“He must havereallywanted to kiss you,” Courtney said, and then she sighed dreamily. She’d always been the romantic of the bunch.
Becca shook her head. “He’s Scott’s best friend, though. Isn’t there like some kind of code or something?”
Before Lydia could answer, Ashley jumped in. “Not only would Aidan sleeping with you be against the best friend code or bro code or whatever the hell it’s called, but they’re firefighters with the same company. Sisters are off-limits.”
“I know all about firefighters,” she said, her voice a little sharp.
“And that’s the other thing,” Ashley said. “You swore you’d never get involved with another firefighter ever again.”
“I’m not getting involved with him. We kissed one time.”
“And now you guys are texting,” Becca pointed out. “And he’s making you laugh and blush.”
“That’s more of a relationship than I’ve had in two years,” Courtney said.
Ashley snorted. “Hell, that’s more of a relationship than my marriage is right now.”
“It’s not a relationship. It’s not even close to a relationship. Did you guys decide what you’re having for dessert?” she asked, abruptly changing the subject.
She’d had her heart broken and her life turned upside down by a firefighter before, and she’d struggled having a father and brother doing the job. She wasn’t ever going to open her heart to a firefighter again.
The best way to keep that from happening was to keep her legs closed, but she already knew that was going to be a lot harder than keeping her heart closed.
* * *
AIDANSHOVEDINTOGullotti and hooked his stick past him to send the puck toward the net. Walsh dove for it, easily catching it in his glove, and Gullotti laughed.
“Mrs. Broussard could have gotten that between the pipes,” he taunted.
Aidan jabbed the guy with an elbow and then skated away before he could retaliate, either verbally or physically. Being told he wasn’t as good as the guy’s elderly landlady was bad enough.
His head wasn’t in the game. Well, it wasn’treallya game. It wasn’t even a practice for league play. It was more of a pickup game just to keep everybody from getting too rusty and to blow off some steam on the ice.
Scotty skated up to him, also laughing. “You suck today, Hunt, and you never suck on the ice. What are you thinking about that’s better than hockey?”
No way in hell was Aidan answering that question. Not honestly, anyway. After days of flirtatious texts, he’d finally gotten the one he was waiting for.
Dad’s going to Fitz’s to watch the game instead of watching it in the bar.Wednesday nights are slow.You should stop by and say hi.
That wasn’t an invitation he needed to hear twice. She’d have plenty of downtime to lean against the bar and talk to him face-to-face, instead of over the phone, and Tommy wouldn’t be there giving him looks that probably didn’t mean anything outside of Aidan’s paranoia.
“Guess I’m getting old,” was all he said.
“Bullshit. If you’re getting old, I’m getting old. And that ain’t happening anytime soon.”
After another forty minutes on the ice, Aidan was starting to wonder, though. They hadn’t had a lot of practice time lately, since most of the guys preferred being outside when the weather was good, and he was going to have even more aches and pains tomorrow morning than he had this morning. Four hours knocking down a fire in a warehouse, with several more hours checking for hot spots and killing flare-ups had sucked more than usual because Mother Nature brought the heat and humidity in spades.
When their time ended, they hit the locker room and Aidan let the steaming hot water beat down on him, hoping it would help to keep some of the stiffness at bay. The guys talked and laughed around him, and he took comfort in the familiarity of it, even while guilt gnawed at him.
He was flat out lying to Scotty now. Maybe it was a lie of omission, but that was just as bad, if not worse. Deliberately going behind his friend’s back to hide the fact things were getting hot between him and his sister was about as bad as it could get.
Once he forced himself to shut the shower off, he wrapped a towel around his waist and rubbed the water out of his hair with another as he walked to where he’d left his bag on a bench.
“I could use a beer,” Walsh said. “And a burger. What do you think the chances are I can get served at Kincaid’s?”
“You’re always welcome there,” Scotty said. “You know my old man doesn’t have a problem with you.”
“It’s your sister I’m worried about.”
