Bad Boy's Heart: A Firemen in Love Series Novella (5 page)

“Who knows?” She nibbled on the lime from her margarita. “After the bullshit Andy put me through, I don't even wanna think about it.”

So she wasn't looking to settle down; fine by me. Neither was I. Just one night in bed with her was all I needed. One night to sate my curiosity. Until I had that, I knew I'd drive myself nuts with erotic dreams of her.

“What are you gonna do, then? Sounds like you have to make a decision quick.”

“If I don't go on this stupid trip, mom might never forgive me. My grandparents would be upset that I didn't visit them, too.” She inched her chair closer to mine. “Would you really come with me? It's five days, and on such short notice.”

“Like you said, I've never let you down before. I'm sure I can get the guys to rearrange my schedule. I got some vacation days built up.”

The worry on her pretty face seemed to vanish. Honestly, taking this trip would probably be good for her. I knew if I got dumped at the altar, I'd want to run away, get drunk, and pass out on the beach too.

“They're giving me a big check as a wedding gift up front. I'll give you half of it.”

“Don't be ridiculous. I can't take all your money.”

“If it weren't for your help, I wouldn't be getting
any
money.” She pulled something up on her phone. “Looks like we can still change the name on Andy's ticket. Plane takes off at ten tomorrow morning.”

She showed me a picture of the hotel they'd booked. The room, of course, was their fanciest honeymoon suite, complete with a hot tub and one nice, big bed.

Maybe if I was a good boy, I'd get to share that bed with her.

“I forgot to ask,” she said quietly, glancing quick at my left hand. “But won't your, uh, girlfriend be upset you're jetting off to Florida with another woman?”

“No girlfriend for me – and that's one of the main reasons why. I don't like the idea of any woman telling me where I can go and what to do.”

“That's good. I think.” She studied the tattoos on my arms. “I figured a guy like you would have settled down by now.”

“A guy like me?”

She blushed crimson and didn't clarify what exactly she meant. Aw, she was so freaking
cute
when she got embarrassed. I used to tease her for it back in the day, and she'd get so mad at me.

Raucous laughter caught our attention. There were my boys, hanging around the dance floor and hitting on Alicia's friends. None of the girls seemed to mind very much.

“Maybe I should be doing the same,” she lamented. “Out there flirting my ass off. Guess I'm not drunk enough yet.”

If all she wanted was someone to get naked with, I would eagerly volunteer.

“We've got a busy day tomorrow. Getting hammered doesn't seem like the wisest idea.” I stared at her chest, helpless to look away. “You can drink all you want once we hit the beach. Find yourself a couple of guys to screw then.”

“C-Carter!” She knocked over her drink. “Since when have you gotten so vulgar?”

“Sorry. Figured it might help to get it out of your system. You've been with this jerk for years. Wouldn't it be nice to sample someone new?”

She busied herself scooping up the spilled ice cubes so she wouldn't have to answer. Finally, she managed to look up at me.

“We're supposed to be 'married.' I'm not going to run around picking up guys on our pretend honeymoon.”

“Damn right you're not. The only man I want my wife touching is me.”

It was meant as a joke, but the words hung heavy in my mind. Alicia, too, seemed distant all of a sudden.

Putting the moves on her wouldn't have been right, no matter how bad I wanted it. I couldn't hurt her again. Had to keep my hands to myself.

I knew one thing: the next five days were going to be the hardest ones of my life.

Chapter 4 - Alicia

My head throbbed as Carter and I boarded the plane. Guess that's what I got for guzzling all those shitty margaritas last night.

“Well, this is it.” He heaved my carry-on bag into the storage bin. “No going back once this plane takes off. From here on out, you're Mrs. McGraw.”

Alicia McGraw. I rolled our names around together for a moment and decided I liked the way it sounded.

What I
didn't
like, however, were the butterflies in my stomach when he looked at me. He was just a friend. Off-limits. Besides, he wasn't interested in me anyway.

He proved that to me ten years ago, when he moved on after one kiss. It was a kiss I'd never forgotten, but he obviously regretted it.

I'd never had the courage to ask why.

“This is your last chance to bail out,” I told him as he sank into the window seat.

“Not happening. How could I possibly pass up a free trip to Disney World?”

“Who said we were going to Disney World?” I took my own seat in the middle. “My grandparents live in Sanibel, which is several hours away. Plus, most of the activities have already been booked. Andy would never have agreed to visit a theme park.”

He balked. “What? But I thought you loved roller coasters and crap. I remember we had a blast on that trip to Six Flags.”

“Yeah, a blast. You insisted on riding the Texas Giant over and over again until you threw up.”

“Point is, what kind of guy doesn't like amusement parks?”

“He had a litany of complaints. Lines too long, the heat, people in costumes creep him out...”

“Sounds like a pain in the ass.”

I buckled my seat belt and thought about how right Carter was. Andy always had a complaint ready about something. I'd learned to tune him out, but his constant pessimism wore on my nerves.

Could I really have spent the rest of my life putting up with that?

It hurt to admit it, but maybe he did me a gigantic favor by cutting me loose. At least now I could find a man who didn't annoy me whenever he opened his mouth.

“So what kind of amazing 'activities' do we have lined up, then?”

“There are some museums he wanted to see. Golfing. Tickets to a jazz festival.”

Carter pretended like he was snoring. I smacked his chest, surprised to find that he was solid muscle beneath that t-shirt.

“What's wrong with those things?”

“You don't really want to do any of that stuff.”

“How do
you
know what I wanted to do?”

The pre-flight safety instructions came on before he could answer. Honestly, he was right – and that bothered me even more. Andy was the one who picked out most of our itinerary, usually protesting when I offered my own ideas.

I just shut my mouth and put up with it. Now that he was gone, I saw clearly that he wasn't such a catch after all.

Once the plane had taken off, Carter pulled something out of his pocket. He unfurled his hand and showed me two gold rings.

“I almost forgot. Picked these up just this morning. Hope you don't mind that they're from Walmart's jewelry department.”

I took the smaller ring and held it up to the light. It was a simple band, but he'd engraved our names on the inside.

“What is this?”

“We're married now. It'd look weird to show up without our wedding bands, don't you think?”

I hadn't even thought of that. Ugh, how were we supposed to keep up this lie for five days? My grandparents were old, but still sharp as tacks. They'd see right through the charade in no time.

“You bought this for me.”

He nodded and took the ring from my palm. “Let's hope it fits.”

He held my hand the way you would hold a lover's, not a friend's. There was a hitch in his breath as he slid the band onto my finger.

His touch made me shiver. Why did this have to feel so
right?

“Perfect.” He let me go to put on his own ring. “I was worried I'd forgotten your size.”

I was too dazed to respond. Only when he pulled out a lunchbox did I come back to reality.

“Breakfast?” He handed me a blueberry muffin. “I know these cheap bastards won't give you more than a handful of stale peanuts, so figured I'd come prepared.”

A flight attendant glared at him as she strutted past with her cart.

“I've got to say, you do seem a lot more responsible than you used to be.” I popped a berry into my mouth. “Years ago, you'd forget you had a paper due until the night before.”

“Mm-hmm. If it wasn't for you reminding me, I'd have failed more than a few classes, I'm sure.”

The memories of our high-school friendship were as fresh as if they'd happened last week. We were close then, but adults now. We'd changed.

“We should probably get our story straight,” he said, crumbs falling onto his lap, messy as he'd always been. Okay, maybe he hadn't changed
that
much.

“Our story?”

“Yeah. Just how much do your grandparents know about your husband-to-be?”

“Not much at all. They don't touch social media, so it's unlikely they've even seen a picture of him. Even if they had, they're pretty blind – and you two look kind of similar, anyway.”

He feigned being hurt. “Aw, don't say that. At least tell me I'm better-looking than him.”

I'd never been so painfully attracted to anyone as I was to him. Of course, I couldn't tell him that.

“You're handsome, all right,” I admitted.

“That's all? C'mon, I worked my ass off to get these muscles.”

“I can't really make a fair judgment. It's not like I've seen you naked or anything.”

Both of us said nothing for a long while. Then he smiled, and there was a new kind of sparkle in his eyes.

“We can remedy that, if you like.”

“E-excuse me?!”

“Can I get you anything, ma'am?”

The attendant with her cart stopped by our aisle. I was so shaken that I could barely manage to order coffee.

Carter got himself cranberry juice. He sipped it and began to page through a magazine as if those words had never actually left his mouth.

Had I been hearing things? Did he seriously just offer to take his clothes off for me?

I wasn't sure whether to be annoyed or throw myself into his lap right freaking now.

“So, that cover story,” he said, a bit too nonchalantly. “They'll want to know all the juicy details. How we met. How we fell in love. Stuff like that.”

My heart beat harder at the mention of love.

“Just tell them the truth. We're high-school friends who found each other again after all those years apart.”

“It's a good, sappy story. Old folks will love it.”

Once the plane reached cruising altitude, he kicked back in his seat and put away the magazine.

“I've missed you, Allie. Really, I have.”

“Well, that came out of nowhere.”

“We've been apart for so long, but it doesn't really feel that way to me. Now that I've found you again, it almost feels like I never left.”

How nice it would have been to pick up right where we left off. But we couldn't do that, could we? We weren't seventeen years old anymore. We'd grown. Changed. Become different people.

“I shouldn't have left at all,” he muttered, shuffling his muffin crumbs into a napkin.

“What do you mean?”

“Maybe if I'd stuck around, I could have scared off guys like Andy. Assholes like him don't deserve you. I wouldn't have let any of them come close.”

The way he punched out that creep at the reception, I was inclined to believe him. He'd always been protective of me, and got somewhat cagey when a guy flirted with me at school. I'd told him to calm down and knock it off more than once.

“If I had you hovering around me, Carter, I don't think you'd let
anyone
get close. How would I ever get married in the first place if you're chasing off every guy who looks at me?”

He cracked his knuckles and stared out the window. “You just seem to attract the wrong sort of guys, that's all.”

“As if you're the ideal person to judge who's wrong for me and who's right.”

We didn't talk much after that. He pretended to be listening to music on his phone, but the look on his face couldn't fool me. He was stewing over something I'd said. I'd seen it a hundred times.

What I couldn't figure out was why. Why the hell was he acting so weird?

And what was that line about him getting naked for me? That one bugged me most of all.

Three hours later, the plane landed at the airport. Carter dutifully hauled my bags on his shoulders though I assured him I could do it myself.

“My grandpa Ed and grandma Susie should be here to meet us,” I told him. “So try and behave.”

“What makes you think I wouldn't?”

“You sneaking into a wedding reception doesn't give off a good impression, for starters. Neither do those perverted friends of yours.”

“Aw, we just like to have fun.” He winked at me over his shoulder. “I'll show you a good time too, if you'll let me. Seems you could definitely use it.”