Chapter 14

Knox

Messy, that’s what Shenanigans was.

“If you’re going to start doing dumb shit like that,” Brent grumbled, “then you can put all the food away first because I’m off home. Knox.” Somehow I knew he’d turn to me. “You good to lock up?”

I nodded, confirming what he already knew.

“Not drinking, Knoxy?” Brian, another firefighter, asked.

“Stopped a while back,” I said. “Someone’s gotta get these pricks home in one piece.” I nodded to what was left of my team, Henry and his family having left ages ago.

“Speaking of home…” Johnno swung Belinda up in his arms. “It’s time to get this little lady to bed.”

Her cheeks were bright pink as some of the fellas made suggestions about what they could get up to, but I kept my mouth shut. I didn’t have weird sexual positions to suggest, nor kinks to try. Instead, I wanted to urge Johnno to hold Bel close, to stare down into her eyes as he made her his over and over, because that connection was far more than any sexual conquest.

Well, I assumed it was. I was still searching for that kind of a relationship.

I nodded to them and the other couples as they made their exit right as Gareth stood up.

“C’mon then.” He and his team were on the night shift tonight, so they hadn’t had a single beer. “We better try and get some rest in while we can. Let’s put this food away, but Knoxy.” He looked over at me. “Try to keep the noise down to a dull roar, yeah?”

I would’ve agreed, but that was the moment Charlie returned with a length of butcher’s paper and some pens.

“So the way this works is everyone playing flips a coin. Who’s got a twenty cent piece?”

I grabbed one out of my pocket and flicked it his way, sending it spinning through the air, only for it to land on the paper. Charlie moved and drew a circle around the coin and then wrote my name in it.

“Any time someone’s coin lands on his name, Knox has to drink.”

I raised my Coke can then, making clear how little I cared about that outcome.

“Ohh, this is Pangaea,” Millie said, dragging her chair closer, not noticing the way all the single guys’ eyes followed her like hungry sharks. Yeah, she was the other reason why I’d decided to be Sober Bob for the night. While I didn’t like to think of my colleagues as creeps, I wasn’t about to give anyone the opportunity to become one. “If your coin lands on a blank spot after the first round, you create a rule, and anyone’s coin that lands on there has to obey that rule.”

“Like showing the room your underwear.”

Dave was one of the other lead firemen, but I wasn’t exactly a fan of his work. Took too many risks in my book, but Brent seemed happy with his performance. My Coke can dimpled as he leaned forward with a leer.

“Shit, that’s easy.”

Millie was pretty tipsy right now. Hell, she was just pretty. Her cheeks were bright pink, her eyes shining as she reached down to retrieve a scrap of cloth. Every muscle clamped tight when I saw the black lace. Were they…? My mind worked overtime, and in my mind, I saw that wisp of lace stretched across an arse as sweet as a peach and just as biteable. Maybe if I did, her juices… My suspicions confirmed when she used the elastic waistband as a slingshot to fling her underwear across the table. Dave caught them in one hand.

“I wasn’t going to sit around in wet undies,” she said, not seeing the dangerous gleam in his eye.

“So you’re?—”

“Give them back.” I thought for a second I’d said that, because the words were on the tip of my tongue. No, it was Noah that snapped that. He had his beer in a death grip. “Give them back, Dave.”

“Fine.”

He smirked as he tossed them to Brian, who spun them around on his finger before flicking them around the circle until they were returned to their owner. It was only then that I could take a full breath.

“Needless to say, I will not be creating a rule about seeing anyone’s undies here,” she said. “Playing you-show-me-yours-and-I’ll-show-you-mine lost its appeal when I was five.”

“I’ll show you—” Dave growled, but Charlie flipped the coin his way.

“How to flip a coin? Good boy.”

He couldn’t have sounded more patronising if he tried, which was perfect because that had Dave rising to the bait. He flipped his coin and wrote out his name and then the coin went around the circle. Everyone added their names to the piece of paper, including Millie.

Sometimes it felt like the only way men could make friends was by doing dumb shit and embarrassing each other. I’d played the game plenty of times before, and the results were always stupid. Oftentimes, that was exactly what we needed. Our day-to-day work was either bloody boring or literally a matter of life and death, so doing something dumb was a relief. Most of the women usually cleared out when the drinking games started, knowing instinctively that it wouldn’t be smart to stay.

But not Millie.

She took the coin from Charlie and flipped it, crowing when it landed on a blank spot. I watched her uncap the pen with her teeth, too caught up in the way she held it between her lips to see what she was writing until there was a series of chortles around the table.

“Hot seat?” Joe, one of Dave’s team, leaned forward to look at what she wrote. “You want to ‘pump’ us for information?”

“If you wanted to find out how big our dicks are, you just have to ask,” Dave added.

“Pretty sure she’s seen a button mushroom before.” Noah picked up the coin and tossed it to me. “Your go.”

I aimed for one of the many empty spots, and that had the peanut gallery leaning forward. Half the appeal of the game was the way tension built as people anticipated being forced to do something embarrassing. I was about to disappoint them, writing ‘stay silent until a coin lands on your name.’

“Fuck, you’d be out in five seconds if you land on that, Head Job,” Dave said to Charlie.

You as well , I thought, shooting him a steady look.

“My go!” Sally went to grab the coin but Jase pulled her back onto his lap. As the only other woman here, he knew what he had. A partner, love, but more than that. We all got on well during the week, but when alcohol was involved and inhibitions were down, he needed to keep her safe.

“No singing in your underwear,” he told her sternly before passing her the coin.

“This is something that happens so often you need to warn people not to do it?” Millie asked with a blink.

“Of course not, babe.”

Jase should’ve seen it coming. Sally flipped the coin and it landed on a blank space and sure enough, she wrote exactly that on the paper.

“OK, time to go home,” he said, rising up, ready to carry her out. “The only person you’re showing your undies to is me.”

“Might be one of us,” Brian snarked. “Scared she’ll see what a real man looks like?”

“I’ll let you know if I see one,” Sally shot back, right before falling back against Jase’s chest. They settled back down in their chair once Sally gave Jase the coin.

I hoped and feared I’d get hot seat, because I knew what I’d confess right then if the coin landed on it. That I wanted what they had with the fire of a thousand suns. To know there was someone to come home to, a friendly face, a soft kiss, a smile. Something to stop me from rattling around in my house alone. Instead, Jase flipped the coin onto his name and took a drink, staring into his partner’s eyes the entire time.

“OK, my turn.”

Charlie flipped the coin and got a blank spot and wrote down, ‘swap seats.’

“If you wanted to sit on my lap, pretty boy, all you had to do was ask,” Dave told him before sucking down more of his beer.

“Yeah, but then I’d need that rash cream you had to buy that girl you were seeing.”

Dave’s beer came out in a splutter and he shot Charlie a look, then Millie. She paid him little mind, chatting to Sally, so she didn’t see the real reason why I didn’t like Dave. By modern parlance, he was a fuckboy, sticking his dick wherever he could. He had a ‘situationship’ with a very pretty girl who seemed far too sensible for his shit, though the fact Katie wanted to take things to the next level contradicted that. The idiot’s face grew thunderous, thinking he’d lost any chance he’d have with Millie, but he didn’t realise.

All of us had.

The rules of mateship meant you did not try and make moves on another guy’s girl, and while there seemed to be a whole lot of misogynist bullshit in that statement, it was still true. Noah stared Dave down until he was forced to hand the coin to Brian. He flipped it and then wrote ‘do a body shot’ on the paper.

“You wanna suck a shot off my dick, mate?” Dave asked.

“I think you want him to.” Noah grabbed the coin and handed it to Mick, who was next. The coin was flipped and landed on Millie’s name and that had me stiffening. She turned around when the other guys started crowing, the reason being clear. As she raised her glass in salute, I found myself speaking up.

“You don’t have to,” I told her. She was smiling, but that faded a little as I stared into her eyes. I was straight, so I couldn’t pass this off as drunk behaviour. “If you want a lift home, I can take you.”

“Trying to get Dazza to go home with ya, are ya mate?” Dave’s eyes glittered as he looked at me, then Noah. The prick had a sixth sense for conflict and was always there, fanning the flames.

“Don’t need to worry about me.” But I already was. Millie saluted me with her glass, then downed it in one, forcing Charlie to his feet. He retrieved what was left of the bottle of wine, but before he could pour, Dave snatched it from him. Little rumbles of disapproval went around the table as Dave filled the glass up almost to the brim. “Sure you couldn’t fit a little more in?”

Dave set the bottle back down with a grin.

“Maybe. I’m good at fitting big things into small spaces.”

“Is that what your mum told you?”

Millie’s snappy retort had the rest of us laughing, dissipating a little of the tension, but Dave couldn’t let that go as he grabbed the coin and flipped it. It’d land on a blank space, I just knew. Sure enough he grabbed the pen and as he wrote the words, my teeth started to grind. ‘Kiss the person next to you.’ I was pretty sure he didn’t have Mick in mind when he put that down. Millie’s smile faded for a sec, making me think she was rattled, but not for long. This girl was like one of those boxing toys they gave kids, rearing up the minute she was knocked down.

“You boys want an excuse to kiss each other?” She took a sip of her wine, then smiled. “I’m down. Boys kissing is so hot. Write ‘with tongue’ down.”

“What? No—” Mick spluttered.

“Rules are rules.” Charlie plucked the pen from his fingers and then added ‘with tongue’ to the sentence. “OK, you’re next, Noah.”

He flipped the coin with intent, staring at the spinning piece of metal as if willing it to go where he needed it to. Looks like luck was on his side. The minute it landed on a blank space the pen was out and he wrote down one word.

“Veto?” Brian peered at the word owlishly. “What does that?—?”

“The ability to say no to a challenge.” Millie shot Noah a measured look. “I remember that from ancient history.”

“Got a bit of ancient history, do ya, love?” Mick asked with a leer.

“I don’t have to answer that, not unless I land on ‘hot seat.’” Millie replied, picking up the coin and flipping it, only looking when everyone started to roar. Her coin had landed right where she said.

“So what does that entail?” Charlie was sitting back in his chair, arm slung over the back, and that had me watching closely. He was a regular Energizer Bunny normally, so a calm Charlie was a dangerous one.

“I have to answer one question completely truthfully,” she replied. I didn’t watch her face but her fingers as they traced the line of the glass stem. Dave sucked in a breath and so did Noah, but Charlie was there before him.

“How do you know Noah?” he asked, his eyes glittering. She was about to answer, but he clarified his question. “I know you went to school together, but…” His finger pointed to her and then Noah, moving back and forth. “Anything juicy there? Teenage sweethearts?”

Dave snorted at that, remembering Noah’s lack of game when it came to women, but I… I found myself leaning forward, wanting to hear the answer more than any of the other shit people might have to say. Millie just shrugged at the attention, sipped her wine, and then let her arms rest on the table.

“He was supposed to be my first kiss.” I wanted to put a stop to things the minute she confessed that. Brian started to put shit on Noah, but the tense mood in the room seemed to stifle even that. Every eye was trained on Millie, waiting for the punchline. “I thought we had… something. It seemed like it was going to happen at a party we were at, but…” She smiled, but there was no real heart in it. I don’t know why I thought I was such an expert in her smiles, but I was certain of it. “But it didn’t, we didn’t… do anything. He never spoke to me again, not until now.”

Noah was too pale and too flushed all at the same time. If I didn’t know better, I would’ve thought he was about to be sick, sweat prickling across his forehead. The red spots in his cheeks, they told another story, glowing bright as he cleared his throat, ready to explain.

“Well, any dickhead who pussied out on kissing you isn’t worth your time,” Dave said, picking up the coin before flipping it my way. “Your turn, Fort.”

I snatched it out of the air and held it for a second, imagining that I could feel a trace of Millie’s warmth on the metal.