Six
Ryan
I don’t hesitate, I run to the door. All I heard is someone is dying and my instincts kick in. Whoever it is, needs my help. The woman from the store runs inside and I race after her. Only vaguely hearing Sylvie calling out to me from behind.
Inside I search for someone in distress. Sylvie rushes past me and everyone is hovering around the counter. What the hell? Is the person behind there? Is it a child? I hurry over as the woman from the door wails and Sylvie grabs on to something on the table.
I’m about to barge through them, to take charge and help whoever it is but I stop when I get a look between Sylvie and the second woman.
I stare down at the counter, at a complete loss for words. The name she said outside comes back to me. As does the story ‘Alison’ told me about her pet.
Lurch .
I watch in a complete stupor as Sylvie puts her hand inside the mouth of the tortoise on the counter and drags out a long half chewed length of green ribbon.
“Lurch, what were you thinking? This is not food,” she scolds him.
The animal makes a weird cough, whistle sound, and tips his head up, his little mouth open. He looks pissed. If that is even an expression a tortoise can make. Sylvie sets him down, and he takes a few lumbering steps before snapping at the ribbon. It makes me jump. Jesus, that looked vicious.
“Oh my God,” Sylvie hides the ribbon behind her back. “No, you little asshole.”
I stifle a laugh. Can tortoises wrinkle their noses? Is that even a nose? I have no clue. Damn, I ran in here to rescue someone I thought was dying. And it’s a tortoise. Choking on a ribbon.
“Is he okay?” the other woman asks.
“He’s fine. He’s just greedy,” Sylvie says. She taps Lurch on the nose. “And dumb. Although I guess I can let you off. It kinda looks like your favorite food.” She picks him up and cuddles him. “Don’t do that to me again, you little dinosaur. Grams would kill me if you died before your fiftieth birthday.”
She kisses his head, and the creature closes its eyes, as if it’s enjoying the attention.
I’m bemused and intrigued, watching as they get some water and then some leafy greens for Lurch to chow down on.
He’s no worse for wear, I guess.
The quieter woman spots me, and her mouth drops open. Sylvie sees her then turns to me.
“Oh,” she glances at the animal and back to me. “I’m sorry, you thought it was a person.”
I shrug feeling a little stupid but also, kind of amused. There is nothing normal about this situation, but her reaction was kind of adorable.
“It’s a good job he didn’t need CPR,” she says, her lips twisting as she tries to hide a smile.
“I don’t think I’m trained to give a tortoise CPR,” I smirk back at her.
“I wouldn’t have let you. He’d only try to eat your lips.”
Her eyes widen and her cheeks flush as she replays what she just said. It’s not like she was talking about her eating my lips. Or me eating hers. Shit. Now I’m imagining… That. And my cheeks are burning.
The two women’s heads are ping ponging between us, while we stare at one another. I’m supposed to be leaving. I’m mad at her, right?
She wrings her hands together, then steps towards me, looking a little more determined than before. Honestly, it’s kind of sexy.
Sylvie seems to notice the captive audience and steps closer, she holds out her arm and I get the picture. She wants to go outside again, away from prying eyes. I give the tortoise one last look and shake my head with a grin. I’m not gonna forget this soon.
It’s sunny out, a gorgeous day. Sylvie is wearing a dress, it just about reaches her knees. I didn’t notice that before. From behind, with the sun in front of her, the skirt becomes almost transparent, and her legs are visible, all the way up to her…
She turns around and my eyes dart up to her face.
“Um, you said you had to go,” she gives me a sad smile. “I am sorry about what happened. I shouldn’t have lied, and I feel terrible about you being ghosted by your actual date.”
“More than ghosted,” I mutter.
“What?”
“She didn’t even bother to show up to the date, remember.”
“Yeah, sorry about that too.”
“You say sorry a lot, do you know that?”
“Well, I have a lot to be sorry for.”
“Did you even think about telling me the truth and seeing if I might have stayed anyway?”
Her look tells me she did. Thinking back on it, she kept getting interrupted. I was so worried about being late, I didn’t let her speak at first. Still, there were plenty of chances to tell me she wasn’t who I thought she was.
There is something about her. The date was fun. I wanted to see her again. Getting past the lie is hard though. I don’t like liars.
“Take care, Ryan. Maybe you can work things out with Alison.”
“I doubt that. I won’t try to contact her again.”
“My date ghosted me too,” she smiles, but it’s still sad.
My heart drops at that look in her eye. Damn, how could any guy stand her up.
She blows out a breath and gives me a genuine smile. “I better get back. As you’ve seen Renee and Maria aren’t that great at watching Lurch.”
“Yeah, keep him away from those ribbons or you will need to learn to give a tortoise CPR.”
She laughs, and it is a sweet sound.
“Take care, Ryan,” she nods and walks around me.
I stand on the sidewalk, staring down the street long after the door to the flower shop closes.
Back on shift a few days later, I sit with Annie, who takes our emergency calls. We’ve been chatting a while about her kids. She’s just back off maternity leave and is proud as punch about her little boy, always showing us pictures.
She heads to the bathroom, asking me to watch the radio. Leaning back in the chair, I pull out my phone. It’s been a slow few days. Not such a bad thing. No one wants there to be any fires. I open up the Love In Bloom website, navigating to the ‘about us’ page again.
Her smile is wide and genuine, nothing like the smile she gave me the other day. Every word she told me on our date runs through my mind. How we laughed, how attracted I was to her.
What kind of asshole would stand up someone as perfect as her? The dating app she went on didn’t have pictures. Was the guy so shallow he stood her up because he didn’t know what she looks like?
Hell, even if I didn’t see her picture, just talking to her was fun.
The alarm goes off beside me and I almost jump out of my skin. Annie comes back and is immediately on the radio. Lieutenant Stanton, one of the two officers at the station comes out of the common room with my cousin hot on his heels.
“Road traffic accident, three cars involved, we got one hanging over a bridge.”
“Shit.” I thank Annie and run out to the garage.
“What’s up with you?” Colt asks as we file into the uniform room and grab our gear. I stow my phone in my locker.
“Nothing, come on, let’s go.”
We jump onto truck one eighty and Wallace, our driver hits the siren and moves out.
“Don’t tell me it’s nothing,” Colt says from his seat beside me. We sway about as Wallace swerves through traffic. “You’ve been moping.”
“Not the time, Colt.”
“Why not? We got nothing to do but talk till we get there.”
“Not now.”
“Fine, but when we get back to the station you and me cuz. You can make some of that amazing chilli.”
“Not my turn to cook.”
“I agree,” Don pipes up. “It’s been a while since we had your chilli.”
Only firefighters could be so casual, talking about what to have for dinner while driving to a scene of metal carnage.
Luckily, when we get back to the fire house, Colt is distracted by Sadie, one of the EMTs. He’s a reckless asshole and I shake my head as I watch the two of them sneak off. I don’t want to know what they’re doing, but I can guess.
Grandad would kill him if he knew what he was up to while on duty. It’s got me off the hook, so I don’t care.
Plus, he’s on a longer shift than me so I get the hell away from the station without making the chilli, or talking about what is going on with my growing obsession with a cute florist.