Three
Ward
Transfixed is an understatement.
Yvette’s been talking to me about candles, oils, and healing stones for the last two and a half hours in my room at the station. Okay, so not to only me, but also her over one hundred thousand followers through the hundreds of short videos she’s posted on her TikTok. I was under the impression she had an “e-store” and used social media as one of her marketing channels. All true. But I didn’t realize she was a whole entire thing. Her light, melodic voice, and those ocean deep blue eyes have me in a trance.
She’s a full-fledged influencer.
Right now, she’s certainly influencing my dick to try to punch a thick hole in my bunker pants.
Her arsenal of bracelets she wears in every video make a symphony each time she reaches up to swipe her dark hair off her pretty, fairylike face, making room for those big eyes to see into me. I don’t know what it is about that gesture, but fuck, it does it for me. There’s always this little, mysterious spark in her eye. And then there’s her nails. I never really noticed her nails in real life, but now I can’t imagine why not. Those suckers have main character energy; in most of the videos they’re long and shaped to a point and highly adorned with fancy designs in the polish and I can’t help but wonder how they’d feel racing down my back…
I reach down to school my cock into some sort of submission, but that’s fuckin’ futile. It wants her. Needs her.
Every time I try to jack off to her though, images of her in a whole new light come crashing into my head uninvited. I don’t want to think of the motherly version of her I saw the other day, nor the broken, vulnerable version who just lost the person who was, for all intents and purposes, her dad. I don’t want to keep wondering why she’s really here. Was she running? From what?
I want her to go back to kooky, crazy, irritating Yvette who I could just think of as sexy and scary-ish and nothing else.
Does that make me an ass? Maybe. Something’s changed though. Seeing Yvette with baby Laney…I can’t put to words what that did to me. Or why in the hell it did those things. It made me want that .
I don’t want kids. I don’t need family. It’s too much pressure to— to what ? What is the reason for that ballooning pressure I feel in my chest and my throat when I think of being a father and a husband? It’s not the responsibility—I can take care of anything, I can handle anything.
No. It’s the fact they’d need me to stay alive .
I tuck my cock back into my pants and scroll to the next video. Yeah, she is a bit kooky, no one can deny that. But she’s also a smart as fuck salesperson. If she could harvest her voice alone and package it up, it’d sell gangbusters.
I’m about to close out of the app when a new video suddenly populates at the top. She just posted this? It’s called, Papa Donovan . Without thinking better of it, I select it to play.
She takes a few seconds longer than usual to begin talking. Her eyes are glistening with unshed tears, no makeup on her face, no crazy nails, just her natural self. Beautiful self. She’s been crying and maybe losing some sleep and for that, she looks rougher for wear, but still drop-dead sexy.
If I didn’t already know her speaking voice well, I’d think she was singing, and not just talking, about Mr. Donovan. She clearly misses him, and I wish there were anything I could do to help her with that hurt. But I know from experience, no one can take away the pain of losing someone you loved that much, someone who meant that much.
I’m so absorbed in Yvette’s tribute video, I don’t realize I’m being watched outside my now- wide open bedroom door. By everyone. That is, until I hear Emrys.
“ This is why you missed dinner?” Emrys bitches. “I made good chili.”
“You made death chili,” Dante complains.
“You said make it spicy.”
“Yeah, I like heat,” Dante explains. “I don’t want to get fucked in the mouth by the sun.”
“You baby,” says Emrys.
“I liked it.” Collin shrugs.
Dante throws him a scowl. “Helpful.”
And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why we’re all still bachelors.
“Seriously man, what is this?” Emrys ticks his chin at my screen which I haven’t had the good sense to lower.
“His girlfriend,” Collin answers, “obviously.”
The alarm blares, mercifully cutting them off from further ribbing. For once I don’t hate that we’re getting a call. The announcement comes on next: Structure fire … Then in that same robo-voice, we’re given the address. “You’ve got to be kidding,” Dante gripes.
We know it too well. Goddamn Yvette’s house . The image of her alone with little Laney zips through my mind once more…this time with flames going up all around. The fuck was I thinking, leaving her with a baby? This fire isn’t a one-time, rando thing. She fucking does this.
We gear up and pile into the fire engine.
~ * ~
“How many times has this kitchen caught on fire, now, twelve?”
“Seven.”
“ Seven ? Yvette!”
“What, you thought it was twelve.”
“Once I can understand. Twice, we’d have words.”
“We have had words.”
“Did you hear any of them?!”
“Ward…please. Not today, please .” She looks exhausted, borderline desperate, reminding me of the video she just posted an hour ago. She’s so in her feelings today, she probably just got distracted while cooking. I can show mercy, today.
Reading the room, the rest of the crew takes their leave outside. “What were you making?” I ask Yvette.
“Soup.”
I toss a curious look over at the stove. “ In a cauldron ?”
Yvette shrugs. “I like the aesthetic. I wasn’t doing anything weird…this time.” She bites her lip. This has been a little more berating than I normally give her when we’re called out here. A little more. I’m always pretty peeved. There’s a part of me that wants to keep laying into her, partly to make sure she really gets it this time, and partly to vent out my built-up frustrations.
A bigger part of me though, wants to just hold her.
Horny, and irritated. Horny, and irritated.
“Well, good thing you know our number. We got here quick. Your house will be fine.” Though it is still thick with smoke. I haven’t seen the layout of her whole house, but I remember the room Laney was napping in, that was separated only by a hippie bead curtain. “You have any rooms with doors in this house?”
“My bedroom. Of course.”
I imagine her bedroom and have to quickly swipe the mental image from my brain. “Open all the windows out here, and try to stay in your room the rest of the night—”
“Yes, I know the drill, Lieutenant.” Her face softens into something like flirtation, or that’s just my imagination, as she calls me by my title instead of my name or some other nickname she likes to make up for me.
“Good.” I nod once. I’m lingering too long, I should go now. I start to turn on my bootheel, but she looks so defeated and pitiful, I stop.
She blinks up at me. “Still want that date?”
“Yeah,” I answer gruffly, turning around and taking my leave finally. I add over my shoulder, “You don’t scare me, Spark.” But maybe I should be a little afraid. Maybe it’s like the guys all accuse me of being: someone who goes looking for death.
Too late now.
I’m going to get so much hell for this .