Frankie looked down at the sheet of paper like it was a death sentence.
“This sucks.” The sheer boredom of sitting on his ass for three weeks was going to kill him. He was already to the point where he took extra shifts just to avoid having too many days off in the month to sit around the house he shared with his twin, Finian, and do the same shit he’d been doing since they got the place a decade ago. It wasn’t that he needed the money—although, come on, everyone had too many bills to pay—but the firehouse was his life. The adrenaline. The comraderie. The going out and saving shit. It’s what a guy like him was made for. “What in the hell am I supposed to do for three weeks?”
The captain shrugged. “Get drunk. Get laid. Get a hobby. I don’t fucking care. Just get out of my office and don’t let me see that freckled mug of yours again for three weeks, Hartigan.”
…
Marino’s wasn’t a nasty dive bar, or an outlaw biker bar, or the kind of bar where when Frankie walked in all the patrons stopped what they were doing and turned to give him the stink eye like they were picturing the best way to dispose of his body. Those places would have been more welcoming. Instead, it was a cop bar. And why would a self-respecting firefighter go into such a place of ill repute? Because his poor, confused baby brother was one of Waterbury’s finest, complete with detective shield and annoying habit of always following the rules. Ford did, however, have the night off and a willingness to play wingman as Frankie checked through the captain’s proffered to-do list with get drunk being at the top of it.
“Can you believe this crap?” he asked, taking a drink from his first draught beer. “Three weeks.”
Ford was watching the dartboard in the back, since he was up soon, but he glanced away long enough to roll his eyes at Frankie. “If you’d just taken your leave each year like you’re supposed to, you wouldn’t be in this spot.”
Frankie flipped him the bird. “Wait, not only do I have to drink away my sorrows in this place, but you’re going to tell me I told you so, too?”
“What else are younger brothers for?”
“I should have called Finn.” His fraternal twin, younger by six minutes and forty-two seconds, as their mom reminded them at every birthday, would have commiserated properly with Frankie in a real bar.
“Finn is in Vegas because he,” Ford said as he shot him a shit-eating grin that made it look like he was as much of a troublemaker as the rest of the Hartigans. “Wait for it.” He paused, held up a finger, and took a drink of his beer, soaking up the moment for all it was worth. “Took his leave like he was supposed to.”
“I swear you were switched at birth,” Frankie grumbled. “Somewhere out there is a changling Hartigan who doesn’t get a hard-on for following procedure.”
“You already have one brother and four sisters who are like that already. I bring balance to the force.”
It was probably true.
“How about instead of feeling sorry for yourself for having all this paid time off, you do something productive like figure out what we’re going to do for Mom and Dad’s fortieth anniversary,” Ford said. “We all agreed to pitch in and do something big for them.”
“Yeah, but no one can figure out what.”
The plan had been to send them to Paris for a week, before their dad came home and declared that if Frankie’s mom forced him to go to one more frou-frou French restaurant to eat snails and force-fed duck livers, he was going to choose to starve to death instead. Yeah. The Hartigans were all known for being a little bit on the loudly dramatic side, with every hill being the hill they’d die on.
“I’d say with three weeks off you’re the perfect man for the case, Junior,” Ford said, using Frankie’s most hated of nicknames.
“Yo Hartigan, you’re up,” someone hollered from the area near the dartboard, saving Frankie from having to smack his brother upside the head on general principle for calling him junior.
Knowing he’d been saved, Ford raised his beer in salute and strolled off to the back, leaving Frankie in unfriendly territory without a cop guide. Now, it wasn’t that the cops and firefighters of Waterbury were sworn enemies, it was just that, well, there was a long-lived and healthy-ish rivalry between them, and they tended to stick to their own kind—except for the annual charity hockey game, during which they happily and enthusiastically beat the ever-loving shit out of each other in between scoring goals.
The bar got a whole lot friendlier when Bobby Marino, who was all of seventy-six if he was a day, gave up the serving duties to Shannon Kominsky. Frankie had known Shannon for years. They’d spent time together naked before and had both walked away relaxed and happy. If he played his cards right, tonight could be a repeat performance, complete with orgasms and her post-sex chocolate chip cookies. Some women liked to snuggle after sex. Some liked to talk. Shannon baked.
“Heya, Shannon,” he said, giving her the half-lazy, half-cocky grin that had started getting him laid in high school.
And the grin would have worked, if she’d have seen it. Instead, she kept her gaze off of him as she picked up his beer, slid a coaster under it, and sat the mug back down. “Not tonight, Frankie.”
Damn. That brush-off came brutally fast.
“What did I do?”
Now she did look up at him, and it was probably just to give him the are-you-stupid look on her cute face. “It’s what you didn’t do.”
His expression must have been as blank as his brain right then, because she shook her head and her lips curled in a rueful smile.
“Call, Frankie,” she said with a chuckle. “You never called.”
Fuck. He shifted on his barstool. “I’m sorry, it’s been crazy, but I’ve got some time off. Maybe you and I could—”
“Honey, it’s been six months.” She held up her left hand and wiggled her fingers, the neon light from the Budweiser sign above the bar catching in the diamond ring on her finger. “I’m off the market.”
“Damn.” This was starting to happen with way too much frequency lately. Why was everyone getting married all of a sudden? “Looks like I’m too late.”
“You were never in the running.” Shannon leaned her forearms on the bar and brought her head close, lowering her voice as if she was about to impart an important secret. “Frankie, you’re one of the best lays in Waterbury, all us girls agree.”
His ego grew two sizes before the second part of her declaration registered. “You talk about me? All of you together like that?” Comparing notes? Chicks did that? Fuck, did other guys know this little factoid? Because that shit was dangerous.
“It’s Waterbury. This neighborhood is like a small town when it comes to gossip,” Shannon said. “But here’s the deal. You’re respectful. You don’t promise anything you’re not going to deliver. You’re fun. You’re honestly a good guy, but, honey, you’re not the kind of guy who delivers happily ever afters.” She gave him a look that walked the line between sympathy and pity. “And once you get to a certain point in your life, all of the fuck-buddy fun loses its luster and you want more, you want a forever kind of thing. You understand what I’m saying?”
Love. That’s what she meant. That once-in-a-lifetime, you’re-a-lucky-son-of-a-bitch-if-you-find-it thing that his parents had, that Felicia had with Hudson, that Ford had with Gina. And for him it was as likely to happen as him finding a unicorn, because he knew Shannon was right. He’d always known it. He wasn’t a delivery driver for Happily Ever Afters R Us, which meant he was as likely to find it as he was to find…
“A fucking unicorn,” he muttered.
Shannon’s eyebrows went up in question. “What?”