandfather in the living room watching porn.”
“Nooooo ...” Maren laughs. “I’m sorry. I know it’s not funny, but—”
“It’s fine. If it weren’t my life, it would be hilarious.”
“You win, Ozzy. No one has to explain to me what my roommates are doing upstairs. I can’t imagine what it’s like to be a parent, let alone a single parent—a single parent of a daughter who experienced something incredibly traumatic. Well, not counting the porn incident.”
“There’s no cake for surviving this parenting gig. There should be cake,” I say.
“Mmm, cake. What kind of cake should there be?”
I chuckle. “Carrot, of course.”
“Stop. You did not just say my favorite cake.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes,” she says. “But it has to have pineapple in it. That’s the secret ingredient. Crushed pineapple makes it so moist. And the frosting has to be cream cheese.”
“Keep talking,” I say, gobbling up every ounce of her cheeriness.
Maren giggles. “I’d better not. I think my metabolism took a nosedive just dreaming about it. Besides, you have work to do, and my offseason client is taking me to lunch. I just wanted to tell you that I had a great time. In case you were wondering.”
I cringe. “I should have called earlier. That’s probably proper dating etiquette, huh?”
“I’m not sure,” Maren says. “I’ve never dated anyone who’s taken the time to consider proper dating etiquette. I’m sure my eagerness to message you seems a little desperate.”
“I rode my bike in the rain just to spend time with you. Who’s the desperate one?”
She doesn’t respond right away. There’s a pause, and then she hums like she’s eating something good, like carrot cake. “Ozzy.” I swear she purrs my name. “You’re not desperate, but thank you for making me feel better. I hope you get things worked out with Lola. And I’m sorry if I caused any tension between you.”
“Don’t sweat it. Can I ask about your offseason client?”
“He’s a professor and a friend of my dad’s. I fly his private jet in the offseason, and he has another pilot friend who only likes to fly during the summer, so it works out perfectly.”
“Always in the air,” I murmur, feeling a pang of envy.
She hums again. God, I love her hums. “Yes. It’s the best place to be.”
I like living vicariously through her. “I’m sure. Is your first shift Monday?”
“Wednesday,” she says. “My shifts are ten days on, five off.”
“Oh, Maren, Maren, Maren . . .”
She chuckles. “What is it, Oswald?”
I gaze at the mostly sunny sky just as a plane leaves a vapor trail. “You’re my idol.”