Chapter 12
Clay
T he next week starts off great. Which should probably worry me more than it does because, in theory, starting a relationship with Legs, at this point, is a terrible idea. I’d be lying if I said otherwise. But in practice…I just can’t wait to see her again.
I feel more like myself when I’m with her than I have for a very long time. I suppose, in part, that’s because she knew the me from before the fires. That Clay Romero doesn’t really exist anymore.
And yes, there are others who knew me then and now, but most of them have been changed as well. We’ve all been touched by fire, by tragedy. We’ve all let our old selves fall away, and when we interact now, it’s with the new, scarred versions of ourselves.
Legs missed out on all that chaos, making her a pure conduit to that earlier, happier, more innocent time. Or so it seems. In all likelihood, that’s nothing more than a massive rationalization, on my part, and unfair to her. Am I really suggesting that she’s a case of arrested development? That the rest of us have grown and matured, while she has not? I think I am.
Because it’s true, isn’t it? Money and circumstances have shielded her from a lot of the troubles the rest of us have suffered through.
I think one of the reasons we coddle the rich—beyond the fear of retribution—is because they possess something most of us have lost and dream about someday regaining. A childlike (largely unwarranted) belief that life is good and fair, that people are kind, that things are always working out for them. We’re drawn to protect that innocence—in part because we know how bleak the world can be without it. In part because they’ve even fucking colonized our brains to the point where we think they’d do the same for us.
It’s the same instinct that causes us to respond so strongly to babies and puppies and who knows what else. And to prioritize their needs, sometimes even above our own. Unless we’re total dicks or hardcore leftists or someone who’s been driven to such an extreme that the slogan, “eat the rich” has begun to make sense.
But these are the kinds of philosophical thoughts anyone might have on a gloomy, rainy Tuesday night, after a long day at work, and a challenging workout afterwards. I stare into the depths of my well-stocked refrigerator, and it might as well be empty. I try to eat clean and green, for the most part—so that I can stay in shape and do my job. But nothing in the stack of healthy, high-protein, pre-packaged, prepared meals is appealing to me right now.
There’s nothing in here that will fill the emptiness I’m feeling now, or assuage the need that has hollowed me out, because it’s not food that I’m craving.
My thoughts keep drifting back to Saturday night, to the meal I shared with Legs, the camaraderie and conversation. And, yeah, the sex afterwards, too. Because, of course, I’m thinking of that; I can’t get it out of my head.
I want to call her. I want to hear her voice, to see her face, to invite her over and fuck her senseless; but it’s too soon for that. I have to resist. I can’t become that needy, that fast. Nothing good will come of being that dependent on someone else.
The first storm of the season is battering against my windows, shaking the cheap glass so hard it rattles. The beat of the rain is so loud and insistent that I almost miss the knocking at my front door.
“Jesus Christ,” I say when I pull it open and find Legs hunched on the front stoop with the collar of her jacket pulled up so that it’s partially covering her head. I glance at the street as I take her by the arm and pull her into my house. “I don’t see your car. Where’d you park? You couldn’t possibly have gotten this wet between here and the curb?”
She shakes her head, ineffectively swiping at her face, with wet hands. “I parked around the block. I was trying to be subtle.”
“Trying to die of hypothermia, is more like it,” I scold, using the sleeve of my shirt to wipe her face. A useless task, given that her hair is soaked, and water runs in rivulets down her face. “Fucks sake. You look like a drowned rat right now. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen some that were drier.”
“Thanks?” she says, still blinking water out of her eyes as I help her remove her jacket. “I was going to say, ‘you look nice, too’ but maybe I won’t now.”
I stop fussing long enough to grin at her. “If it helps, I meant a very pretty rat.” Then I lean in and kiss her. She tastes of rain and wild nights, of coming home to a place of comfort and warmth, but all too soon she’s pulling away. Which, now I’m thinking of it, is exactly like coming home—elusive and fleeting and gone before you know it.
“I’m getting you so wet,” she murmurs, plucking at my shirt—which is now plastered to my chest and arms in all the places where our bodies touched.
“Mm. I’m pretty sure that’s supposed to be my line,” I say, as I dip my head for another kiss.
“Oh, yeah? That sounds promising.”
“C’mon,” I say as I take hold of her hand. “We need to get you out of those wet clothes.”
“Ooh. V-very promising,” she replies, stuttering slightly as she starts to shiver.
“Out of your clothes and into a hot shower,” I elaborate, as I tug her into my bathroom.
“You know, there are other ways of warming a person up,” she points out as she starts to peel off her wet garments.
I turn on the shower and grab a few towels—the thick, bougie ones my last girlfriend left behind—in an effort not to get caught up in staring. “I know that. Which is why, after I toss your wet clothes in the laundry, I’m going to come back here and try some of those, too.”
“Even better.” She thrusts the sodden pile of clothes my way. “Here. Have at it.” Then she steps into my shower, but not before tossing a grin at me over her shoulder. “Just don’t keep me waiting too long, okay?”
I make quick work of the laundry, stripping out of my own clothes and adding them as well. Then I join her in the shower, crowding against her from behind. She leans back against me, her eyes closed, the open shampoo bottle held close beneath her nose, squeezing it repeatedly to release more fragrance.
“You know you can’t get high from huffing soap—right?” I tease, pulling her close, murmuring into her ear.
“Mm, this smells so good,” she replies, as she leans against me. “Like you.”
Technically it smells like my ex—Lori. Who, as you may have gathered, has more money and better taste than I do. When she agreed to move in with me, it was with the clear expectation that I’d up my game and accept the long list of subscription services that she considered indispensable—one for hair and skin care products, one for prepackaged dinners, another for cleaning supplies. After she left, I kept most of them in place. Some might say out of laziness.
I’m someone who values stability, order and quality but I don’t always know how to achieve it on my own. My mom would no doubt ascribe that to my Virgo nature, and claim it was inevitable. I think it stems from the chaos and uncertainty that marked most of my childhood—but what do I know?
Water rains down on us, courtesy of the waterfall shower (again, courtesy of Lori). An additional expense that I’d initially argued against, it’s the one luxury I have yet to regret. After separating Legs from her new squeeze toy, I take hold of her wrists and position her arms so that her hands are now pressed against the shower wall. I collect her hair at the nape of her neck, and bend to kiss her there. Meanwhile my other hand coasts down the length of her spine. Pushing gently against her back, I urge her forward—so that her back arches, her hips cant and her arms are now stretched overhead. Then I nudge her legs apart. It’s a standard-size tub, so the spread is not very wide, but it’s enough.
The curve of her back is still tempting me. Uncapping the bottle of body wash (same scent as the shampoo she was sniffing) I pour the thick soap down the length of her back, following the line of her spine. When I get to her butt, I use my free hand to spread her cheeks, drizzling some more soap over her crack.
“Tickles,” she whimpers, wriggling in place. So, I slide my hand into her hair again, grab a fistful and pull.
Leaning over her back, I whisper in her ear. “Stay still!”
“Unnnh,” she moans. “I didn’t know we’d be playing Dirty Cop tonight.”
I hadn’t either. “Are you okay with this?” I ask, feeling a tinge of unease. I know the power dynamic can freak people out sometimes, especially when it’s a little too close to reality.
“Yes.” The word emerges as a frustrated whine. “Just doooo it. Please.”
I’m chuckling as I straighten up and begin to massage her back, using long slow strokes, enjoying the slide of my hands over her warm slick flesh. “I think it’s going to become my mission in life to teach you to enjoy edging,” I tell her. Knowing how she feels about waiting, I suspect she’ll view it as a sexy threat.
“Noooo,” she moans. “Not that again. Please, Clay. Not tonight.”
“That’s what you said last time,” I remind her, as I reach around to cup her breasts—massaging them, too, until her nipples are hard and tight. Leaning in close again I tighten my arms around her, sliding one hand up to cover her throat, allowing the other to slip between her legs, finding her clit, stroking over it. “But you can’t hold it off forever, you know. Sooner or later…it’s coming.”
“Coming—yes,” she groans. “Make me come, Clay, please.”
“I like the way my name sounds on your lips,” I tell her—something I never expected to hear myself say. “I want to hear you scream it when you come.”
“Claaay,” she groans again, this time in frustration, when I release her clit to search for the shower sponge.
“Shhh,” I tell her, fractionally increasing the pressure on her throat, teasing her nipples with the sponge, whispering, “Be a good girl now and maaaybe I’ll let you come.”
“Cla-ay,” she groans again, but this time there’s a hint of warning in her tone.
“So good,” I murmur as I move the sponge lower, trailing down her abdomen, and then move my hand back between her legs. “Doesn’t it feel good, baby? Don’t you want more.”
“D’y’know what’d feel even better?” she asks, her words slurring with her arousal. “That’d be you inside me.” And I can’t fucking argue with that.
“Okay, you win,” I tell her. Straightening away from her, I grab for the condom I brought into the shower with me. “Are you wet for me?” I ask as I’m suiting up. “Are you ready for me to fuck you now?”
“Am I what?” Legs cranes her neck to look at me over her shoulder. “We are literally standing in a shower, Clay, with water pouring down all around us; what do you think?”
“I think,” I say, giving her ass a quick smack. “That you should answer the question.”
“Hmm. Well, you know what I think?” she asks, her gaze calculating, her teeth worrying her lip, a smile tugging at her mouth.
“No, what?” I ask, breathless with anticipation, suddenly desperate to hear what she’ll say.
“I think…if you really want to know the answer…”
“I really, really do.”
“Then you should fuck me and find out!”
I’m chuckling and groaning as I take her advice, as I take hold of her hips and slide deep into her slick heat. I reach for the wall, covering her hands with mine, lacing our fingers together, as I piston my hips, pushing deeper and deeper inside her. Meanwhile, her plush butt provides a counterpressure, pushing back into my hips again and again.
Water continues to pour over us, dripping into our eyes and our open mouths, making everything impossibly slippery, impossibly wet, as our bodies slide against each other…
Then, all at once, she’s rising up on her toes, head thrown back, keening as she comes, clenching all around me. And I’m slamming home one final time ass I follow her over the edge.
After the tremors have stopped, I wrap my arms around her, holding her against me as we both try to recover our breath. She lets her head rest against my shoulder. And I lower my lips as close as I can get to her ear and whisper. “Say what you want, but one of these days, I am going to train you to take what you’re given—and like it.”
And her lips curve into a sensuous smile. “Oh, yeah? You really think so?”
“I really do.”
She nestles against me, laughing softly. “Well, have fun trying.”
And I know we both will.
“Okay, I think I figured it out,” Legs says a short while later, while we’re eating dinner—random bowls that I pulled out of the fridge and heated for us. I have chicken with cilantro rice, she has quinoa with black beans.
“Figured what out?” I ask, glancing up at her. Yes, up. She’s seated on my kitchen island—that’s right, on the island—with her feet planted on the seat of one of my stools, while I sit on the other stool, like a normal person. I’m wearing a tee shirt over sweatpants (yes, they’re gray. And yes, I’ve heard the jokes) she’s in my robe, which was another gift from Lori. It’s soft and plush, extravagant as fuck and, other than being too big, it suits Legs perfectly.
“I’ve figured out why I didn’t immediately recognize you,” she says. “You know, when you pulled me over? It’s because you’re taller now, broader, and more…I dunno, muscle-y?”
“That’s not actually a word,” I say as I fork up another piece of chicken. I mean, she’s not wrong, but…
Legs rolls her eyes. “So you want to police my grammar now, too? Fine. Have it your way, you’ve filled out some. Is that better?”
“You know, you could just say that I’m bigger now, and harder,” I tease.
“Mm, I suppose I could do that. Except…” Her gaze drops to my lap. A smile plays on her lips as she sing-songs, “Not right now you’re not.”
I shake my head, because, yeah, come to think of it, that right there is probably the biggest difference. Even with all the shower action we just indulged in, I’m pretty sure that, at seventeen, I would have gotten it up again by now. I wouldn’t have been able to help myself. Not with her sitting right there, naked beneath my robe, looking at me the way she is right now.
“Well, then what do you think the reason was?” she asks, misinterpreting my head shake for disagreement.
“I don’t know. I’m sure it’s a lot of things. I have a different haircut, I was wearing my uniform…” I zone out a little as I think about that, as I remember all the first responders I’d encountered during the fires. All I ever saw were the uniforms—the gear and the masks that obscured their features, the soot and ash that coated and smeared them. I couldn’t have picked a single one of those people out of a lineup, not even to save my own life—and how ironic is that?
“Hey.” She reaches forward to cup my face. “Where’d you go just now?”
I close my eyes—in part to revel in her touch, in part to gain some space. Are we really going to talk about this? Now?
“Clay?”
Sighing, I open my eyes. “You weren’t here during the fires.”
“No.” Her hand slips from my face as she sits back. She clutches her bowl, looking troubled. “That first year…I didn’t even hear about them until weeks later. My grandmother downplayed it. She said there was no reason for me to worry, that I should enjoy myself and stay where I was. But Rosa said it got pretty bad.”
I shrug and nod. “It really depended on your circumstances. Some people weren’t affected at all. For others it was a temporary inconvenience.” Some people lost everything.
“What about you?”
I shrug again. “I was luckier than some people.”
“How so?”
“Well, I didn’t die, right? And no one in my family was seriously injured. That was the important thing.”
“But…?”
“Oh, you know, we were part of the fairground people, if that tells you anything.”
She shakes her head. “I don’t know what that means.”
Right. Of course. “It’s nothing. Just a stupid name they had for some of us.” I push my bowl aside, take hers from her hand, and then pull her into my lap.
“’Us’ who?”
“Just people. Just anyone who was displaced during the fires or who lost their homes. They housed us on the fairgrounds in Calistoga for a few weeks in tents or RVs, or just sacked out on the floors. Hence the name.”
“Don’t do that,” she says, pulling back to frown at me. “Don’t act like it doesn’t matter when clearly it does.”
“What do you know about it?” I ask, smiling gamely. “What makes you think I’m acting?” And yes, by the way, I’m totally acting.
“I know a lot.” Her mouth twists into a grimace as she shrugs and looks away. “Because I do that, too. I know the signs. You can’t kid a kidder, you know?”
“Yeah.” I tug at a lock of her hair, waiting until glances back at me to continue. “I always suspected we had that in common.”
“Yep,” she says as her lips edge up in the smallest of smiles. “Kindred spirits.”
But that might be a bridge or two too far. So, I shrug in response and equivocate. “Maybe. So, what signs have I missed? What’s something you been pretending about?”
That makes her pause. “Well, let’s see…” She gazes up at the ceiling, thinking hard—or so I imagine. Not being a mind reader, I can’t say for sure. For all I know, she’s taking a moment to make shit up.
“Okay,” she says finally. “You know that party I threw—the one where we met? I pretended like it was for midsummer, but it was really more than that. It was a revenge party.”
“Okay. Revenge for what? Or was it a who?”
“Both, in a way. See, my uncle was throwing a party the same night.”
I nod as a stray bit of memory falls into place. “Ohh-kay. That’s where the music was coming from. The music you were dancing to, right?”
“Yeah. Exactly. His party was actually supposed to be— Well, no, that’s not true. I thought it was supposed to be a party for me—mostly because of the timing. See, I’d just graduated high school. And since he’d thrown parties for both my sisters and all my cousins after they’d graduated, I just naturally assumed that was the reason he was having it.”
“And it wasn’t?” I ask, although the answer is obvious.
“Nooo.” She shakes her head sadly. “Absolutely not. I’d gone to see him, a few days before. You know—to ask why I couldn’t invite some of my friends? Turns out he was holding a grudge, or trying to teach me a lesson of something. He was angry because I hadn’t already chosen a college—like everyone else in the family had done, at that point.
“I said I wanted a gap year. He insisted that was just an excuse, that I’d end up not going back at all.”
She stops and shrugs. “Which…he wasn’t entirely wrong about. I mean, that might not have been my plan up until that point, but once he told me that since I refused to act like a grown up I didn’t deserve a party. That he’d decided to throw one for Rosa instead—because she had gone to college, and had just graduated. And that I wasn’t even allowed to attend the party, because there would be drinking there, and I was underage, and he didn’t trust me to behave myself…” She shrugs and looks away. “Well, you know. School had always been really hard for me, so…”
“That sucks.”
She shrugs again. “Yeah. I mean, it probably didn’t help that I was wearing my Sonoma T shirt when I went to see him. But he still didn’t have to be such a dick about it.”
“I remember that shirt.” I smile at the thought. “So, you stole a case of wine, and…?”
She nods. “I stole some wine, bought some lights, invited everyone I knew to come and hang out with me. And ended up meeting you. So, all in all, it was a good night.”
“Mm,” I say as I reposition her on my lap so that she’s straddling one of my legs. “As I recall, it was a really hot night. In more ways than one.”
“Um…what are we doing?” she asks as I pull the lapels of her robe apart and palm her breasts.
“Recreating one of our greatest hits,” I say as I lean in to place a kiss below her ear and begin to work my way down her neck. “I want to watch you come on my leg like you did that night, no hands, only friction.” I nip softly at her throat—and then blink in surprise when she pulls away.
“No. Stop.”
“I’m sorry,” I apologize, immediately pulling away from her, even dropping my hands from her breasts. “I thought you liked that.”
“Oh, I do!” she replies—looking almost as dismayed as I feel. “I love it. It’s just…we probably shouldn’t right? Not if we’re trying to keep this discreet. I don’t want to have to try and explain that again.”
I must look puzzled, because she rolls her eyes. “So, you were not wrong about my uncle. He was just a little bit annoyed about the wine I stole. But, I might have been okay. There really wasn’t anything to connect me to the theft. I mean, as far as anyone in my family knew, I’d spent the entire night alone, sulking in my room. You know?”
“Not really.”
“I didn’t realize it until my uncle came to question me the next day but—” She waves vaguely at her neck and stares at me, somewhat pointedly.
I stare blankly back, still not getting the message. “But…what?”
“I had love bites on my neck,” she replies in a strangely altered tone that I can’t quite place, but which sounds oddly familiar, all the same. “My life was in the toilet!”
But then comprehension—or perhaps memory—hits and I remember sucking at her throat while she ground against me. “Oh. Shit. That was me?”
“Yeah, buddy. That was you.”
“Okay, but that toilet thing you just said. Was that a line from a movie, or something?”
She nods. “Yes. Of course. Moonstruck.” Then she gasps, eyes widening as she asks, “Oh! Do you think that’s the reason he decided to send me to Italy? Because of the movie connection?”
“Huh?” I frown—feeling confused again. “What movie connection? I thought you said it was because you wanted to see your mother?”
She eyes me pityingly. “That was my reason for wanting to go—and the excuse he used to get me there. His reason was because I had obviously fallen in with a bad crowd, and it was only a matter of time before I got into serious trouble.”
“Was he right?”
Her lips quirk. “Well, you tell me. You were the ‘bad crowd’ after all.”
Oh, shit. And, suddenly, I want to smack younger me upside the head. “You know, what? I think he may have had a point.”
“Really?” She stares at me in disbelief. “Well, I don’t think so. And, anyway, I didn’t know it at the time, but this was actually a pattern with him. Four years earlier, he’d talked my sister into annulling her marriage. Which…the irony of that is just insane.”
“Oh?” I ask, but she shakes her head and wriggles suggestively.
“It’s not important. Forget him. Now, where were we?”
The change of subject is abrupt, but it doesn’t fucking matter. It takes barely an instant for my brain to switch gears—I’ve been primed for this moment. Waiting for it. Dreaming of it for five, long years.
“Just one sec,” I say as I lift her off my lap and set her on her feet. I stand as well, fingers delving into the pocket of my sweats for the condom I’d optimistically placed there. I place it on the counter, where it will be readily accessible if I need it. It’s hard to say if I will, at this point. Pun not intended.
Legs eyes the packet with a wicked smile. I shrug and say, “Just in case.”
“Oh, yeah?” Her eyes light up. “Well, that sounds like a challenge to me.”
“Don’t you mean it sounds like a challenge for you?” I say as I return her smile.
“Could be, could be,” she agrees.
I shove my sweatpants down my legs, then reclaim my seat on the stool. “Climb on,” I urge, holding out my hands and helping her to once again straddle my leg.
“Omigod,” she whispers, sounding awestruck as she tries an experimental slide. “Yes. Your leg is so hairy. Fuuuck. I’m going to come so fast.” Her hands settle on my shoulders, fingers gripping me tight, as she slides forward and back, skin to skin.
“Holy shit,” I groan. She feels even better than I imagined she would, even better than I’d remembered it. And the way she looks—with her lower lip caught between her teeth, and her face already flushed. “You’re so beautiful,” I tell her. “So fucking hot.”
“You, too,” she says, nodding frantically, already starting to pant. “Plus, you have the best ideas.”
“I can’t take credit for this one,” I tell her. “This was all you.”
“I dunno about that,” she tells me, her eyes half-closed as she rocks on my leg, finding her rhythm—and stealing my breath in the process. “I think if it were my idea, you’d be touching me more.”
“Can I touch your breasts?” I ask in response. It might not be necessary, but having spoiled the mood once already tonight, I’d rather err on the side of clear consent.
She gulps for breath, gasping, “Yes. You can touch me anywhere you want.” And oh, fuck, does my dick like that.
“You’re killing me,” I murmur as I shape her breasts, curving my fingers around the heavy swells, plumping them up, using my thumbs to rub circles over and around the tight peaks.
“Same,” she says, as her hips pick up speed and her fingers dig harder into my shoulders. “Same.”
Her eyes are squeezed shut now. She’s lost in the moment, racing for the finish line, when inspiration strikes me. “Can you do it without hands?”
Her eyes snap open, her rhythm faltering to a stop, as she protests, “But I’m not…?”
“Yeah, you are,” I say shrugging my shoulders, drawing her attention. “You’re using them here.”
“I…don’t know,” she replies, frowning now, shifting restlessly on my leg. “I don’t…think so?”
“Let’s try it,” I suggest. “Put your hands behind your head.”
Her eyes gleam with mischief. “This sounds like more dirty cop talk, to me,” she says. But she does as I ask, clasping her hands together, spreading her elbows wide—shoulders back, breasts thrust forward.
I clasp my hands on her hips, supporting her as she begins to move again. Then I dip my head and suck a nipple into my mouth and in less than a minute she’s crying out, curling inward, hands clutching my head as she shudders in my arms.
Then I’m rising from my seat once again, carrying her with me. I clear the island with a swipe of my hand, shoving everything to the side. I tip her onto the counter, set a new speed record for gloving up, and then I’m sinking deep inside her for the second time tonight.
Her arms are stretched above her head, my hands encircling her wrists. Her legs are clenched around me, heels digging into my butt.
I stare hard at her neck as I pour everything into her. And in my mind, I’m leaving hella marks.
“So, the fires,” Legs asks, a few minutes later, while we’re once again cuddled together on the stool, muscles lax, bodies at peace, just reveling in the afterglow. “How bad were they?”
“I told you,” I say as a hint of tension begins to creep back in. “It varied. A lot.”
“I know. That’s what I’m asking. How bad was it for you?”
“Oh, you know…” I take a deep breath and tighten my hold on her. I don’t want to talk about this. Not just now, I mean I never want to talk about it. I figure that it was enough that I lived through it, enough that I still have nightmares about it. But she asked for honesty, and I owe her that much. “It was bad. That first night… The fucking wind was insane. I heard later it was something like sixty miles an hour, which, Jesus fucking Christ, if that’s the equivalent of a category one hurricane? I can’t even imagine what four or five must be like. I swear, it felt like the whole world was on fire. Our entire neighborhood got destroyed. Not that we knew that, at the time, because you couldn’t see shit through all the smoke. The noise was horrific—sirens, explosions, screams, and the constant roar. You know how they say if you’re buried in an avalanche, you can’t tell which way is up? It was kind of like that, you couldn’t tell where anything was. If it weren’t for the firefighters and the police who were running from door to door evacuating people. And then herding us in the right direction… And then there was the drive out—walls of flame on both sides of the road, everyone praying and whimpering, scared out of our minds. I just…”
She’s hugging me tight, fingers digging into my hair, and I’m clutching her back. “And then the next year…the same damn thing again. Only, that time, the smoke was blowing down from Paradise—from the Camp Fire—too. The air was thick with ash. It was weeks before you could go outside without a mask, or before anyone could breathe without coughing. And then ?—”
“Omigod,” she gulps as she shudders against me. “No. Stop it. There can’t have been more?”
“Yep. There sure was. It didn’t get as much press, what with the pandemic and all, but in 2020 we got the Glass Fire. At least no one died in that one.”
The shaking of her shoulders finally registers. Fuck me, for an insensitive asshole. She’s crying. So, I hug her even tighter, murmuring, “Shh, shh. It’s okay. It’s like with you said about your party; at least something good came of it, right? It helped me decide what I wanted to do with my life. So, that’s good, right?”
She pulls back to look at me. “Really? So, you didn’t always want to be a deputy?”
I shoot her a disbelieving look. “What, are you kidding? You thought the seventeen-year-old who ‘put your life in the toilet’ and was ready to fuck you without even telling you his name was a law-abiding kind of guy?”
“Well, when you put it that way…” She smiles, shakily. “But honestly? Yeah. He didn’t seem so bad; he was kinda sweet.”
“Sweet?” I ask in mock outrage. “Who the hell’re you talking about?” I mean…it’s mostly mock, and I’m pleased when she giggles in response. “Not me?”
“God save me from men’s fragile egos,” she murmurs as she rolls her eyes. “And also hot, okay? Hot and sweet. And, as I recall, he was also very concerned about my little wine theft. So, what does that tell you?”
I open my mouth to point out that a case of wine is not a ‘little’ theft. But then I stop and reconsider. “Okay,” I tell her. “You may have a point. But, to answer your question, no. Even after the fires, deputy was not a no-brainer.” I snuggle her against me once more. “I knew I wanted to give back to the community that had saved my life, to maybe someday be a hero to someone else. But becoming a firefighter was flat out never going to happen. I’d’ve been suicidal within a week. There was no fucking way I could do that on the reg.” Just thinking about it makes me shudder. And I have to pause, remind myself to breathe, and shove the memories to the back of my mind once again before I can continue. “Like you, I wasn’t the best student, so I figured a career as an EMT was out. I just didn’t have the science or math background, you know? And…well, Napa College had a Criminal Justice certificate program, and I liked how that sounded. You know—Justice? It was…”
“Quixotic?” she suggests, teasingly. But she’s not wrong.
“Kind of.”
“And how’s that working out?”
I huff out a laugh. “Well…it’s touch and go. I don’t like everything I have to do, but up until this Summer, I’d’ve said it was going pretty good.”
“Oh?”
“No offense, but your family kind of sucks.”
“Hey. Not all of them,” she replies immediately. “Some of us are just trying to make great wine and make our grandmother proud.”
I sigh and shake my head, reminded again of the gap between us—and all the reasons why we’re just so totally fucked. “Maybe,” I say. “But I thought I was signing up to protect the helpless and serve the community. And lately, I feel more like a hall monitor at a middle school. A snooty, private middle-school full of assholes.”
“Wow,” she says, shaking her head and staring wide-eyed at me. “Don’t hold back, Deputy. Tell me how you really feel about me.”
“Not you,” I quickly assure her. “Just your family.”
“Uh-huh. And did you ever actually go to a school like that?” she asks.
“No,” I admit. “But I’ve met plenty of people who did.”
“Well, I did go to one of those schools—for all the good it did me. And I don’t even speak to those people anymore. Those are not my family.”
“Okay. If you say so,” I say, just to end this discussion which, anyone can tell, isn’t going to lead to anything good. And, somehow, we’ve both agreed that spending her the night again this soon isn’t the best way to conduct a clandestine relationship. So as soon as her clothes are dry, and the rain has stopped, I’m walking her to her car, we’re kissing each other goodbye, I’m watching her drive away. And it’s still on of the best weeks I’ve had in a really long time.
But then it’s Thursday afternoon, and all it takes is one glance at the evil grin on my dispatcher’s face. Just one single glance and my spirits start to sink, and my hopes start to dim. Because, sure enough, a new complaint has just been lodged against Caparelli. And, from the moment I read it, I know in my heart of hearts that this one is probably valid.