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“I see,” I replied. “That’s interesting. Do any of the others from the station ever come to see you?”
“No,” he said. “Most of them don’t even know I do this. It’s kind of a secret thing.”
“Really? Why is that?”
“Well, I just like to keep the two worlds separate I guess.”
“So, I’m like privileged?” I asked. “That makes me feel so special.”
I giggled a bit to let him know I was teasing just a little.
He smiled and shook his head. “Wow, you busting my chops. That’s rich.”
“No, you were brilliant. But I do feel special that I get to know this side of you that the others don’t,” I said truthfully.
The bartender came over and we both ordered beers. She was flirting slightly with Gary, but he didn’t seem to notice at all. Either he had total tunnel vision on me, or he was just not that interested in obvious women. There were so many interesting layers to this man. Just when I thought I had him figured out, he would go and do a complete one eighty on me.
She returned with our beers. The bartender leaned over very overtly in front of Gary. “I loved you playing.”
“Thanks,” Gary said. He smiled weakly and then focused back on me. The bartender walked off in a bit of a huff that Gary didn’t seem to notice her feminine wiles.
“The staff here is so friendly,” I said.
Gary laughed. “Yeah.”
“Do you get a lot of that when you play? Women throwing themselves at you?”
Gary shrugged. “I don’t pay too much attention to that sort of thing. I’ve been purposely out of the dating scene for six months or so. Since my last relationship ended, I’ve mostly been working on my music and I’ve spent time doing some soul searching to reconnect with myself. I’ve rediscovered a lot of passions that had fallen by the wayside over the years.”
“Did the last relationship end that badly?” I asked.
“Kind of, but most do, right? We just turned out to be very different people after all. That was all.”
“I get that,” I said. “Same with me.” I said that last statement before Gary could retort and ask me about my last relationship. I didn’t want to talk about that right now.
“So, have you always wanted to be a firefighter?” Gary asked me.
“Yes,” I said. “I’ve wanted to do this since I was a teenager.”
“What brought the interest?”
“I was in a fire. I was trapped in my bedroom, and I thought I wasn’t going to get out. I couldn’t get to my parents. I didn’t know if they were there or not. I wasn’t sure if they’d gotten out. I woke up to smoke everywhere. I could feel the heat and I heard the smoke alarms going off everywhere. I was on the second floor, so I couldn’t climb out and escape.”
“Wow, how old were you?”
“Fourteen,” I said.
“So, what happened?”
“Suddenly, I heard someone chopping down the door with an axe. It was a fireman. He got me out of there and down the steps keeping me safe the entire time. I was so mind blown just watching the efficiency of how they did everything, how this man told me to move, and following his instructions to the letter until we were outside safe and sound. There I saw my parents. They’d made it out safely. We were all ok.”
“So, that’s when it got into your blood?” Gary asked. “That’s pretty significant. I think it takes something like that for a lot of us. We have to stare down that beast and decide that we are going to help others do the same for the rest of our lives. But it happens to some people at an earlier age than it does for others, right?”
“Right,” I said. “I agree.”
As I sat there talking with Gary, those sweet feelings I had for him began to grow. I found myself just knowing that what I was afraid was going to happen by showing up there that night, was happening. I wasn’t sure exactly why I had decided to go. I told Gary that this couldn’t happen and then I went to see him play his music, which I had a feeling would be a sensual experience unlike any other. And it was. The man was becoming more amazing and interesting all the time. I wanted to explore his world and find out exactly what he was all about and how it could fit into my world. The consequences could be disastrous, but I was leaning toward the point of no longer caring. I was tired of being afraid of what someone else might think, of knowing that some other moron had this power over me. This was insane. I needed to give in.
But it was so hard. As soon as I made the decision to let it go and be free to make my own choices, that damn fear came back at me with a vengeance, just prying its way inside of me and filling my head full of images of being judged and told that I was no longer worthy of doing what I loved, because I gave into my desires for a man I knew I could potentially love.
