“I have—had, before the accident—a plan. I’m not out of my mind.”
Of that there was doubt.
“Maybe, one day, I’ll explain. Right now, I’m tired and I want to sleep.” With that pronouncement, she ended the call.
Flick looked at her phone and thought, maybe a little uncharitably, Gina was developing a habit of using pain and tiredness to avoid having unwanted conversations.
Flick realized that she was approaching the fire station so, as per usual, she picked up her pace and was jogging steadily as she ran past the bay. If she was really, really lucky, her firemen cousins and their friends, most of whom she’d grown up with, would be inside eating lunch. For their sake, she hoped that her cousin Jason wasn’t cooking, because the man could burn water.
A piercing whistle pierced the silence. “Looking good, Flick!”
“But we all know that when you turn the corner you collapse onto the grass to get your breath back,” Jason yelled.
Dammit! Flick stopped, resisted the impulse to put her hands on her knees, and looked across the road to where her cousin and a few of his colleagues were standing. Jason held a bottle of water in his hand and wiggled it. Oh hell yes, she needed water.
God, Jason would, as her old stoner boyfriend used to say, wig out when he heard that his mother was a) nutty and b) living in a fire hazard.
She crossed the road, greeted her friends, and took the bottle Jason offered, downing half of the contents in one gulp. When she’d had enough, she lowered the bottle and looked at her friends.
“So what’s the hot topic of conversation today, guys?” Flick asked, because everyone in Mercy knew that their firemen were the biggest gossips in town. Hmm, how many of them were actively commenting on MercyOnLine? A bunch, she was sure.
Kevin, always garrulous, answered her. “We were just ragging Jason about his latest barnacle.”
“Barnacle?” Flick asked, not understanding.
“Jace’s latest squeeze, who is super attached. She called just ten minutes ago and if you hang around for another ten we can guarantee that she’ll call back again,” Kevin explained.
Flick didn’t bother asking her name, since, like most of the Sturgiss men, Jason flipped over women with the speed of a spinning top. Jason’s phone rang and he pulled it out of his pocket and held up the display so that they could see that it was someone named Mandy calling. He shook his head, visibly annoyed as the call went to voicemail. “That was exactly five minutes since the last call.”
“Jason’s got a stalker,” Kevin sing-songed the words.
“I wish I could say that it was the first one,” Jason grumbled. “What is wrong with your species, Flick? I mean, we’ve only dated a couple of times and she’s asking me what I want her to cook for me tonight. I don’t want her to cook, I don’t even want to see her tonight! She wants to pack my lunches and keeps offering to do my laundry.” Jason looked bewildered. “I thought that we were just going to hook up casually, but she’s reading so much more into this than I am.”
Flick dropped her eyes from his face and stared down at her battered running shoes. How many times before had she done that with men she’d dated? Once, twice, ten times?
“At least you’re getting sex, dude,” Kevin commented.
“I guess but—shit! I just think that if I don’t stop this I’m going to end up in front of the preacher and not know how the hell I got there!”
Flick hoped that her cousin and friends would attribute her red face to her lack of fitness and not her embarrassment. Because Jason could be talking about her, about the way she conducted her love life. She’d meet a guy, find him attractive, and then she’d have a brief affair or a one-night stand and tell herself that was all it was...that she could always walk away.
Except she never did.
On the pretext of staying friends or some other stupid-ass excuse she told herself, she’d keep in contact with her latest lover and then she’d start feeding him, or doing his laundry, or running chores for him—usually all three—and, invariably, her no-strings fling turned into a relationship. But, unlike Jason’s Mandy, the men she chose were always on the damaged side of the bell graph, men who needed to be “fixed” in one way or another. She seemed to be drawn to the broken-hearted, the insecure, the self-absorbed, and, frequently, the lazy men of the world.
It was no surprise that her relationships always ended, sometimes with a whimper, sometimes with a bang. And sometimes— a few months back— it ended when she caught her boyfriend with their next-door neighbor. Apparently, she had some limits. Her loser boyfriends could siphon her bank account dry and emotionally drain her, but being cheated on was something she wouldn’t accept. The fact that he was cheating on her with someone at least twenty-five years older than her, who was wrinkled and chubby, just took her humiliation to record heights.
“Why can’t you lot get your head around the concept that sex is sex and that it usually has nothing to do with love?” Jason demanded.
Flick threw up her hands. How the hell should she know? She was an expert in wearing rose-colored glasses when it came to relationships. Good thing she’d stopped all that nonsense now. As she closed in on thirty, she wanted to get to the point of being fully confident in the idea that she was fine on her own, doing her thing. Actually walking the walk and not just talking the talk.
She could do that—shewoulddo that—but unfortunately, she missed sex. Dear God she missed sex. She longed for the feel of a warm masculine body to lie against at night, and missed the connection lovemaking brought, even if it was only a physical one. And, damn, she missed orgasms. She missed those a lot.
Withdrawal symptoms, she told herself; being with a man was a habit and she was still going cold turkey. Jason’s phone rang again and they all groaned. Rufus barked and plopped his butt onto her foot, crushing her toes. “Ow, dammit, Rufus! Off!”
“That dog is so in love with you, Flick,” Kevin commented. He snapped his fingers, all traces of teasing leaving his face. “Oh, that reminds me. We’ve got an injured kitten running around. If I catch it will you take it?”
Flick wanted to say no, she really did, but she knew, everyone knew, she was a soft touch. The thought that Pippa might kill her if she took home a kitten crossed her mind. But she couldn’t say no, she’d never said no. If it was young and dumb and injured then it was in her nature to scoop it up and nurture it back to health. Animalsandmen.