Chapter Six

Denton

"Shit!" I exclaimed, cursing my stupidity as I scrolled through the availability to fly to Florida for the cruise. Leaving booking my flight to the last minute had not been a smart move. Leeson had contacted me a week ago, right at the beginning of a block of three nights. They turned out to be grueling shifts that left me collapsing straight into bed at the end of them and I forgot to check the messages he'd subsequently sent with the details I'd need on the trip. After the nights, my brain was mush as it usually was, so I'd not followed up on the messages.

A big mistake!

The first shock had been that Leeson and Garrett had paid for the cruise in full and that all I needed to pay for was the flight to Florida and any excursions I wanted to do. The second shock I then got was seeing how difficult it was going to be to get a flight with everyone else.

A mushy brain equaled a forgetful me. I had remembered in the morning, but this was the first time I"d had a chance to search for flights. Clearly, I'd left it too long and now the flight everyone else was on had no available seats. That meant my plans to surprise Victor at the airport, the way I wanted, had gone up in smoke. I had hoped to sit next to him on the flight and drop casually into the conversation that I was interested in dating him. The universe, it seemed, wasn't up for that option!

"Is that ‘shit, the situation we're headed to is a crap shoot' or is that ‘shit, I'm all out of luck with the hottie I hooked up with last night'?"

The blaring siren alerting folks to get the fuck out of our way didn't block out the comment. I didn't lift my gaze from my screen as I flipped my middle finger at Alex. He had partnered with me on our wagon eight years ago, when Leith, my original paramedic partner, had left to work for a private company selling medical supplies. Alex was a solid guy who I trusted to have my back when we sometimes went into situations that could be dangerous.

"Neither, dickwad. I can't find a seat on the damn flight everyone else is going on for the cruise." I glanced sideways at him as he shifted gears to slow for the next turning. "And you were the one with the hottie last night, remember? Or is too much dicking giving you memory problems?"

He and I didn't see eye to eye on monogamy. For him, it was a dirty word, and this resulted in him constantly trying to hook me up with friends of friends. No matter how many times I explained I wasn't interested, he never gave up. It was his only annoying quality, but I didn't take offense as he saw it as ‘doing me a solid'.

There was a flash of teeth in his tanned, attractive face as he tapped the side of his head. "There ain't nothing wrong with my memory. I can keep them all straight, no issue."

I shook my head and returned my attention to the screen, swiping up to scroll through the list of flights with seats available that would get me to the ship before it sailed.

"Did you ask Lee if he had room for me, too? Paid cruise, I could do with some of that action."

I chuckled, grinning. When I'd asked for the invite, and Leeson had mentioned sharing, I hadn't expected them to pay for my cruise. It was a shocker and generous as fuck and I, for one, wasn't about to turn it down. I'd checked out their wedding list and got a gift I hoped made up a little towards their generosity. Leeson, in his own words, was a ‘kitchen appliance whore' so the thing I'd ordered to be delivered was for their home kitchen. I had no clue what it was capable of, but Leeson apparently did. To me, it looked more like a control panel for a spaceship on Star Trek.

When I'd mentioned their generosity to Alex, he had moaned like a fucker about not having friends like mine. Then jokingly, he'd gone on about getting an invitation. "I told you, it's a gay cruise, man. It won't float your boat."

"For a free, all-inclusive, fancy pants cruise, I'm sure I could get my boat to float."

A bark of laughter was my only response as I clicked on the screen, distracted by the time of the flight I'd found. My eyes narrowed while I worked out the time my shift finished and the departure time.

"Get in," I muttered, going through the process of filling in my details. I'd have to head straight to the airport after my shift, by my calculation. But if I had everything in the car, then I'd have plenty of time to catch the flight and get there before anyone else.

Would I be able to access the boat early? I didn't want to be a sweaty mess when I saw Victor. Hell no, I wanted to make a good impression!

I finished booking the flight and once I had confirmation, I switched over to my messages to send a text to Leeson.

Do you think I'll be able to get on the ship earlier than you guys? Couldn't get on the same flight, so I'll get there earlier than you. Oh, and who am I sharing with?

I stared at the phone for a moment, then realized how pointless waiting for a reply was when I noted the time. Leeson and Garrett would be busy for the next three hours, at least. Leeson, I'd learned, didn't bring his cell phone into the kitchen after once dropping it into a pot of sugar mix and getting chewed out by Garrett.

Some heavy braking from Alex got me shoving the phone into my pocket, my brain switching to what we might face. The call from the guy's wife said he'd got chest pain. There'd been some discussion about the onset but apparently the woman had gone cagey and vague.

I checked the address as we stopped outside a nice-looking house. A traditional family home, two storeys with a wooden, white painted porch. The house and garden were in good repair in a ‘friendly' neighborhood, judging by the folks twitching at their curtains. The door was open, with no sign of anyone. My instincts weren't going bat shit crazy, which was always good, but we were always careful. Folks could act oddly over the weirdest shit.

"I'll grab my pack," Alex said, already moving to get out of the wagon.

I jumped out and headed for the open door, my boots thudding on wood loud enough to alert anyone inside to my presence. After taking a steadying breath, I called out, "Hello, it's the paramedics. You called for assistance. Is anyone there?"

"Oh thank god, we're through here," a female voice shouted from somewhere inside.

The giggles that came after gave me pause, but I knew some folks laughed when in shock. I went toward the sound, checking around as I walked through a pretty room full of frilly things, and on into the kitchen.

The large, sunny space didn't get more than a fleeting glance. It was the naked man, who looked to be in his forties, sitting at the square kitchen table, that held my attention. He was clutching his hairy chest with one hand and the other was holding the side of his jaw. One look at the unusual angle of his jaw and I could tell it was dislocated.

Years of going into unknown situations kept my expression neutral when I then noticed the woman next to him wearing a skimpy satin gown. My best guess was their sexy time had gone awry.

"Arg… I's… a… fuc…" the guy slobbered, making the woman's giggles morph into full on belly laughter.

The guy's glare missed its mark as the woman shook with laughter, her hand going to her mouth like that would help stop her. It didn't.

The sound of heavy boots thumping through the house announced Alex's arrival. He came to a stop next to me. "Is everything okay?" he asked, his gaze shifting to the couple, then to me, his brows rising.

His dark eyes held some amusement but other than that, his expression revealed none of what he was thinking. I bit the inside of my cheek at all the possibilities of what had gone on while the guy slobbered more gobbledygook, making the woman laugh harder.

"Please, could you help us out and explain what has gone on?" Alex said to the woman, dropping his pack on the ground next to the man and crouching down to grab what we'd need.

"It was supposed to be some morning fun while the kids were at school and we both had a day off together," she said around the next bout of giggles. "He was,"—she blushed, not quite meeting Alex's gaze—"pleasuring me, and he opened his mouth a little too wide and his jaw got stuck."

The snort the guy made said it all.

There was more laughter before she got herself together. "And when we couldn't get it to go back into place, my husband got a little worked up and his chest started to hurt, so I thought it wise to call for help. You know, in case it was a heart attack."

It was hard not to feel sorry for the guy when his wife couldn't contain how hilarious she was finding this situation, despite her obvious worry for her husband.

"I see," I said, keeping my voice devoid of any humor, my mind going through what we'd need to do as Alex placed our cardiac monitor on the tabletop. "Let's see what's going on with your heart and give you something for the pain. Then we can assess what we do next."

Whatever their plans were, they were now going to involve a trip to the emergency room to at least fix the jaw, as I suspected the chest pain was only stress related. Because dislocating a jaw while going down on your wife? Yeah, that had to be stress inducing, for sure!

~/~/~/~

Hours later, I sank down onto my couch and eyed the pizza box I'd dropped on the table in front of me, feeling way too exhausted to consider cooking for myself. The scent of cheese and pepperoni came from the box and, although appetizing, I couldn't muster the energy to do more than inhale.

I had been right about the jaw dislocation, the chest pain was nothing more than a stress response. After that, the day had gotten crazy with no time to stop even to take a piss.

My pocket vibrated and thoughts of motivating myself to eat disappeared when I realized I'd not checked to see if Leeson had responded to me.

Leaning on my left hip to retrieve my cell from my pocket, I saw I'd received several messages. The last one was from Mom, which I ignored for now when the opening line mentioned ‘day off' and began with the ones I could see were from Leeson.

If I tell you who you're sharing with, would you keep it a secret?

I frowned as I opened the next message that was time stamped for an hour later.

Is that a no?

The next one read.

Are you ignoring me?

I chuckled at the following one that was all emojis mimicking someone losing their shit. The last one got the laughter dying and my eyes widening.

Nese says if you're working today, and busy, you'll not likely see this until tonight. So I'm not going to be upset you didn't answer me for eight hours. You're sharing with Vic. He doesn't know, so it's up to you if you want to say anything to him beforehand. Boarding starts at 10am, so you should be fine. I've emailed the company to advise you'll get there before the rest of us and to let you know if there's an issue.

I re-read the message four times and it was the tugging on my cheeks that clued me in to how wide my grin got as I stared at the words ‘you're sharing with Vic'.

I'll keep it a secret, I think. I hit send, then thought about what he was doing for me and followed it up with another message. And thank you for trusting me with him.

All thoughts of eating gone, right along with the tiredness, I rose and headed off to my bedroom, my head filled with what I was going to pack. Hot damn, this was turning into a great fucking cruise and it hadn't even started yet!