27. Date Night
Date Night
WYATT
Barb and Birdie were on the porch when I came out of my room.
Barb looked me over. The shirt, the shoes, the haircut I'd gotten that afternoon. She adjusted my collar without asking.
"You look handsome." She winked. "Have a good time."
Birdie tugged my sleeve. "Tell her the flowers were my idea."
She'd picked the bouquet herself at Daphne's shop that afternoon, spent twenty minutes rejecting every option until she found the ones she approved of. The result was sitting on the porch table in brown paper and twine, and she was very serious about getting credit.
"I'll make sure she knows."
I took the bouquet and walked down the steps. Birdie waved.
I crossed the street. Twenty feet of sidewalk I'd walked a hundred times. It felt different tonight.
I went up her steps. Knocked.
The door opened.
I forgot the flowers.
She was wearing a black dress. Fitted, simple, the fabric pulling at her waist and her hips in a way that made my brain go blank.
Her hair was down, but not the way it looked when she pulled the elastic out after a shift.
Dark waves falling past her bare shoulders.
She'd done something to her lashes that made her eyes look wider.
A touch of color on her lips. A slight flush across her cheeks that might have been makeup or might have been her.
"You're gorgeous."
She smiled. The flush deepened, and she didn't look away.
"You brought me flowers."
I looked down. I was still holding them. "Birdie picked them out. She wanted me to tell you that."
Andy took the bouquet and brought it to her face. She closed her eyes for a second. When she opened them, she blinked hard.
"Tell her they're perfect."
I took her to a small Italian place off Flamingo. Close tables, low lighting, bread on the table before we'd opened the menus.
I don't remember what I ordered. I remember her across the table.
Relaxed, laughing, her hair falling forward when she leaned in to tell me something.
She told me stories about Doug's early days as her partner, the ones she saved for people she trusted.
I told her about the time Travis set off the smoke alarm in the firehouse kitchen trying to make a grilled cheese and the entire crew responded in full gear before realizing what happened.
She laughed so hard she put her napkin over her face and couldn't stop.
She talked about her dad. How they used to watch crime shows and murder mysteries together on the couch.
They'd try to guess the killer before the reveal.
Her dad would shake his head at the screen whenever the detective got the answer with just one look.
"That's not how it goes," he'd say. Or: "It's never that easy.
" But he never changed the channel. It was their thing.
I told her about Birdie's first day of school and how I sat in the truck for twenty minutes after drop-off because I wasn't ready to go home to an empty house.
She stole a bite off my plate without asking and looked at me like she dared me to say something about it.
She wasn't Officer Walsh. I wasn't the annoying firefighter. We were two people at a table in a restaurant.
After dinner, we walked to my truck. She stopped beside the passenger door and turned to face me.
"Thank you for tonight." She was looking at the ground. "Elliot never took me anywhere anyone could see us. I know that sounds pathetic—"
"It doesn't."
"I just wanted to say thank you. For not making it weird. For making it feel normal."
She looked up at me. The porch light from the restaurant was catching her hair and the color on her lips and the line of her neck above the dress. She was thanking me for a dinner date. Like it was a gift.
How does a man have four years with this woman and hide her?
I would never understand what was going through Elliot Handler's mind when he let her go. But I was glad he did. Because if he hadn't been stupid enough to lose her, I wouldn't be standing here right now.
"I love you, Cassandra Allison Walsh."
She laughed. She was standing in a parking lot smiling at me and I couldn't look at anything else.
"Really? My whole government name?"
I kissed her while she was still laughing. Her hands came up to my chest and I felt the laugh dissolve against my lips.
"Take me home, Wyatt Brooks," she said against my mouth.
Her back hit the door before I'd turned the lock.
Her mouth was on mine, her hands pulling at my shirt, and the only thought in my head was that we'd been doing this on every shared day off for weeks and it still felt new every time.
Her door, her hallway, her hands. It should have been familiar by now.
It wasn't. Every time she touched me, something in my chest reset to zero.
She undid my buttons. I reached for the zipper at the back of her dress. She turned around and lifted her hair. I pulled the zipper down, my knuckles tracing her spine. The dress loosened and fell from her shoulders.
Black lace.
I stopped. My hands went still on her waist.
I knew this lace. The package I'd opened on my porch thinking it was a Halloween costume. The morning she sprinted across the street with her cheeks on fire.
She turned around and looked at me. She was standing in her hallway in the lingerie that was delivered to my house. The same lace I'd pictured on her on the nights I let myself think about things I shouldn't have. She'd chosen to wear it tonight. For me.
"Do you have any idea what you're doing to me right now?"
She didn't answer. She just looked at me.
The lace was delicate against her skin, and all I wanted to do was tear it off her.
"Don't even think about it," she said, reading my face. "It's expensive."
I kissed her hard. She didn't pull away. Her hands slid down my chest, my stomach, pulling at my belt. I backed her toward the bedroom.
She pushed me down onto the bed. I landed on my back and she followed me down, her mouth moving from my jaw to my neck to my chest. She kissed lower.
My stomach tensed under her lips. Her fingers hooked into my waistband and pulled everything down in one motion.
Then she settled between my legs, wrapped her hand around me, and lowered her mouth.
My hand found her hair and every thought left my body.
She was slow and deliberate. Her tongue moved in long strokes, and she watched me while she did it.
Those green eyes locked on mine, her hair falling across my thigh.
Every time I got close she eased off, kissed the inside of my hip, and started again.
I said her name. She smiled against me and took me deeper.
Before I lost control, I pulled her up. She reached for the bedside drawer, tore the wrapper, and rolled the condom on without her hands shaking once. Then she climbed on top of me.
She sank down slowly. The heat of her around me made every muscle in my body tighten.
Her head tipped back, her hands flat on my chest, her hips finding a rhythm that made my hands grip the sheets.
I watched her move above me. The flush spread across her chest. Her lips parted.
She was beautiful and she was in control and I let her have it.
For a few minutes.
I flipped us. She landed on her back with a gasp and I was over her, her wrists pinned beside her head, my mouth against her ear.
I didn't hold back. The way her hips tilted to take me deeper, the sounds she was making against my neck made me move faster.
I was already trying not to finish. Her nails raked down my back and that was almost the end of it.
My hips drove into hers and she matched me, her body rising to meet every stroke, her breath ragged against my skin.
"Wyatt." My name came out ragged, half-buried in the pillow. "Don't stop."
I couldn't have stopped if I'd wanted to. She was tight around me, her thighs clenching, her nails biting into my shoulders. I buried my face in her neck and gave her everything I had.
She came first. Her whole body clenched around me, her back lifting off the bed, and the sound she made took me with her. My hands fisted the sheets beside her head, her body still pulsing beneath mine.
I rolled off her. We lay on our backs, both breathing hard, the ceiling spinning above us. After a minute, she curled into me. Her head on my chest, her leg draped across mine.
I waited until her heartbeat slowed against my side.
"You have no idea what that filthy mouth of yours does to me."
She froze. She lifted her head and looked at me. Her eyes wide.
"Did you just quote my book?"
I grinned.
"Wyatt Brooks." She sat up on her elbow. "Have you been reading my romance books?"
"Maybe?"
She laughed. Her face flushed and her hair everywhere. "You're so—" She shook her head. "You're so!"
"I love you too."
She kissed me. Then she dropped her head back against my chest. I felt her still laughing against my ribs.
The Lantern was full on a Friday night.
The firehouse crew had the usual table. Travis holding court, Greene and Carl in the corner.
Knox was at the end of the bar. Jeremy was at the counter talking to Terrence about something that had them both laughing.
Andy sat with the crew, a beer in her hand.
Fresh flowers from Daphne's shop sat in a jar on the counter, the way they did every week.
Gus set a beer in front of me. He leaned on his side of the bar and looked at me for a long moment.
"I'm happy for you, Wyatt." He said it simply. "Seeing you happy makes me happy."
He was there the week Birdie was born, showed up at my house with a bag of groceries and a casserole.
He sat with me on the nights the grief got too heavy to carry alone.
He listened to every update I had about Birdie.
Her first word, her first steps, every milestone I didn't think I'd survive.
He told me I was doing a good job when I was sure I wasn't. He was the father I wished I'd had when I was younger. I was glad I had him now.
"Thank you, Gus." I looked at him. "For everything."
Gus held my gaze.
"You don't have to thank me. That's what we do."
"I know. But I wanted to."
He nodded. Then he reached under the counter, pulled out a bottle, poured two shots, and slid one across to me.
He raised his glass. "To family."
We drank.
From the table, Travis's voice cut through the room.
"Please." He had his hands together. "Please, Andy."
Andy didn't look up from her beer. "No."
"I just want to know what it feels like."
"I said no, Travis."
"Come on." He leaned across the table toward her.
"I'm not losing my badge because you want to know what 50,000 volts feels like."
Travis sat back. Thought about it for exactly one second. Then he turned to Jeremy. "Fine. Murray, you tase me then."
Knox called out from the end of the bar. "What the hell is wrong with you?"
"There's no harm in being curious."
Andy pinched the bridge of her nose. Knox shook his head. "That's not how the saying goes."
The whole table lost it.
Andy caught my eye across the bar. I mouthed the words. I love you. Her smile widened.
I had a lot to be thankful for.