Part 8 (1/2)
”Who says it's a he?”
Stop what?
”You look fl.u.s.tered,” Courtney said. ”A little hot and bothered, even.”
”No, I certainly don't look hot and bothered. Or if I do, it's because it's hot in here, but I'm not bothered.” Maybe just a little.
She turned her attention back to her phone.
Stop saying stuff like that. Remember all the reasons you shouldn't kiss me?
And then we kissed anyway.
Dammit, that was true.
No more kissing.
”It's definitely a he,” Ashley said, and Lydia looked up. ”Just tell us who this n.o.body is and be done with it.”
”I can't.”
Her sister gave her a sharp look, mimicked slightly by the two women who had been her best friends for her entire life. ”What do you mean you can't? That's very different from won't.”
Her phone chimed again.
Okay. No more kissing. Gotta go.
Disappointment coursed through her, even though she was the one who'd put it out there first. And had something suddenly come up or had he lost his interest in texting her the second she ended any possibility of further intimacy?
”You can't tell anybody,” Lydia said, setting her phone screen-down on the table. ”I mean anybody. Especially you, Ashley.”
”You know we won't. And why especially me?”
”Because it was Aidan.”
Ashley's expression didn't change. ”Aidan who?”
”Aidan Hunt.”
Her expression changed then, with her eyes and her mouth both making big O shapes. ”He's Scotty's best friend.”
”Yeah.” Lydia took a sip of her wine because her mouth was suddenly dry.
”He's a firefighter.”
”Yeah.”
”And he's like a second son to Dad.”
”I know.” Strike. Strike. Strike. Three strikes and he should be out. She'd already done the baseball thing. ”It's no big deal. He texted something funny and I laughed. Not really a big deal.”
”And anybody but us might believe that,” Becca shot back.
”Are you sleeping with Aidan Hunt?” Ashley asked, her face still stuck in the you can't be serious position.
”No, I'm not sleeping with him.” Lydia paused for a few seconds, and then she shrugged. ”But I did kiss him. Or he kissed me. We kissed.”
”When?” all three of them asked at the same time.
”A few nights ago, at the bar.” She told them what happened that night because, if she could trust anybody in the world, it was these three women.
”And you haven't seen him since?” Courtney asked.
”No. We've both been busy and he did two night tours. He's texted me a few times, but that's about it.”
Ashley leaned back in her chair, shaking her head. ”I can't believe he had the b.a.l.l.s to kiss you with Dad right around the corner.”
”He must have really wanted 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 h.e.l.l 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 relations.h.i.+p than I've had in two years,” Courtney said.
Ashley snorted. ”h.e.l.l, that's more of a relations.h.i.+p than my marriage is right now.”
”It's not a relations.h.i.+p. It's not even close to a relations.h.i.+p. 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.
AIDAN SHOVED INTO Gullotti 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't really a 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.