Page 32 of Up All Night
“I…uh…” If there was anyone who would likely understand, it would be Eric, my oldest friend. Heck, he’d encouraged me to have a casual fling. Denver’s gender might be a shock. Or not. Perhaps Eric had guessed years ago when we’d lived together the first time and I still hadn’t known myself. Maybe that was why I paused. Eric wouldn’t judge me, but he might say something I wasn’t ready to hear. Also, this thing with Denver felt too new, too precious, too fragile to hold up to the light. We hadn’t agreed to secrecy, but my chest went tight at the thought of telling Eric, only to have the fling with Denver evaporate.
I’m not ready.Eric knew it, his blue-green eyes soft and patient. “It’s okay. Truly. Go get breakfast. Bring him around to teach Wren how to flip burgers.”
“Yeah.” I nodded, clinging to the last edges of my sanity. “We’re friends. I could do that. Ask him to dinner.”
Maybe if I went public with a friendship with Denver, eased us into things, he wouldn’t balk at keeping our fling going, and I wouldn’t freak out at the thought of coming out.
“You could.” A small smile danced across Eric’s face, a ghost of the man he’d been before losing Montgomery, serious but always happy and smiling. “You could ask him to dinner even without kids involved.”
“I could. Let someone else cook for the man.”Dating.We could date, let the fling morph into something without an end point. It was a tantalizing prospect, and I nodded. Baby steps.
“You should. Now, go on with you.” He waved me toward the back door. Perhaps it wasn’t a bad thing that Eric had guessed. I liked having Denver as my secret, but I didn’t like lying to my oldest friend.
As I drove to the diner, my mind kept mulling over the delicate dance of keeping the fling going while also trying to nurture it into something more without spooking Denver or myself. Maxine had dragged me to the ballet in Seattle a number of times with fellow academic types. I hadn’t had a lot of patience for teasing out the nuance of the storylines, but the impossible lightness with which the dancers moved had stuck with me. I felt like that now, all my weight balanced on a few tiny joints, about to soar. Or fall.
Didn’t want to fall. Yet, when I entered the diner, and Denver looked up and smiled, wide and true, the risk of leaping didn’t seem quite so scary. I headed for the counter, already anticipating our banter and what he might surprise me with this time.
“Sean!” Talk about a surprise. Right as I was about to grab a stool at the counter, my dad’s booming voice made me stop, heels digging into the scratched linoleum floors, lungs turning icy and stiff. “My boy! Come join the new mayor and me. Didn’t expect to see you this morning.”
That makes two of us.I turned away from the counter, away from Denver, and made my way to the booth where my dad was sitting with a woman in her early fifties. Short ash-colored hair, blue glasses, pink sweater. I vaguely recognized her as someone from my parents’ church who had been big into community service, then city council, and now mayor.
“Mayor.” I gave her a nod as I slid in next to my dad.
“Oh, call me Rosalynn.” She smiled warmly. “My wife is off at a library association conference this weekend, so your father was kind enough to indulge me in an early breakfast meeting to catch me up on all the fire and rescue news.”
“That’s great.” I forced myself to smile and not glance at the counter area. “And I’m here because Eric wanted some one-on-one time with the kids.”
The partial lie tasted sour. Eric was the one doing me a favor, not the other way around. But my pulse hadn’t slowed since hearing my dad’s voice, and sitting next to him made me feel even more like a guilty teen with a secret than I had earlier.
“There’s my blue eyes.” Tammy came over with a cup of coffee and a menu for me. Her eyes were tired, but her voice was a little too friendly and familiar. Ihadbeen making a habit of coming to the diner, and she was a smart lady who probably suspected more than she let on. She gave me a conspiratorial grin. “Figured you might be in.”
My dad’s mouth pursed like he was trying to reconcile my explanation for my appearance with Tammy treating me like one of the family.
“We’ve been coming in on shift a fair bit.” I made my voice casual as if I wasn’t the one to frequently suggest Honey’s over other options.
“And off-duty too,” Tammy teased. I tried to catch her gaze for a warning look. I didn’t need my dad to be too curious about my presence here.
“Some.” I waved my hand, adding a chuckle. “I’m kind of addicted to…the coffee.” And okay, that reason was thinner than a paper filter. Honey’s coffee was pretty much standard diner fare—strong and aromatic but nothing special. “And the hash browns. The one breakfast food I haven’t mastered cooking yet.”
“Remind me to assign you to the bacon at the annual firefighter’s breakfast in May.” My dad’s voice was hearty as ever. Not suspicious. Thank God, but my back was stiffer than an axe handle.
“Are you enjoying your term as mayor?” I asked Rosalynn, hoping she’d take pity on me and make small talk to distract my dad from any questions about my life.
My ploy worked long enough for the three of us to order. After Tammy collected our menus, though, Rosalynn returned the conversation to the fire department. Asking my dad about fire department news inevitably led to him bragging about my return. I stifled a groan.
“Your folks seem awfully pleased to have you back in town. Are you planning to make the move permanent?” Rosalynn asked as I desperately looked around to see where our food was. Ordering off the menu had felt weird. Wrong. I’d come to love not having to pick, enjoying whatever Denver dreamed up for me. I’d ordered loaded hash browns, but I’d rather have one of his surprises. My gaze landed on Denver’s broad back. I loved holding on to his shoulders and…Nope. Can’t go there.
“I…I’m not sure. A lot depends on what happens with the firefighter on maternity leave I’m covering for and where my folks end up after Dad retires.” Staying certainly had a lot more appeal these days, with Eric and the kids keeping me busy and my secret fling with Denver giving me life. I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else at the moment. Each day I worked on the carriage house was another step closer to staying as well. I couldn’t help but picture myself there, but that image included Denver, which was dangerous thinking, indeed.
“If we let your dad go. He’s the best fire chief Mount Hope has ever had.” Rosalynn laughed lightly, but this was an unanticipated wrinkle. The longer my dad was in town, the more likely he was to guess about my private life. Perhaps it was naive of me, but until this morning, I honestly hadn’t given much thought to my parents finding out about what I’d been up to with Denver.
“Oh, I’m retiring. The wife will have a fit if I put it off again.” My exhale of relief was short-lived as my dad turned his shrewd gaze in my direction. “Of course I’ll need an amazing replacement.”
“Dad.”
“What? You were a decorated captain. You’d be perfect?—”
“On my crew.” Huh. At some point in the last month, I’d gone from feeling like an outsider to feeling like part of the crew. And I liked it. No matter what happened in the future, I’d miss this time. “With all due respect, I’m not ready for a desk.”