Page 34 of Heat Advisory

“Heat advisory: prolonged exposure may cause flushed skin and poor decisions.”

—It’s science

Jay

“Okay, hold on.” She shook her head, sitting across from me at the restaurant. “I’m trying to remember all the names.”

“Think BLTS–like the sandwich,” I said very matter-of-factly. “Bleaker, Leavenworth, Thompson, and Stetson, in that order—although technically the last two are considered equals, just over different groups of people.”

I felt lucky that my stupid panic moment of proposing to her ended up being perfect and could now get me two things I wanted—Cora and my promotion.

“My point is, I want that investigator role, and that man you just met is the one to help make that happen,” I clarified. “It’s why I was in Las Vegas two weeks ago when I saw you and Iris. It was a favor to Thompson—the Investigation Chief and hopefully my soon-to-be new boss’s boss.”

“Who now thinks we’re getting married,” she said, putting all the pieces together.

“Did you hear what he said?” I asked because I felt like she was missing my point.

“I know his wife is excited to get to know me at some fire ball thing,” she said, clearly unsure of what all that entailed.

“Yes, but Leavenworth said, ‘Settling down is just the right step I’d like to see in my top commands,’” I repeated and then waited to let that sink in.

“Oh, shit,” she mumbled, and I laughed at the stark change on her face.

“What’s so funny?” she asked.

“I was laughing because I’ve never heard you swear before.” That was partly the truth.

“Well, I swear a lot, so get used to it,” she shot back defiantly, and it was so cute.

“You read so many books…I guess I just assumed super-smart people didn’t swear,” I teased.

“Or maybe I’m so smart that I realize swear words just fit the context better and voluntarily choose to use them over other words,” she shot back, sticking her chin out in mock rebellion, and I felt my dick getting harder by the minute from her sassy banter.

“Come to the Firefighter’s Ball with me, Cora. It’s two weeks after Morgan’s wedding. Please. It would look really bad if my new fiancée didn’t show up.” I felt only a slight level of guilt at throwing that in at the end. If it got me my end result of having her go with me, it was worth it.

“After that, if this isn’t working out between us, or it just makes you uncomfortable, then we can call the whole thing off,” I offered, hoping she would accept.

While she sat there quietly, likely mulling it over in her head, I mentally started to calculate exactly how many days I had to convince her this would, in fact, work out between us, and I wouldn’t have to break it off in the end. Hopefully.

“Okay,” she replied softly, but before I could thank her, she moved right into questions. “I guess you better start telling me about this fire inspector job you want. Any good fiancée would already know all of this prior to coming to this fire ball with you.”

I took in her playful grin and felt a rush of relief.

I told her everything.

I told her that since there had been so many fires set by arsonists in the last year and they weren’t going away, the decision had been made to hire an additional fire inspector to help with the added caseload. I explained that I was a lieutenant and had already completed my investigator certification and training, so I was high on the list of candidates, but there was another internal option too—Trent.

“Trent was friendly in the beginning when we first started working together, but once he found out we were aiming for the same fire investigator position, his attitude changed,” I told her. “The crazy thing is, Stetson told us there is room in the budget for them to possibly hire a second position, which means there’s a chance we could both get the job, so there’s no reason to act like we’re competition, but he does.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “My co-worker Jade was kind of the same in the beginning. She wanted the job as state hydrologist, but it was given to me instead, so there was definitely some hostility in the beginning, but now that we’ve worked together for several months, she’s really come around.”

“What helped?” I asked, hoping for any advice I could possibly use.

“Umm…oddly, it was me breaking up with my ex,” she explained, and I suddenly felt jealous of a man who wasn’t even in her life anymore. “Spending less time with him allowed us to hang out a few more times before or after our shifts.”

She filled me in on this loser guy who gave her shit about her weird schedule, and even if I hadn’t been interested in Cora myself, I was glad she’d tossed this guy to the curb. He sounded like a real dick.

The check came and went too quickly, and even as we stood to leave, neither of us seemed in much of a hurry.