Chapter 4
“DADDY, I’M thirsty. Can I have Diet Coke?” Grant asked as he came down the stairs.
Kevin groaned and sat back, trying not to let the disappointment show on his face.
“No. You can have some water,” Willy told him and sighed softly as he got up and went to the kitchen. He took the cup of water and Grant back up the stairs and soon loped down them alone.
“Diet Coke?” That was a new one.
“My mother is completely addicted to the stuff. She has it in the house, and whenever they go over to visit, Grant sees it, and she gives him drinks of hers, and now it’s his preferred drink if he can get it.
I swear by the time he’s six, he’ll be swilling coffee in the morning, Diet Coke in the afternoon, and trying to take over the world at night. ” He rolled his eyes and sat back down.
“Did he go back to sleep?” Kevin asked, afraid the moment was gone and that he might have lost his chance.
Willy and the kids would be moving into their new place in the next day or so, and he only had so much time in order to make a move.
Not that he was sure that Willy wanted him to or that he was ready to move on from the partner he’d lost, but Kevin was pretty sure that he needed to make his intentions known.
God, even in his head it sounded lame.
Willy shrugged. “I have no idea. He rolled over and hugged his bear, and Elsa took her place on his bed like she’s guarding his dreams. Those dogs are so sweet.
I don’t know what the kids are going to do when we leave.
” They had become attached to them, and Kevin figured he was going to have three very mopey dogs for a few days.
“They’re all good pups,” Kevin said as he shifted slightly on the sofa. He felt like he was going in for the kill or something, and it just didn’t feel right. Instead, he leaned back and closed his eyes.
“When is your next shift?” Willy asked.
“Tomorrow morning,” he answered. “I have to be at the station by seven for turnover. I’ll come home at some point in the day to let the dogs out and feed them, but I won’t be home until late again.
” He figured by then, Willy would have them in the new apartment.
The truth was, he was going to miss having them in the house.
It was nice having people fill the space in this old place.
“I thought I’d take the kids to daycare tomorrow.
I have a couple classes I need to teach, and then I thought I’d check out some of the secondhand furniture places to see if there was anything that I could use to help furnish the apartment.
I don’t want the kids to be living in a blank space.
I should also see about getting them some toys and books…
things like that.” He groaned softly. “There’s just so much.
I wish the insurance company would come through.
That would help a lot. But I guess they do things in their own time. ”
“They do,” Kevin agreed and placed his hand on top of Willy’s.
Their gazes met for a second, and Kevin held still, not wanting to do anything that might break the spell.
He leaned closer, and Willy did the same.
Then, for a second, he listened for the patter of little feet, just to make sure he wasn’t going to get kid-blocked again.
“Look, there’s something I’ve wanted to do, but I didn’t know if it was what you wanted or if it was the right thing to do.
I don’t want to push you or make you feel like you have to because you’re staying here, but…
.” Dammit, why in the hell couldn’t he shut the hell up?
Suddenly he had mouth run-on and sounded like an idiot.
Thankfully, Willy seemed to get the idea, leaning closer and putting him out of his misery by making the first move. His lips were soft and the kiss gentle and sweet. It didn’t last long, and Willy backed away with a slight smile on his lips.
“I wanted to do that too, since the other night when you came out in your boxers.” He turned beet red and looked away.
“You were hot, and I had no idea if you liked me or even liked guys, and there you were in all your hotness just standing there. And instead of saying anything, I ran away like a scared bunny.”
“A cute scared bunny,” Kevin added. “Look, I meant what I said. I don’t want you to feel that….” He swallowed because he had no idea how to say what he wanted to without it sounding bad.
“We can take things slow, okay? I don’t know if I can handle anything in the relationship department right now.
With the fire and….” He swallowed hard. “Everything. I’m going to need some time and a chance to think things through.
I don’t do quickies or anything, and I have the kids to think about.
Bringing someone into my life also means they’re in theirs, so I don’t want a revolving door of guys coming and going and breaking their hearts…
or my own, for that matter. So let’s see what happens, and maybe we can go out once we’re a little settled. ”
Kevin nodded. “Is this taking things too fast?” he asked, moving closer slowly and then sliding his hand around the back of Willy’s neck.
He waited to see if Willy pulled away and then kissed him.
He so wanted another taste of him, and Willy was just as clean and sweet as before.
He deepened the kiss slowly, and damn it all if Willy didn’t moan deep in his throat.
That little sound was enough to get his motor revved into high gear, but he backed away and ended the kiss, because if he didn’t, it was likely he was going to push for things Willy wasn’t ready for, though he sure as hell was.
Breathing deeply, he sat back and kept his eyes on Willy’s.
Kevin had made the mistake before of rushing into things.
It was usually how he got himself into one of his messes.
“How did you become a firefighter?” Willy asked out of the blue. “I think we need a change of subject.” He actually fanned himself. “I can barely think as it is.”
“After one kiss?” Kevin asked.
Willy shrugged. “I don’t know. I have a tendency to overreact to things like that. It’s why I have to go slowly and think stuff over. It would be so easy to let the hormones and the dopamine take over and just jump into bed. It’s what a lot of people would do. But I need to think about stuff.”
“I get that.” Kevin took a few seconds to clear his head.
“As for being a fireman, I sort of fell into that… so to speak. I needed a part-time job when I was in high school, and my teacher knew a number of the guys at the fire station near the house. They were looking for someone to do some of the grunt work, and Mr. Evans helped me get the job. I scrubbed the floors and did some painting, stuff like that, for a year or so. Then I asked about further training and volunteering. They said I had to be eighteen to be a full volunteer, but they taught me how all the equipment worked, how to be safe, how to check it all. Soon I was making sure their equipment stayed in good order.” He smiled at the memories.
There had been a lot of work, but the guys were good to him.
“On my eighteenth birthday, I was able to officially train with the firefighters for the first time. We did an exercise, and I came through with flying colors. I got certified after that, and once I finished college, I returned to the station, but they didn’t have any openings.
The captain at the time made some calls and was able to help me get a job in Mechanicsburg.
But eventually I was able to relocate here and come back to town. ”
“So you trained at the same station you work at now?”
“No. That station is now used for equipment storage. They integrated that station with the one I work at now a few years ago. The station I first worked at was too small for what was really needed, so they built a new one and used the old building to house additional equipment that can be called on when needed.”
“I see,” Willy said.
“Why did you become a professor?”
Willy grinned. “I loved economics. When I was a freshman in college, economics was the bane of most people’s existence, but it just seemed to make sense to me.
So I pursued it, and the more I studied, the more I understood how things work together.
It was like an entire door opened to me.
I just loved it. When I decided to do some graduate work, I chose economics and developed some models that became somewhat predictive of certain types of economic cycles.
The funny things is that so much of what economists study is theoretical, so it’s lost on a lot of people, and if you ask any economist what he thinks is going to happen, you’ll get a different answer from each one of them.
” A bright light had come on behind Willy’s eyes, and his voice held an excitement that Kevin found riveting. And they were talking about economics.
“Which makes it hard to take seriously. I mean, you see it on the internet or on the news and no one knows what to make of it.”
“For most people, yes. Everyone wants a definitive answer to a question, not a ‘well, it depends’ and then a bunch of various possibilities.” He shook his head.
“Anyway. My work centered on using models to help predict certain real-world effects. If this happens, then this is most likely to happen. And so on. I concentrated on smaller towns and how they can revitalize their economies. I built models and studied successes and failures and came up with a list of recommendations for where they can start.”
“And does it work?” Kevin asked.