Slow Burn with His Best Friend's Sister

Chapter 1

CHAPTER

ONE

CLIMBING UP THE stairs to her new apartment, dragging her heavy suitcase with one hand while the other clutched two bags stuffed with clothes, she had sweat dripping down her neck, but Georgia Cross still had a smile on her face.

Stubbing her toe and tripping into the hallway wasn’t going to rain on her parade.

Not today.

Her dream was finally coming true.

The move might have started as a disaster. A broken elevator on moving day didn’t earn her a gold star, but none of that mattered. After all this time, Georgia was ready to start her life.

Yikes, she acknowledged she sounded a touch dramatic. But in her defense, this new apartment was a long time coming.

After four years in undergrad, four years in medical school, and another three years to complete her residency, she was ready to jump headfirst into her career. Her new job was at Landmere Family Care, the long-standing practice in Landmere, Maryland, where she grew up.

Finally, after huffing and puffing, which made her resolve to join a gym, she was standing in front of the door to her new apartment.

Thankfully, the place came fully furnished so she didn’t have to add furniture to her long list of things to do.

Taking a deep breath, she unlocked the door and swung it open.

Home sweet home.

She dropped everything in the living room and let out a sigh of relief. She did it.

Georgia did a little dance in her brand-new home, loving her two-bedroom apartment.

Ever since she left Landmere for college at eighteen, she had always shared a room, whether in the dorms, on-campus housing, or the small apartment she shared with another med student during residency.

This two-bedroom apartment was a luxurious reward after all her hard work for the past decade.

Even longer, she considered how her head was always in a book, studying nonstop.

When she wasn’t reading, she was busy building her college résumé.

From playing field hockey and running track to being president of student council and volunteering at the local hospital, she’d been in go mode most of her life.

After all her dedication to school, as nerdy as it sounded, she was hyped to have her own bedroom. The fact she had a bonus room for an office was even better.

Her phone rang, which ended her happy dance.

“Hi, Nash!” Georgia answered, glad to talk to her older brother. Despite their seven-year age gap, they’d always been close. “Guess who is moving into her apartment as we speak!”

“Hell yeah.” The sound of clapping filtered through the phone. “I can’t believe we’re living near each other again.”

She dropped onto the cream-colored couch. “Same! Now we just need Brooks to move back.”

“I doubt that will happen. Our little brother loves living in Italy,” he reminded her.

Brooklyn, more often called Brooks, was the baby of the family at twenty-five, and he moved to Italy after he finished college.

He worked as a sustainability engineer, and it didn’t sound like he planned to cross the Atlantic any time soon.

Like Georgia, he barely ever made it home, but he had more of an excuse because plane tickets were outrageously expensive.

Either way, she missed him like crazy.

“He did say he would visit this Christmas.” Georgia was always hopeful it would actually happen.

“Maybe.” Nash wasn’t as optimistic. “Let’s focus on you. You’re back in Landmere!”

She beamed, happy to be home. “Tonight is going to be so much fun to celebrate. Thanks for planning everything.”

“Anything for you, George.”

Ugh, she hated him calling her George, but he wanted a little brother when she was born, and it was well before Brooks came along. Unfortunately, the nickname stuck not only with him but also with her friends.

“One day, you will refer to me as Georgia.”

“Blasphemy.”

“Nice vocabulary. You read between calls at the station?” she teased.

“Nah. Just something I heard from my last hookup.”

“Eww, gross. I need to swipe my brain clean from that.”

“You know I would never tell you about my sex life.”

“There are miracles.”

He gruffly laughed. “And it seems you’re still my prude little sister.”

“Rude. And to think I was going to thank you for planning everything for tonight. Promise me you’ll actually show up. Please don’t tell me you’re on shift this weekend.”

“Nope, I got Benny to swap for me,” Nash confirmed with his famous laugh he always gave so easily.

Another little dance party for Georgia. “Yay! We’re going out, and I plan on having multiple drinks and dancing all night.”

Her brother groaned. “I know you’re old enough to drink, but we have never gone out drinking together. You better not disappoint the Cross name by being a lightweight.”

She rolled her eyes. “As if I would embarrass you. Just because I got good grades didn’t mean I was sitting at home every night.”

Which was sort of true.

Kind of.

“Thank fuck because if you have two drinks and fall out of your seat, I’d leave you there.” He chuckled. “Is it too soon to tell you my friends are off limits?”

“Don’t be the guy who can joke about sex but then gets all macho man on his sister about it. You’re better than that.”

“I’d prefer you to be a lightweight than you hooking up with one of the guys from the fire station. In fact, sleeping with one of my friends is off the table,” Nash warned.

“You have nothing to worry about there,” Georgia reassured him. Not that she’d ever follow such a ridiculous notion that she was off limits. But if it shut Nash up, then so be it. “The idea of hooking up with one of your friends is not on my bucket list. I’m not trying to date a grandpa.”

“Hey! I’m thirty-six. You can’t compare me to someone that old.” He pretended to sound offended.

“Tomato, toma-toh. I can’t wait to see you tonight. What’s the plan?”

“Tell me again why you had me arrange this and not Sophie?” The notorious cheerfulness in her brother’s voice vanished. This was on track for whenever her best friend was brought up.

Georgia was used to playing referee between them.

She still needed to get a few more things from her car, so she shut and locked her apartment door, and headed down the stairs again.

“Because when I told you I was coming home, you said, and I quote, this is the best news ever, I’m planning a welcome home party for you.

And when I suggested Sophie could help, you said no way in hell.

No, wait. I think you said fuck no and you’d rather your favorite appendage be cut off than having to be near her. ”

Nash must have kicked something that scraped across the floor because she heard the scratchy sound. “Fuck, you’re right. George, why did you have to be best friends with Satan?”

“You are the only person who believes that,” Georgia countered. She popped open her trunk and grabbed a box, then a bag that she swung over her shoulder. “I actually have to let you go. I’m getting the last bit of stuff from my car. Where and what time for tonight?”

“Lighthouse at nine,” Nash confirmed before hanging up.

Damn it, she didn’t get to ask who was going, besides him and Sophie.

Landmere wasn’t a small town, but it wasn’t a city either.

It was stuck in purgatory between the two.

Instead of six degrees of separation, there were three.

That wasn’t going to stop her from making dating a priority.

She had a boyfriend in high school, Victor Bord, and it wasn’t very serious.

According to Sophie and her other best friend Anna, he’s married and has two kids.

Good for him. Georgia didn’t pine over him when they did date, so she wasn’t upset he wasn’t on the market now.

Though she didn’t like being lonely, and she did care about that.

Once she put in some time at the medical practice to learn the ins and outs of her new job, she was going to date.

“I’m a doctor,” Georgia whispered to herself as she shoved through her front door and dropped the box she was holding. She grinned, doubting she would ever get tired of hearing her new job title.

Georgia went to her room to get ready, deciding her first night out required something dressier than her usual scrubs or jeans and a T-shirt.

To spice things up, she put on a black dress that fell mid-thigh with some ruffle on the bottom, had long lacy sleeves, and showed just a little bit of her cleavage to leave a man itching to see more.

She added a long rose gold necklace with different shades of red gems dangling from the end.

To match, she wore her favorite red sandals.

After blowing out her blond hair and curling it at the ends to give the carefree, beach look that actually took way too much time, she did her makeup.

Glancing in the mirror, she blew herself a kiss, loving her look.

Tonight was going to be so much fun. And maybe she’d meet someone. It wasn’t like she had to get acclimated at work to have a good time.

A ding on her phone let her know her Uber arrived. She locked up her apartment and took the stairs two at a time. She was so ready for the night.

She definitely wouldn’t say no to a good night kiss.

Who knew where the night might take her.

ELIJAH BARNETT HAD little patience for anything outside of work and his close-knit group of friends, who also happened to be his coworkers at Landmere Fire Station.

Hell, he was thirty-eight and focused on his career, his schedule was never the same, and he was notoriously known for not having a friendly attitude.

Elijah didn’t have people pounding at his door for dinner.

And he preferred it that way.

When his phone rang on his day off, he was tempted to ignore it.

But it was Nash Cross, someone he considered a close friend.

The same person who saved his life two years ago, and Nash refused to even hear a thanks for it.

Elijah wasn’t all warm and fuzzy, but the man dragged him out of a fire that went haywire.

Fucker didn’t even accept the thank-you beer, which led Elijah to feel indebted to him.

Perhaps this was an opportunity.

“Cross, what’s up?” Elijah answered his phone as he walked into his kitchen.

Since coming off a forty-eight-hour shift, he slept for twelve hours straight when he got home. Now it was after seven, and he was starving. He opened his refrigerator and grumbled.

“What’s your problem? You have seventy-two off.

Enjoy the next three days, asshole. It’s only been a month, but I love our new 48/72 shift schedule.

Two days on was hard to get used to, but I love having the time off.

I swear my sleep is better. How are you adjusting?

Was that what your bullshit whine was about? ”

Elijah slammed his refrigerator shut.

“I like the new shift schedule, and I’m not fucking whining, you dick,” he tossed back to his friend. “I have no food in my house, and the last thing I ate was the pasteles Benny made.”

“Do you think he made it or his mom since she was visiting from Puerto Rico? We’ve had his food, and it’s never been that good.”

Elijah paused. The food was too good to have been cooked by Benny. “Had to be his mom. It was seasoned. I doubt Benny even knows what a plantain is.”

“Shut up,” Nash joked. “I had no idea I even liked plantains, and I had three servings.”

“Fat ass.”

“Well, the good friend I am, I have a solution to solve your hunger problem. Come with me to Lighthouse.”

That’s not a bad suggestion. Lighthouse was one of the five bars lining Colgate Street, the most popular nightlife area in Landmere. This specific bar was more laid-back than the others. They typically had a band on the second floor, and they had outside patio seating.

If Elijah was going out with his friends, it was usually to Lighthouse. It’s even become a pseudo firefighter bar, and the manager gave them a discount.

“Stop dragging your dick and meet me there,” Nash pressed when Elijah didn’t answer right away.

“At least my dick touches the floor.”

“Fuck you,” Nash laughed with no concern. “The size of my dick is the reason women petition for the yearly firefighter calendar. Just meet me at Lighthouse tonight.”

“You need a wingman that bad?”

“I’ve never needed a wingman. You’re the one who needs to get laid,” Nash reminded him. “You’re too commitment-phobe to fuck someone who lives in Landmere.”

“Some would consider it noble,” Elijah countered.

Commitment-phobe was also a stretch. Just because he had no desire to get married didn’t mean he was afraid of commitment. He was committed to many things, just not to a woman who expected him to be someone he wasn’t.

Nash was cracking up on the other end of the phone. “You think it’s noble to go to a neighboring town and randomly fuck a woman there rather than do it here?”

“There may be some cracks in my logic, but has a pissed-off woman ever shown up at the station for me?” Elijah asked, bringing up the last time one of Nash’s random hookups caused commotion at work.

“No,” they both answered at the same time.

Elijah made his way upstairs. “I don’t want any distractions from my job.”

“I hear you.” Nash was serious for once. “I’ll drop the subject of you needing a fuck buddy, but I will not drop nagging you about coming out tonight. George is home, finally moved back. I can’t believe the two of you haven’t met yet. Meet me there by nine.”

Nash hung up and didn’t give much opportunity for Elijah to object to the plans, so he headed upstairs to shower and change.

Besides, he’d heard of George, who just graduated from medical school. He was excited to meet Nash’s little brother.