Erin couldn’t sleep.
It was almost midnight. and she was too jazzed up. They were back on service as of 2100. The Chief was covering Williams’s spot. Baker’s presence was never good for Erin’s emotional state and knowing he was sleeping a floor below her wasn’t helping her find dreamland.
She had constant wild fantasies where she climbed into the Captain’s bunk room and seduced him.
Or she found him in the gym and got on her knees.
Quietly deserting her bed, she hoped occupying her time would keep those impulses under control. Dividing the mass of noodles into takeout containers for each shift seemed like a good idea.
Footsteps from the stairs alerted her she wasn’t alone anymore. A too attractive fire chief, still wearing a comfy Firehouse 33 T-shirt and jeans, encroached on her solitude.
“Hi, Chief.” Erin tried to keep her focus on the kitchen island in front of her, not the off-limits man.
“Hudgens,” Baker acknowledged her and lounged against the island, only a few feet from her. “That’s quite a lot of noodles.”
“Yeah. If I label it ‘gagh,’ do you think people would still eat it?” she quipped, avoiding eye contact.
“In my experience, after enough calls, starving firefighters will eat anything, including the tray and food labeled Klingon space worms,” he answered, his voice soft and low.
Erin glanced at him and regretted it. His gray tinged hair was more tousled than she had seen in the past. It was sexy dark-Jedi Chief bedhead.
She needed to fill the air with something. Anything, rather than offering to get an up-close and personal bedhead experience. “Do you want some noodles?”
“Thai food is fine, but I’m more of a hamburger and fries guy.”
She avoided looking at his trim waistline or letting her runaway tongue mention how good his body felt when she landed on him in the water pit. “It doesn’t show. You know what? I should stop talking.”
“You talk as much as you want. It’s refreshing,” he whispered. She could have sworn he inched toward her, but that wasn’t possible.
“I should have recruited more help before I unloaded these.” Erin said, telling herself she imagined it.
“Everybody else settled down for the night?”
“I think so. There was a pre-bunkroom thumb war over who gets to call Charlie.”
“All three of them?”
“Luna got her number, too,” Erin joked. “Kevin gave her a picture. It’s one of his easiest openings, makes him seem all sensitive.”
“And vulnerable with hidden pain,” the Chief said, “though he had his whole family thing today.”
“He’s had worse Unbirthdays according to Aiden. At least the cake was yum this year.” It was on the other counter, reduced to the largest two tiers and the ‘Jay-Z’ scrapped off.
“Was it? I missed having a piece.” The Chief didn’t turn to the cake.
“Do you want some cake now? You’d expect cheap cake, but it ended up being this sweet, airy, melt in your mouth type of chocolate.” She stepped toward the counter holding the cake but found Baker had blocked her path with his body. When had he moved?
“I’m not hungry for cake.” He regarded her steadily.
Erin’s heart beat faster. He had every opportunity to move out of the way, and he hadn’t. If Baker wanted, he could put his arms around her, and she would let him. Lips suddenly dry, she moistened them briefly. His blue eyes followed the motion of her tongue. “If you wanted to have a slice of cake, you might need several slices. Might not work as well as cheesecake.”
“Cheesecake?” His voice was much lowered pitched. Baker inched forward, less than a foot from her. He bent slightly over her, still too far away to touch, but close enough for her to imagine it. Close enough to smell him, the crisp clean scent of skin.
“Yeah, cheesecake is kind of decadent, rich and creamy, and it fills you up.” Erin wanted him to fill her up. “Whenever you eat chocolate cake, you can’t predict it. You might find a piece delicious enough that you can stop. Or you might find you ate the whole cake.”
“The North Star Cafe has a Light Speed Cake Tour sampler with a dozen flavors.” He was crowding her inexorably against the kitchen island. “I had to try it.”
Erin was shaking with the power of his testosterone flowing over her. Her low threshold for refusing him could be breached effortlessly. There was no limit on what she’d do for him, even if he threw her down on the noodles. “Can I try it next time?”
Baker smiled slowly. For the first time since yoga class, it was a true and unguarded grin.
And it took her breath away.
“It doesn’t have to be cake. We could start with coffee. Coffee is easy. Cake may be more committed,” Erin said, overheating now… and rambling. She was fairly certain she had just asked the Chief out on a date, and he might have agreed.
Or he was humoring her undiagnosed bizarre cake-binge eating disorder.
They were talking about actual cake, right? Or was the cake innuendo for…?
“Coffee? The North Star’s coffee wasn’t its best feature. Instead—” the Chief was saying.
Because the universe wasn’t fair, the klaxon went off.
“Crap! Now?” Erin started shoving leftover noodles back into the fridge.
Baker had somehow teleported to the stairs and was gone before the first bunk room door opened.
It was not the best of nights.
Drinking and driving is never a solid plan. Their Medic made five MetroGen runs on four different accidents. Bleeding wounds were at least straightforward.
Dispatch seemed ready to discuss the heart on every patient, giving the impression it hadn’t been the best week for heart attacks either.
Noah’s heart was having a much better week.
Yesterday, Hudgens—Erin—invited him out for cake, or coffee, or both. Not only had he agreed, but it also was a good thing the klaxon had gone off because he’d almost started fraternizing with her in the kitchen.
Williams had quietly arrived around 0830, and Noah had chosen to give him space. While it was unlikely they could be friends again, they could be cordial professionals.
The B-shift started their maintenance checks after lineup. The A-shift departed, and Noah was undecided about what to do about the Erin Hudgens situation. They hadn’t set a date or time or even exchanged phone numbers. He could check her personnel file for her number… if he were planning crossing an even bigger line.
Still, the act of making a move made him lighter. The suffocating, claustrophobic war of his logical, analytical brain versus his caveman brain was gone.
Or the logical part had slowly been convinced by the caveman part this was an excellent idea.
The caveman in him wanted to make it happen but couldn’t come up with how to do that. His logical brain should kick in anytime now.
The decision was made for him.
Hudgens was waiting outside of his Chief Car with a large cake box. She wore skinny jeans and a bright yellow shirt. The biggest change was her hair though. She had completely freed it, allowing it to spread out in all of its curly, ebony glory. Every other time, it had always been restrained, from the messy bun to the tight braids of work.
Except they weren’t going to be at work anymore.
They were leaving Kansas en route to Oz.
She bit her lip nervously. “So, are we still on for coffee and cake? Or coffee?”
“Coffee,” he agreed. “Panera’s next door.”
“Could we not pick there? Because if we happened to grab coffee at the same time, it shouldn’t be right across from the firehouse.”
She had quite the point. He had changed back into his chief’s uniform this morning. “You want to find a Starbucks?”
“Or you could drive me home first. I walked, and Kevin never wants to see this cake again. So it’s all mine.” She hefted the box jovially.
“Okay,” he found himself agreeing to drive her home in his official CCFD vehicle.
Not a problem. He was giving another firefighter a ride home.
She situated herself in the passenger seat, setting the cake box between them on the center console, which contained his radio and GPS.
“Where to?” he asked, starting the engine.
“Doctor Row,” she answered. “I have a one-bedroom there, six blocks from the firehouse and keeps me from being late. You don’t like late.”
“Not so much.” He shifted into gear.
He didn’t remember six blocks taking this long.
Should he say something? He ought to compliment her outfit or hair.
Are White guys allowed to compliment African American women’s hair, especially if they’d not formally dated?
“So maybe we should think about coffee and cake at the North Star,” she said. “I don’t think anyone we know would be there. At least one of them is calling Charlie, and I think Luna is somewhere with Elias. Drew doesn’t work at the North Star.”
“It’s only coffee,” he said. He’d finally made a move, and she almost sounded like she was trying to talk him out of it.
“Yeah, it’s coffee. Nothing committed. I’m overthinking.” She started twisting a lock of hair in her hands. “Sorry, when I get nervous or flustered, I start talking, and I don’t stop talking, and you’ve totally noticed that because you’ve been around me a couple of times now, and I can’t stop. Tell me to stop. If you don’t tell me to stop, I won’t stop talking, and it will go on and on and on—”
“I told you, it’s refreshing,” He tried to control his own emotions. Somehow, this gorgeous girl was nervous around him, when her siren song drew him to her unerringly.
“You know… I have a coffee machine in my house. And we have a cake right here,” she suggested.
He almost drove off the road.
Had she proposed skipping all the preliminaries and getting right to the physical?
“Too much? I said too much. I take it back. North Star is a good idea.”
Noah placed his hand on hers. The tiny brush of his fingers on her warm hand froze her words. “Your place is fine, Erin.”
She inhaled deeply at the sound of her name on his lips. “Okay. My place.”
He drove behind an end row-house on Doctor Row.
She manually opened up the garage door, and he pulled inside the empty garage. “Where’s your car?” Noah asked, turning off the GPS. He wasn’t on duty, and he didn’t want a curious soul at HQ to decide to track him. They could call him if they needed him.
“Around.” She hefted the cake box.
“Do you own a car?”
“Yes, I own a car. If you must know, it’s at Theo’s.” She headed to the door.
“Why there?” He was the nervous one now. He’d entered her personal space, the most uncharted territory of his career.
“Because we carpooled to the leadership training, and I didn’t bother to get it back. Is this Twenty Questions about my environmental conscious transportation options, or should you be excited there was a place to put the Chief’s Car?” she asked, getting to the point.
“I shouldn’t be looking a gift horse in the mouth.” His eyes traveled down her body, allowing his admiration to be evident for her. She was tall, but not too tall, slim, and muscular.
“Not when you should be doing other things with that mouth.” She popped her head on his shoulder and whispered, “I bet B-shift would notice if the Chief Car stayed at 15. You didn’t ask to park outside.”
“Your neighbors might wonder,” Noah mumbled, trying to refrain from pinning her to the wall in her garage.
“I doubt it. My doctor-neighbor, Angela Some-thing-or-other, is a resident or fellow hermit. When I see her, she’s sleepwalking her dog. Theo might drive by though, and he would notice.” Erin handed him the cake box while she unlocked the door. Practically dancing, she winked at him over the box. “So, coffee inside. And cake?”
Given that question, she offered him one last chance to back out. A good honorable man should have been a gentleman, given her the cake box, and walked away.
He wasn’t going to be that good, honorable man today. “Coffee sounds good.”
“Then come in.”