The Anti-Social Season (First Responders #2)

Chapter Eighteen

Eighteen

“F ine. Just everybody fucking leave me. That’s just great,” Thea muttered to herself as she heard Simon’s car start up and the pop of gravel under his tires as he turned and pulled out of the driveway. “Just do whatever you want, say whatever you want and get the fuck out of here.” On one level, she knew the only person she was really mad at was her sister. How dare she judge Thea for, well, anything? And how mortifying for Simon to be collateral damage from her sister’s attack.

But Simon had also hurt her with his rapid departure. She should check the driveway for skid marks, he’d left so fast. She rubbed her forehead and walked over to get a glass of water, but filling it and bringing it to her lips reminded her of their first kiss. Dammit. She gulped defiantly. Nothing was going to ruin hydration for her. Not her sister, not her...whatever Simon was. Whatever their relationship was. If there still was a relationship.

She drained the glass and put it in the sink, groaning. Whatever Simon was, she was going to have to see him next week. Normally, she’d take out her frustrations on a weight bench or heavy bag. But for now, her new job would have to do. Which meant she was going to need some social media campaign ideas and a place to work and maybe film. Rubbing her temples to try to batter back an incipient headache, she went over to her desk and flipped open her laptop. She pulled up a holiday calendar and blinked at the myriad of choices she had. Grabbing a sticky note, she recorded the dates for Kwanzaa, Diwali and Hanukkah for the year. Damn, her late entry into this job was doing her no favors. For one, Diwali was already over. Mentally, she kicked herself.

Okay. Next year. If she got a next year. But she had time to create some Hanukkah safety messages. Kwanzaa too. She tapped her pen against the pad and then looked at it. Positioning it on her thumb, she tried a spin.

Bonk.

Okay, fine. Bucket list item canceled. Picking up the traitor pen again, she bit the end, thinking. Ray from her station was Jewish, but she also knew several Jewish firefighters at other stations she could tap to see if they were willing to do a safety video about the festival of lights. She wasn’t ready to go back to her station just yet.

She smacked her forehead with the heel of her hand. Her old station. Not her station. She didn’t have a station.

Quickly, she wrote their names on another sticky note, starting with the most gregarious guy she’d met at various charity events.

Yeah. Larry Cohen was her top pick for this job.

Simon got home without remembering a minute of his drive. How had things gone so wrong so completely? Just as he was pulling into his parking spot, his phone rang, his sister’s name on the screen.

He practically chucked the phone through the windshield. The last thing he needed now was Ashley’s petulant demands. He let it roll to voicemail.

Predictably, as he was unlocking his apartment door, it rang again. This time it was his mother. Again, he sent the call to voicemail as he turned on the lights on his little tabletop Christmas tree and tossed the infernal device on his coffee table, then headed for his bathroom for a shower. As he scrubbed his body, his brain frantically scrambled for something to do, somewhere to go where he could just ignore the world and escape his thoughts.

He’d had the girl of his dreams.

Literally.

But then it had all gone to shit.

He sighed and shut off the water, pushing the shower curtain out of the way with unnecessary force. Wrapping a towel around his waist, he cleared the fog away from the mirror and considered his face. Somehow, he didn’t look even a fraction as exhausted as he felt.

God, things had been going so well. From his living room, his phone shrilled again. Well, given his situation, he shouldn’t be surprised that Thea’s sister—that anyone’s sister—could ruin something. His was well on her way to ruining the entire Christmas holiday season with her endless, ramping expectations. He finished drying off and pulled on sweatpants and a faded old T-shirt from grad school that read Fear the Turtle across the chest. Dragging himself back to the living room, he picked up his phone. Three more calls from his sister and one from his mother. One voicemail from Ashley. With a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, he tapped to listen.

His sister’s terse voice poured out. “Simon, stop ignoring my calls. I can’t find the recipe for Grandma’s sugar cookies, and it will absolutely not be Christmas unless we have them.” That was it. No actual request for assistance, no please or thank you, no acknowledgment that he had his own life to live and wasn’t just an accessory for his sister and her holiday ambitions.

Plus, those cookies were fiddly and tricky. There was no way his sister was going to get through even rolling out a batch of the dough without a meltdown he was going to be able to hear from three thousand miles away.

Instead of calling Ashley back, he tapped his mother’s contact entry. Maybe it was cowardice, but he was fine with that just now. “Thank god you called,” she said as soon as she picked up the phone.

“Nice to talk to you too, Mom.”

He could practically hear her waving away his comment. “Why can’t you answer your phone when we call you?”

“Because I’m doing other things. Living my own life.”

“Well, you need to help your sister. You know how she gets.”

He did. And dealing with her demands was difficult enough when she lived twenty minutes away. But he’d grown up knowing that dealing with her demands was also easier than triggering one of her raving meltdowns. The last year had given him some more perspective on how the family’s constant stance of appeasement wasn’t the best strategy. Now that he could see things more clearly, he wished he’d started drawing boundaries earlier.

“I can’t bake with her from the East Coast, Mom.”

“I know. But you can send her the recipe, right? And maybe walk her through it on a video call.”

A month ago, he might have. “No,” he said, his gut churning.

“What?” His mother legitimately sounded as if she didn’t understand the syllable.

“No. I’m not going to hold her hand. I’m not going to turn myself inside out just because she might have a tantrum.”

“But Simon, you know how she gets!”

He did. And he knew his Mom would probably end up coping with the fallout. But he’d just endured his own emotional roller coaster and he didn’t have the energy to cope with any of it. “I do. And I’m sorry. But there are limits to what I can do from here. She’s just going to have to either come to grips with the fact that our traditions will have to change or she’s going to have to learn how to do a whole lot of new stuff. I’ve gotta go now, Mom. Love to you and Dad.”

And with that, he hung up.

On Wednesday, after fielding an excruciating call from her sister that contained a very serious, clearly very rehearsed apology for her nosiness and judgment, Thea fidgeted in the dayroom of the firehouse. Larry Cohen had just given her a cup of coffee. The building where he worked was a beautiful older brick structure, very different from the modern building she’d called home for a decade. It had great, deep sills in the tall windows. Perfect for a menorah.

In fact, there was a beautiful example of one sitting on one of the sills now, an asymmetrical work of silversmith’s art. Two candles were seated in it, both of them unlit.

Thea gestured with her coffee cup. “Did you put those out just for me?”

Larry shook his head. “Nah. First night isn’t until tomorrow. But that’s good for your project, right?”

Thea stiffened. “That won’t be a problem, right? Lighting a candle before you’re supposed to?” She couldn’t imagine lighting an Advent candle before its time. God might not smite her, but her mother sure would.

Larry gave her a broad smile, his eyes twinkling. “No. Especially not for a safety video. Don’t worry about it. I just wish it was darker. The flames won’t really show.”

Thea peered at the setup. At least it was an overcast day, but she took his point. Night would have been better. “Next year,” she said, hoping it was true. “I’m learning how to do a lot of the kind of planning that this job requires. Different from making sure there’s a full inventory on a ladder truck, you know?”

“Guess so. Where’s that guy who’s supposed to be helping you, anyway?” Larry got to his feet and tossed the dregs of his coffee in the sink before putting his cup in the dishwasher.

Thea checked the time. It wasn’t like Simon to be late. He had acknowledged her text instructing him where to meet her yesterday, so she knew he’d read it. “I’m sure he’s on his way.”

“Should you call him?” Larry asked.

“If he’s driving, I doubt he’ll answer,” she said.

“Good point. And good for him. Would hate to be called out to a vehicle crash caused by one of our own.”

“Aww, you still think of me as one of your own?” Thea couldn’t help the ridiculous surge of warmth in her chest at the thought.

Larry winked broadly and pointed cheesy finger guns at her, making her laugh. At that moment, Simon was escorted in by one of the station’s younger crew.

“Here they are,” the kid said before leaving. Simon’s expression was grim as he took in Larry, and Thea’s laugh died in her throat.

“You okay?” she said, her shoulders going stiff.

He cleared his throat. “Yeah. Some traffic I wasn’t expecting. Sorry I’m late.”

“No worries,” Larry said, approaching Simon with his hand out. “Larry Cohen. Welcome.”

“Simon Osman,” he said, shaking the firefighter’s hand, his face set in its old, sternly forbidding expression.

Leaving Thea wondering what the hell was wrong now.

Jealousy was an ugly emotion, so Simon wasn’t exactly proud of himself when he found Thea laughing merrily with a very handsome former colleague. Larry Cohen seemed to be one of those effortlessly charming guys, with curling dark hair and a broad, easy smile that only made Simon feel even more stiff and awkward than usual.

The fact that he’d apparently been flirting with Thea—and that Thea enjoyed it, if her laugh was any kind of indication—only made Simon feel worse. The way their extended date ended on top of his family’s drama had corroded his weekend. Then Mary-Pat had been up to her usual shenanigans, hijacking yesterday’s readers’ advisory social media event by trying to override his and Chloe’s suggestions with what she considered “classic” literature.

Chloe finally put an end to her meddling by pointing out that the readers’ advisory lunchtime social media feature was something Mary-Pat never wanted in the first place, and telling her that “long-dead white men aren’t the answer to everything.”

Mary-Pat then marched into Amy’s office to complain about “new librarians who don’t know their place and are completely ignorant about the literary canon.” Thanks to a door that wasn’t quite closed all the way, the entire library staff now knew that Amy had told Mary-Pat that she needed to stop overstepping her nonexistent authority, do her job and stop causing drama for the entire library.

While this had, admittedly, been a glorious moment for the rest of the staff, Mary-Pat’s subsequent iciness meant that patrons had been made uncomfortable and created a lot more work for everyone else. So, despite the way his weekend crumbled, Simon had been looking forward to getting out of the library and into the field with Thea.

Only to arrive to this cozy scene.

She looked up just then and said, “What do you think?” to Simon, and he realized she’d been conferring with Larry about something. He just didn’t know what.

He cleared his throat. “Uh, I’m sorry. I didn’t get that. What were you saying?”

She gave him a funny look. “I was wondering if we should have me sort of interviewing Larry or if he should just talk about menorah fire safety on his own.”

His rusty brain rumbled to life. On the one hand, Larry was the guy who was being cast as the expert for this specific video. On the other, Thea’s ideas and the fact that she wasn’t camera shy would make her the face of Emergency Services’ social media. Plus, she was worried—irrational as it probably was—about her probationary period. Putting her in front of the camera might help to cement her role there. “I think you should both be in it.”

“Great!” they both said in unison, and Simon’s stomach sank. Super. He was now going to video them both being super chummy and full of chemistry. Just what his week needed. Sighing, he set up the tripod and camera, softly explaining to Thea how she would do this on her own, paying special attention to where the edges of the frame were so she didn’t end up with half her content not filmed. Larry looked on, apparently intrigued.

“Do I get a script?” he asked.

“Nah,” Thea responded. “I have my intro kind of planned out, but it’s not like we’re doing a scene in a play or anything. The idea is to have it be more of a conversation.”

“Well, if there’s anything I can do, it’s talk,” he said. “Let’s see if you’re as good at this as you were in a ladder truck.” Another wink made Simon’s stomach loop itself into knots.

He didn’t even want to think about what Thea and Larry might have done in a ladder truck.

But he had a job to do. “Okay. Let’s do a few takes and see what happens.”