The Firefighter Who Rescues Me

Chapter 8 ♚ Long Story

"I'm sorry."

"You don't have to apologize." She tugged me along just enough to get me walking again. "You also don't have to tell us why, if you don't want to. But I do want you to know that whether you like it or not, you're one of us now. For as long as you want to be. Which also means that if any of them hurt you—and I doubt it, because they're all teddy bears—I will personally castrate them myself."

That was so unexpected it tore a laugh out of me.

"You'd really do that?"

"Absolutely," she said with one hundred percent conviction. "Us girls have to stick together, especially in this dumb town that has so few of us."

Warmth spread all over my chest. Maybe one day she'd come to regret giving me her friendship, but for now I'd cling to it.

"What's up with that?" I asked, glancing at her. "I've never seen a place with so many dudes."

She grunted. "We joke that it's something in the water, but for some reason we keep giving birth to boys. Even me! When I got pregnant I prayed it'd be a girl. I was even planning a huge gender reveal party, you know, the kind that usually ends up in the news. But then it turned out to be a boy and I just cancelled it."

Chuckling, I asked, "What, you weren't happy anymore?"

"Oh, I was." Everything about her expression showed annoyance, though. "It's just I'd got a bit ahead of myself and bought everything in pink already. For the first year of his life, Luke was surrounded by pink and frilly things."

My whole body vibrated with a silent laugh.

Lena Lee sighed. "I kept everything, in case I manage to get pregnant with a girl next time, but with my luck I'll end up with quintuplet boys—there we go, Louie's bar. The one and only in town."

I figured, considering that the place was teeming with half of the grown up portion of town. Although that might be a misnomer for all the tipsy adults who, in their full Bears regalia, appeared to have returned to their childhood after the team's victory. A bit ironic, considering that the players were probably celebrating all the way to bed.

Turned out Lena Lee was a very popular person. I'd thought that the Sheriff called her the queen because she must be the ruler of the Perry household, but seeing how many people stopped her for a chat, or to shake her hand, or hug her, made me think she was actually the queen of the whole damn place.

By the time she finally deposited us in the table the guys had procured, all the friendly strangers who weren't strangers to her had bought us two rounds of beer already.

"Are you some sort of celebrity?" I asked her once she sat beside me, flanking Shane and Brian.

Lena Lee gave out the exact kind of laughter celebrities had when they were trying to be modest.

Shane leaned forward with a grin. "Lena Lee here is the town belle. The whole St. Andrews school was in love with her when we were teens."

My eyebrows shot up.

That was when Pace joined us, expertly balancing beer bottles for everybody. I noted that all of them were still sealed closed and I couldn't help but look at him in a better light.

"Oh, thanks," Lena Lee said not just to the cold beer, but also to the bottle opener he offered. She popped her bottle open and was about to hand the opener to me, except that I was busy positioning the lid of my bottle against the edge of the table. I gave it a good hit that popped the lid open without spilling a single drop of beer.

After wiping the rim of the bottle and taking a good chug, I returned the conversation back on track. "So you guys were all in love with Lena Lee, too?"