Chapter 20

Millie

Doing the walk of shame always sucked. Doing the walk of shame out of a busy fire station was epically bad. The next morning I woke with a snort and saw that I did not indeed have a very sexy aneurysm where all my firefighter fantasies were fulfilled. Instead, I was confronted with the sight of all three of them in all their naked glory.

Taking photos would be wrong, yeah? Like it would be invasive and ignore their right to privacy, so I found my phone and my clothes, shoving the device in my pocket as I scrambled to get ready. I stopped when I was dressed in the uniform because my dress was still damp and just stared.

Merry Christmas to me.

I’d had my little sex goddess fantasy fulfilled, but right now my head hurt, my mouth felt like the bottom of a bird cage, though at least I’d had a shower. Charlie had found me in there, getting me clean and then dirty all over again.

The only thing left to do was bail.

I didn’t want to. What I really wanted was to throw myself down on the bed and do sexy snow angels on all that male flesh, before they woke up and decorated my halls all over again.

“Knox?” a muffled voice said outside the door. “Knoxy, you there?”

But my days of being a ho, ho, ho were done, and I needed to be the cool girl and GTFO, stat. I waited for the footsteps to fade away, then opened the door a crack. The coast was clear so I tip-toed out, quickly orienting myself. I saw the brass pole in the distance, hustling towards it, and then sliding down without trying to be fancy about it. Home free, that’s what I thought, when I landed beside the fire trucks, the massive roller door retracted, letting the morning air in. I wove my way between the different vehicles, grabbing out my phone and organising an Uber when a masculine voice interrupted me.

“Didn’t realise we had a new staff member.”

Were all the guys hot here? This one was tall and had freaking dimples that popped as he shot me a knowing smile. He took in my bare feet, my clothes and heels dangling from my fingers with a raised eyebrow.

“Some of the guys leant me a uniform,” I stammered out. Where was the confident sex goddess of last night? Apparently, she only existed when I’d drunk too much wine. “I’ll bring it back after I’ve had a chance to wash it.”

“No rush.”

He looked me up and down slowly, as if seeing all of the things that led to me dressed as a firefighter, but before he could say anything else, we were interrupted.

“Rhett, are you…?” No fucking way. Brent, the station commander stood there in a freshly pressed uniform, his voice trailing away as he caught sight of me. “Millie! Just the woman I was looking for.”

“You were?”

Both Rhett and I looked at him in shock.

“You stayed overnight in one of the bunks?” he said in the same kind of warm tone my dad used. “Smart move. We wouldn’t want to peel what was left of you off the road if you got into an accident. Now, love, this probably seems all a bit fast…”

Um, what the actual fuck was he about to ask me?

“But I was wondering if you’d be interested in the office admin position Judy is vacating. You seem like a nice young woman. Sensible, steady.” No one, literally no one, would say that about me if they knew how last night ended. “I can direct appoint you to the position for the first ten weeks, then we have to go to an application process, but you’ll have incumbency…”

A sharp toot had us both turning around, because the cavalry, or Uber, had arrived.

“Can I get back to you?” I said. “Sorry, I’m a bit hungover and not really in the right place to make that sort of decision.”

“What? Oh, yes, of course.”

He seemed a little flustered, but maybe that would work in my favour. A government job would’ve been perfect last night, but now…? I looked up at the fire station facade and nodded, knowing I’d never forget tonight, all while knowing it would never be repeated. Jamie might be in a quadruple or whatever she called it, but my brothers had been mooning after her for her entire life. I just slept with two strangers and a guy who wouldn’t even kiss me in high school.

The Uber tooted the horn again, making clear he wasn’t going to wait.

“Sorry, I need to go, but thanks for… everything. I’ll get the uniform back to you.”

I didn’t wait for a response, diving into the back seat of the car and then giving the driver my address.

When I got home, my dress went into the washing machine along with the uniform, because I didn’t feel like myself until I was out of it. As the machine started to agitate, the suds visible through the glass window, it felt like more than just the clothing was washed away. I had a fun night, I rationalised. I got to kick up my heels, have a bit of fun in the silly season…

No, more than fun, my brain insisted. It sang me a siren song of gasps and moans, of bodies working against each other, of an ecstasy that seemed to well deep inside me, ready to overwhelm. It blew my freaking mind and that was a problem.

It left me wanting more.

Sappy fantasies where all four of us walked along the beach at sunset played inside my mind, a dog in tow. Charlie tossed it a ball to chase as Noah’s arms snaked around my waist. Knox shooed us back as the tide came in, making sure my trailing white dress didn’t get wet, and I…

I would never have that.

Other women didn’t seem to have this stupid tendency to project shit onto the guys they boned, I was sure, seeing a future where there was none. If anyone was interested in dating me, we wouldn’t have ended up in bed. I’d scratched a foursome itch I didn’t know I had, and they’d… They’d engaged in some team building activities Brent wouldn’t have supported. With a snort, I walked out of the laundry and into my kitchen, pulling out orange juice and some painkillers along with the antibiotics I was currently taking. Shaking my head, I realised I’d probably need to fulfil the repeat script. The multiple trips to pound town were going to make my cystitis flare up bad.

That wasn’t what I was thinking as I settled against the counter, staring into the reflective surface of my kettle without really seeing it. My lips stung, my body ached, but in the good, well-used way, my thighs sending shivers through me as I rubbed them slowly together, as if trying to summon the ghosts of good fucks past. I was half tempted to spend the day in bed with my battery operated boyfriend, seeing if I could get myself off half as hard, but duty called.

“Hey,” I said as I answered my phone. Jamie’s contact had flashed up on the screen. “What’s up?”

“Your brother is threatening to take me to get fitted for a suit, and I don’t know how I feel about it,” my bestie said. I smiled at the obvious discomfort in her voice. Jamie was all woman but somehow missed the memo about how to dress or wear makeup.

“And you called me to talk you down off a ledge during your sartorial emergency?” I replied. “Good choice. I’ll be at yours in an hour.”

I swallowed the pills and washed them down with the juice before straightening up to go and get ready. Last night was a hot, hot fever dream, but that wasn’t me. I was daughter, sister, friend, and unemployed, so I needed to attend to all those things right now. I pulled on some light clothes, grabbed my car keys, and walked towards the front door when a text came through.

Where did you get to? it read, and that’s when a curl of excitement twisted in my gut. This was from Charlie’s number, and to say I wasn’t expecting to hear from him again was an understatement. He was there in the ‘here for a fun time, not for a long time’ box, but texting me threatened to release him from it. We could grab some breakfast this morning. Gareth isn’t a bad cook.

I could’ve told him the truth, that I’d gone home, but there was a cute cafe nearby that had bacon and eggs to die for. I could be there in half an hour if he wanted to grab a bite. I could’ve said I had something on today, but if he was keen tomorrow… Except that would just get us texting, and texting led to talking, and talking led to every other guy I’d met on a dating app breadcrumbing me with little bits of attention, stringing me along while they pursued the woman they were really into. I could’ve told him just that, but in my experience the royal never complaining, never explaining was the best way to deal with dudes. My thumb hovered over the text, ready to reply, but instead, I blocked his number.

I had relationships that I could rely on with my friends and family, so that’s what I focussed on, locking up my place and getting in my car.