Chapter 4
Chapter Four
G rin thing?
What in the fuck was the grin thing? Frank had spent the past four hours at the firehouse trying to figure it out and he still had no clue.
Sure he smiled. He smirked. He probably even fucking grinned, but what was a grin thing?
Was it good? Bad? Gag-me-with-a-spoon gross?
Did she like it, or hate it, or get all weirded out by it?
Should he never do it again, or should he be doing it all the time?
What he’d give for a fire call right now. False alarm, abandoned building, car fire on the parkway, anything to give him something more to do than mop the floors or check the water hoses for wear and tear. Yeah, all of that needed to happen, but it gave him too much time in his head, and he wasn’t exactly a thinkin’ guy kind of guy. He was a doin’ kind of guy—which explained his job choice.
Katie Madigan, though, had him spinning.
“Shannahan,” he hollered at the guy working the scrub brush over the front of the aerial truck. “What’s it mean when a woman says ‘you do a grin thing?’”
The other man stopped mid-motion, puffed up his chest, and gave him the kind of cocky look that had Frank immediately realizing he’d made a horrible mistake.
“Fuck if I know,” Shannahan said, “but I can tell you all about the ‘leg over one shoulder while holding her ass up thing.’”
“That’s a good one,” Janzen said from his spot on top of the truck, where he was checking the ladder. “After he tells you all about it, I’ll educate you on the importance of the jackhammer move. It’s legendary.”
What in the fuck had he been thinking in opening his mouth? You hadn’t been thinking Frankie boy—story of your life. Also the reason why you run into burning buildings instead of working inside of them like your brother Mikey— or as he was more often called at the family dinners on Sunday at his parents’ house, Mikey the stockbroker .
“I’m surrounded by idiots,” he grumbled.
“Hey man,” Janzen said. “You chose the job.”
Not wrong, but he still had enough of the Hartigan stubbornness not to give in that easily. “This place needs a better screening process for job candidates.”
“Yeah,” Booker said as he rinsed off the spot Frank had been scrubbing. “They’ll let just anyone run into a burning building around here.”
“What’s wrong Hartigan, your special order uniform pants tight on your balls and got you as pissy as my sister on her period?” O’Rourke asked.
Frank glanced over his shoulder at the asshole with a clipboard who’d somehow managed to talk the captain into giving him light duty because he thought he was coming down with the flu. More like he had a Saturday morning hangover from a night of shotgunning cans of black-market Coors brought to Harbor City by a Burt Reynolds lookalike in a black Trans Am, so the rest of the crew had to pick up the slack—and not for the first time. Yeah, there was a reason why O’Rourke was one of Blane Adler’s toady friends—he was a complete and total dipshit.
“Not all of us can be born gymnasts, O’Rourke,” Frank said, poking a finger into the man’s biggest insecurity.
O’Rourke’s cheeks turned bright red, and he shot up from the bench in front of the lockers with more speed than a man worried about barfing up breakfast because of a bug should be capable of mustering. He quick footed it over to the truck. “Too bad for you, because my height puts me right at eye level with all the best tits in town.”
Frank scoffed and turned back to the soot and splattered bugs on the truck’s gripped steps. “And that’s as close as you will—or ever should—get to them.”
“That’s not what your sister said,” O’Rourke sneered.
If the douchebag meant to get a rise out of Frank by name checking his sister—and the toughest Hartigan to ever set foot in Waterbury—it wasn’t gonna happen.
“If you ever got within arm’s length of Francine, she’d knock you flat,” Frank said. “Again.”
O’Rourke’s face went another six shades darker. He got right up in Frank’s space, which would have been intimidating if the guy hadn’t been a foot shorter and close to a hundred pounds lighter. “That was sixth grade,” he said, still obviously seething about something that happened fifteen years ago.
“And you’re still the same shit-for-brains asshole,” Frank shot back. “And she could still lay you out.”
“Children,” Ed Madigan snarled from the doorway of his office. “How about you shut your mouths before I assign extra cleaning duties? It’s been a while since the shower tiles got a good toothbrush cleaning.”
“You got it, Cap,” Frank said, not looking away from O’Rourke.
The shrimp on steroids glared up at Frank. “Won’t happen again, Captain.”
“See that it doesn’t.” After shooting them a fuck-with-me-and-you’ll-regret-it look that closely resembled the one his daughter Katie handed out like candy on Halloween, Captain Madigan walked back into his office, the door behind him closing with an emphatic thunk.
O’Rourke’s face was all twisted up with rage, but he pulled back on whatever dumb idea he was considering. Instead, he pointed his clipboard at the aerial truck. “You missed a spot.”
Then he turned and walked back to the bench he’d been sitting on all afternoon while the rest of the crew did the daily maintenance. One of these days, the punk was going to get his ass handed to him, but it wouldn’t be today. Unfortunately. Frank didn’t know a lot, but he knew he didn’t want to let a fight with a shithead like O’Rourke be the reason he didn’t get promoted. Okay, fight was being generous. It would be two hits—Frank’s fist and O’Rourke’s ass landing on the ground, but everyone knew that.
So instead, he did the smartest thing he could, he went back to scrubbing the truck and trying to forget Katie Madigan and her baffling ‘grin thing’ comment.
An hour later he still didn’t have a clue what it meant, but the truck was washed, the smell of the chili Antoni was making for dinner wafted out of the firehouse kitchen, and O’Rourke was signing the maintenance completed paperwork as the captain watched from his open office door. All was right with the world.
“Oh shit,” Janzen muttered. “ She’s here.”
Before Frank could open his mouth, Shannahan asked, “Who’s here?”
“The Wicked Bitch of Waterbury,” O’Rourke answered.
Frank’s pulse ticked up to levels that would concern the crew’s EMTs while the rest of him froze. There was only one woman that Adler’s circle of shithead friends would call that nickname. The only one who called their douchebag ringleader out on his shit every time he broke her sister’s heart.
“The captain is right over there. What in the fuck is wrong with you O’Rourke?” Janzen asked, but the blood rushing in Frank’s ears made it so he could barely hear him. “Wait. Don’t answer. We’ll be here all shift if you do.”
O’Rourke snapped something back, but Frank didn’t give enough of a shit to listen—especially not after he turned around and spotted Katie Madigan standing in the open bay doors holding an avocado green Tupperware container. Her hair was poofed up more than usual thanks to the wind that sent the fall leaves flying down the sidewalks and clogging up the storm drains. She had on blue tights, pink leg warmers, a lime-colored leotard, and an oversized Members Only jacket. Her cheeks were flushed and her skin was shiny after whatever workout she’d just finished.
She didn’t just look good. She looked amazing. And she was looking right at him.
Frank didn’t think about it—no surprise there—but it was like his whole mouth just started moving on its own accord. His lips curled into a smile he couldn’t flatten back into a line if he tried.
“Earth to Hartigan,” Shannahan said in a low voice, as he stood next to Frank. “Remember that grin thing you were asking about earlier? Well, I’m pretty damn sure you’re doing it right now, at the captain’s daughter. That’s a really bad idea.”
It was, but it wasn’t like he was known for having great ones.