Chapter 10 Some Clarity
SOME CLARITY
Deep breath in and then out. Once more.
Chance Drummond was on his way to her floor right now.
She liked the playful back-and-forth between them. A game of words and wit she’d never shared with any man she’d dated before. Most didn’t care for it and she loved the rush she felt being with him.
She always thought she had a witty tongue and sense of humor, but others didn’t.
At least not anyone other than her family.
Being able to be herself around Chance, no filters or fear of judgment, meant everything. Even when she gave him crap for knocking himself down, he didn’t flinch. He just smiled like he got her.
She wasn’t sure if that was part of his personality, a joke to him, or meant to scare her away.
Hopefully, there’d be some clarity tonight.
Not that she knew what tonight was going to bring or why she said she wanted a date with him.
She’d be lying if she hadn’t admitted that to him.
There was a knock at her door, so she jumped up from the couch and strode toward it, took one more deep breath, and opened it.
Chance stood there with a bag in his hand and a smile on his face.
With his dark hair, darker eyes, and that black shirt clinging to him just right, he looked dangerous. The kind of danger a woman didn’t run from, but straight toward.
At least this woman did!
“What do you have?” she asked. “And please, come in.”
“Ginger beer, vodka, and lime. No mint.”
He remembered.
“Wow,” she said. “Are you going to make it for me?”
“What kind of bartender would I be if I didn’t? Nice place.”
He was sliding his sneakers off before she could tell him he didn’t have to. The orange and red socks on his feet had her grinning. He was full of surprises.
“It’s not as big as some of the other condos in the building. Kind of in the middle, but works for me.”
“This building isn’t that old either. Lots of nice amenities that I could see the few times I was in it.”
She took the bag out of his hand and pulled the contents out to put on the counter. “It’s ten years old. I’ve been here for about five years. My first place that I bought.”
“No house for you? I thought for sure with all your contacts in the area you’d have one built.”
“I’m not sure I’ve got what it takes to care for a house. This is low maintenance.”
“Something tells me you’re pretty self-sufficient.”
“I actually am and thank you for saying that. Then call it laziness. I don’t have to worry about mowing the lawn, or any of those other pesky things. Could I call Gabe or my father? Sure. But I wouldn’t. Do I want to live here forever? Nope.”
No reason to voice that she wanted a house, a husband, and a kid within the next five years. That was a way to make sure it never happened.
“Glasses?” he asked.
She found some nicer ones in the back, filled them with ice, then handed them over. He poured a healthy amount of vodka in both of them while she cut the lime. He squeezed it in and dropped it down, then opened the ginger beer to pour.
She picked her glass up and clinked it against his. “Thanks. I might get spoiled and want this every night.”
“It’s best not to get too used to a good thing.”
“I feel as if there is a double meaning there.”
“Nope,” he said, sipping the drink.
“I bought beer. I wasn’t sure what you drank but noticed you had a lot of Fierce on tap so grabbed two different four-packs of that.”
“Did you want to get me drunk or think I’d come back for more? Unless you’re a beer drinker?”
“Don’t assume things about me,” she said. “I do like beer now and again. I hadn’t planned on anyone getting drunk, and whether or not you come back again is up to you. Could be I’m a horrible cook.”
“Doesn’t smell it to me,” he said. “What did you make?”
She’d asked him what he liked to eat and he said the list was shorter on what he wouldn’t eat. She found that thoughtful.
“Caprese stuffed chicken. It’s got spinach, sun-dried tomatoes, and mozzarella in it. It’s baking now. Creamed spinach on the side since I had it and figured I’d use it, and rice pilaf.”
“Fancy,” he said, drawing the word out.
“Hardly that. It’s a new recipe, so with any luck, it’s not horrible.”
“Anything I don’t have to cook isn’t horrible,” he said.
“You’ve got a pub to get your food at,” she said.
“I do. We rotate taking turns bringing dinner in for our shifts at the firehouse. I get ribbed pretty hard because I bring it from the pub to warm up rather than cook there. I cook some of it if I have to and am not in the way, but do it at the pub.”
“Please, sit.”
“Don’t be formal on my account.”
She laughed. “That’s being an excellent host and polite rather than us standing in the kitchen.”
He nodded and grinned, but moved to the living room.
He sat on the couch. Not in the corner, but not in the center either. The lift of his eyebrow was a challenge if she’d join him or go to the chair.
She sat on the couch equal distance from the corner but on the other side.
“Tell me how you ended up being a fireman? From my perspective you can do it all.”
“Hardly that,” he said, snorting. “And no one ever thought it either. I’m pretty sure ninety percent of our teachers banked on me being in jail a few times by now.”
“Nah,” she said. “You might have gotten in trouble a lot, but I remember nothing being terrible.”
“Depends on your definition of terrible.”
“Fights,” she said. “And since I’ve got two brothers with big egos and a lot of pride, they’d gotten in their fair share of fights too.”
“Most likely not on the school grounds. But yep, there were fights.”
“Can I ask why or what they were about?”
“Too many to count,” he said. “Let’s say when some of those in your social circle thought it’d elevate their status to toss me around in gym class or give me an elbow to the balls, they got it back tenfold.”
“Good for you,” she said.
She always wondered the other side of it. She remembered some kids involved in those fights were dicks in her mind. Yep, they got in trouble too, but it seemed like Chance always ended up with the worst of it.
“Your brother was fairly decent.”
“Which one?”
“Jayce. I didn’t know Gabe in school. But Jayce gave me space. Not like we talked or hung out but had no beef with each other either.”
“He’s that way.”
“He doesn’t work for the family business, I see.”
“You didn’t answer my question. Are you going to be that way?”
He sighed. “Sorry. Not much to say. I moved around a lot of jobs but wanted something more stable. Worked in a garage for years on cars. Did some construction. I’m good with my hands.”
Her eyes dropped to the one resting on his thigh. The other was holding his drink.
Big hands. Trim clean nails. A callus here or there.
When they were on her body during the first aid training, she’d felt safe physically, but the nerve endings tingling throughout her body might disagree.
“Not with a paintbrush though.”
He looked confused and then laughed.
“Yeah, well, the only reason I showed up for that class was because of you.”
She coughed on the sip she’d just taken. He reached over to pat her on the back.
“Really?” she squeaked out.
“Yep, caught you off guard, didn’t I?”
“So you liked me back then?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know what terms you want to put on it. Don’t turn it into a chick thing. High school sucked and I was there to get it done. You made it more tolerable.”
“What a great way to ruin a compliment.”
She hadn’t expected him to be blunt. Thankfully, there was a spark of humor in his eyes, but she was sure every word was the truth.
“I don’t think women like you need compliments. Or if you do, I’m not the one to give them to you other than saying you wear a pair of jeans damn fine.”
“Why, thank you,” she said. She stood up and did a turn for him and sat down.
This time he coughed for a second, then took another sip.
“And that’s why I liked you,” he said. “You’re not afraid to give it back.”
“I’m not. Too bad for years all the men I’ve been around haven’t liked it.”
“Wusses.”
“They were that,” she said. “And you still haven’t said how you became a fireman.”
“I took the test,” he said. “I wanted something that was more stable than I had. I’ve always worked more than one job and didn’t want to spend the next sixty years of my life busting my ass.
I’ve got a good pension, can put my twenty years in, and keep my insurance, then collect my pension with a different job. Sounds like a win to me.”
“Wow. Insurance and pension are the last kind of talks I expected from you.”
“There you go, putting me in that bubble.”
“Nope, you’re doing it too. Just like you didn’t think I’d drink a beer. That’s why we are talking. But the truth is, you hated math, so you know, thinking of things like that, I put it together.”
“Math sucked too,” he said. “But money doesn’t. I know money and I know hard work. No fancy dreams about always wanting to be a fireman. I scored high on the test.”
“Because you’re smart.”
“Not many thought that.”
“They didn’t see the real you,” she said.
“And neither are you,” he said. There was a challenge in his tone and gaze.
“Don’t kid yourself. I’m willing to bet we are both showing it more than we have in the past to anyone else.”
“Why are you?” he asked, sipping his drink.
“Because what I was doing before wasn’t working and now it’s time for something else.”
She wouldn’t admit how happy she’d been being able to speak freely around him and he liked it rather than being turned off that she was a confident speak-her-mind woman. No reason to show her insecurities that she’d had in the past.
“So it’s a game?”
“Aren’t games fun?”
“Only if I get to win,” he said, winking.
She gulped more of her drink down and resisted the urge to fan herself.
They’d both win if she had her way.