Burning Lust (An MMF Bisexual Threesome) (2 page)

The two men came walking out, taking off their oxygen and hats as they did, unbuttoning their heavy coats. Underneath they just wore suspenders over white undershirts.

That was when Katie realized who the fireman was: it was Patrick Tahoe. Of
course
it was. She’d had a huge crush on her throughout most of high school, though they’d barely ever talked — how could she not recognize him at first?

“Looks like everything will be fine,” Patrick said. “It might smell a little smoky in there for a while, but that should dissipate before long. No real smoke damage.”

“I’m so sorry you had to come out here,” she said. “I feel like like a moron.”

“Listen, don’t worry about it,” Patrick said. Then he tilted his head and narrowed his eyes, just a little. “Katie, right?”

She nodded. Patrick paused, like he wasn’t sure what to say next.

“Katie Callahan?” he said at last, sounding really unsure.

She nodded again. “And you’re Patrick?” she said, tentatively, even though by now she was nearly positive.

He smiled, that wide, easy, perfect grin back on his face. “That’s right,” he said. “I’m amazed you remember me after all these years.”

“It’s not like Montpelier High has that many students,” she said.

“But still, you were always off, doing debate team, all that smart stuff. Weren’t you valedictorian?”

Katie tried to laugh that off. “Well, yeah.”

He shook his head, still smiling. The other fireman came up to him. Under his helmet he had a head full of loose brown curls, and he ran his hand through them where they stuck to his head with sweat.

“This is Sam Mendel,” he said. “Transplant from New York, joined the volunteer firemen for some excitement.”

“Hi,” said Sam, shaking Katie’s hand.

“You moved back?” Patrick asked. He had his helmet held in front of him, his hands crossed over it.

“I did,” she said. “I’m working as a psychologist in the Truman medical center, downtown.”

“Wow,” Patrick said. “A psychologist. Were you in school this whole time?”

“I took a summer off.”

“I just barely made it through an Associate’s degree,” Patrick said.

“Well, I almost set my house on fire, so I think we’re even,” Katie said. “I’m really sorry you had to come out here for nothing.”

“Are you kidding?” piped up Sam. “We love this shit. Now we get to feel like heroes for setting up a couple fans.”

“Besides, I found out you’re back in town,” Patrick said, winking at her. “That alone was worth it.”

Katie blushed hard, again.

“Well, thank you for saving me,” she said.

“We should get the truck back,” Patrick said. “See you around?”

Katie just nodded.

As the fire truck drove off, Doug came back through the trees with a post-it note in his hand.

“Here you go,” he said. “They’ll clean your chimney until it’s spotless, just tell ‘em I sent you. And listen, kid, don’t worry. We all make dumb mistakes.”

Katie laughed. “Thanks, Doug,” she said.

A week later, Katie was at her first meeting with her new associates, sipping at a glass of water, wearing her most professional outfit, and absolutely nervous as hell. It was a problem she often had, feeling like she’d somehow tricked everyone into making them think that she was a real psychologist, whereas she often felt like she had no idea what she was doing.

You’re qualified and prepared,
she reminded herself.
You deserve this. Stop it
.

She realized that she’d drawn nearly a whole page of little loops on the legal pad, and quickly flipped the page over.

“One last thing,” said Dr. Malcolm, the chief psychologist, a no-nonsense woman with short gray hair. “Every year we do pro bono psych evals for the volunteer firefighters association,” she said.

Katie sat up straighter.

“Just make sure they’re handling the stress well, nobody’s getting too down about fighting fires, that kind of thing.” Dr. Malcolm took a quick sip of water and cleared her throat. “There haven’t been any fire fatalities in a few years, so I don’t think there’s too much to worry about, but we do this every year. Any questions?”

The tight little circles now filled another page of her legal pad, and Katie clenched her teeth before flipping it over. She had the odd sensation that Dr. Malcolm was looking directly at her, specifically waiting to see if she, Katie Callahan, could handle this challenge, but when she finally looked up, everyone seemed to be looking over their meeting notes.

It’s your imagination,
she reminded herself.
Here, you’re just another competent member of the team, okay?

Still, she was the first one to stand and file out of the room, trying to force herself not to run. She had no idea which firefighters she’d be assigned, but it probably wouldn’t be Patrick, right? What were the odds?

It had crossed her mind from time to time that Patrick might still live in Montpelier, sure, and it had crossed her mind that she’d probably run into him sooner or later. After all, Montpelier just wasn’t that big, but she hadn’t thought it was be only a few days after moving in, and she
definitely
hadn’t thought that it would be under such embarrassing circumstances.

The fireplace flue. Who forgot about that?

In high school, Katie didn’t think she’d spoken two whole sentences to Patrick Tahoe. They’d had a few classes together, and he’d always been perfectly nice to her, but he’d always been dating some cheerleader or other. Fitting, since he was in varsity football his freshman and was starting quarterback by his senior year, and he fit the stereotype to a T. He was blond, blue eyed, handsome, the archetypical all-American high school athlete.

And Katie had been madly in love with him for years, always from the shadows. After all, she was a chubby brown-haired girl with glasses and braces. She was president of the debate team and the honor society and valedictorian, but those things didn’t add up to dating a football player, not even a little bit. She’d been shocked when he recognized her at all, and even more shocked that he remembered her.

Still, she knew he was probably married with a kid by now. Men like him didn’t just stay single. Even if he hadn’t been any good at college, his father owned half the condos and rental houses in the ski resort town of Stowe, about half an hour away, and she was sure that Patrick was doing quite well for himself working at the family business.

This other guy, though. Sam. He was new to town and cute in an entirely different way — rakish but cute, and Katie kept finding herself thinking about the way his fair had fallen into his eyes when he took his helmet off, the way he’d looked at her when he introduced himself.

Maybe he was single, she thought.

By Friday, Katie was beat. Her phone rang around lunchtime, and she recognized the number: her old friend Ashley. They’d been in separable in high school, but then they’d grown apart when Katie moved away, like people do. But not that Katie was back in town, they’d hung out a few times, and it turned out that Ashley was still really fun. Most of her high school crowd — the ones who’d stuck around, anyway — had kids and husbands, and some were even on their second kid or husband, but Ashley was still single, and she
still
loved to party.

“You have to come out,” Ashley was saying over the phone as Katie ate the turkey sandwich she’d brought from home.

“MMMfff smmff trrrd,” Katie protested, her mouth full.

“What?”

Katie swallowed her bite of sandwich and took a quick swig of her diet coke. “I’m so tired,” she said.

“Well, get over it, girl, because it is
ladies’ night
tonight at The Mad Patriot!”

Katie groaned. “Is that place still open?”

“The owners redid it and it’s way better now, I swear. And on Fridays, women get all drinks half-price.”

The clock on the wall caught Katie’s eye. She only had about ten more minutes of lunch and then her next client.

“You’ll have so much fun, I promise,” Ashley said.

“Is it just going to be weird old guys hitting on me while their wives sit at home?” Katie said. She didn’t know what the dating scene in Montpelier was going to be like, but she didn’t have particularly high hopes for it.

“No!” Ashley said, a little too eagerly. “No, there’s plenty of... you know, hot young guys around?”

She didn’t sound that confident.

“Please?” Ashley said. “We’ll still have fun.”

“All right,” Katie said. “I’ll come. We’ll have a good time. I can’t believe the Patriot is still open, for the record.”

Ashley laughed. “I know, right? See you at seven?”

“Isn’t that kind of early?”

“You’re in Montpelier now, baby,” said Ashley. “Our party is over by midnight.”

“All right, seven,” Katie said, and they hung up the phone.

She quickly put her lunch utensils into her purse, then lit a candle by the armchair where people sat when they came to talk to her. One of the nice things about being a psychologist, she thought, was that she could do things like that — have candles and comfy chairs.

A five ’til one, she hit the intercom on her phone.

“Hey Mike,” she said to the receptionist. “Who’s next?”

“One of the firefighters,” he said. “Patrick Tahoe?”

The turkey sandwich in Katie’s stomach rebelled a little.

“I see,” she said, as neutrally as possible. “Thanks, Mike. Tell him I’ll be out in a moment.”

Very calmly, she hung up the phone and stared at her desk for one moment.

“Shit,” she muttered to herself.

Then she practically dove into her purse, searching frantically for the stick of gum she knew
had
 
to be in there somewhere.

At last, she found it, half mushed up and gross on the bottom, but she still jammed it into her mouth and chewed like a madwoman for thirty seconds, before spitting it into a tissue and tossing it into the trash.

Then she stood, brushed herself off, smoothed her skirt, and strode to her office door, trying to look her most competent and confident.

“Patrick?” she said to the waiting area.

He was sitting in one of the chair, idly flipping through a car magazine.

“Hey, doc,” he said, smiling.

Dimples.

“It’s good to see you again,” she said, holding open the door to her office for him, and waiting for him to settle in one of the chairs before sitting in the other and crossing her legs, praying he couldn’t tell how nervous he was making her. “How are you doing?”

“I’m good, doc,” he said, his hands flat on his knees. “I don’t know why they send us in for these things. The most exciting thing we do most months is rescue kittens from trees. Well, besides setting up your fans.”

Katie tried not to blush, but she could feel the redness spreading up her cheeks.

“Firefighting is a stressful job,” she said. “They just want to make sure you’re all handling it well.”

Patrick shrugged.

“What else do you do?” she asked, pretending to write something down on her pad.

For twenty minutes they talked, Patrick telling Katie all about staying in Montpelier, about how he was slowly taking over his father’s property management business in Stowe, how sometimes he felt like he should have left Vermont to see the world but he didn’t actually
want
to leave, he actually liked the small-town life of Montpelier.

He talked a little about firefighting, about the one time he’d brought a two-year-old out of her bedroom to her nearly-hysterical parents, “Not even a real fire, just a bunch of smoke everywhere, the house wasn’t gonna go up,” and it had felt so good to help someone that he wanted to do it forever.

Katie nodded along. He seemed fine, really.

“Well,” she said when their time was finished. “You seem to be dealing with your jobs pretty well, to be honest.”

“Thanks, doc.”

“You can just call me Katie,” she said. “The title’s not necessary.”

“Sure thing, doctor Katie,” he said, giving her a teasing smile.

Don’t let it fluster you,
Katie told herself.

“Did you have anything else you wanted to discuss with me?” she asked, keeping her back straight, her professional demeanor on.

“How about drinks?”

Katie blinked. “Do you think you have a problem?”

Now he laughed, a real, genuine laugh. “I mean you and me, getting drinks,” he said.

Katie’s stomach turned right over inside her, the turkey sandwich suddenly feeling very funny. “Are you asking me out?” she said.

That’s the least graceful thing you’ve ever said,
she thought.

“I guess I am,” Patrick said.

“I can’t,” she said, quickly, her nerves getting the better of her. “I can’t date patients, it’s wildly unethical.”

Patrick tilted his head to one side, thinking. “Am I still your patient?” he asked. “I thought you just cleared me.”

Katie’s heart was beating so loudly in her chest that she was positive Patrick could hear it from where he sat.

“It’s still unethical,” she said. “I might see you at next review, and we just had a long session, and there’s an issue of confidentiality and I only just got here and don’t want to get fired and—“

Patrick held up his hands and stood, still smiling even if he looked kind of disappointed. “Hey, it’s all right. It was just a question,” he said.

“Thanks for coming in for your review,” Katie said, also standing. She could feel the nervous sweat in her armpits and prayed it wasn’t visible on the outside.

“Not a problem,” he said, opening the door to leave.

Then he turned and looked back at her.

“But don’t think I won’t try to get you to change your mind,” he said, and then left her offices.

Katie closed her office door and collapsed back into her chair, mind racing.

As soon as she was done with all her patients, Katie called Ashley again and tried to cancel their night out, but Ashley wasn’t having any of it.

“I’ll come to your house and kidnap you myself,” she said. “I’ll find you and I will
take you out tonight.
”

There was really no protest that Katie could make against that kind of fierce determination, so she acquiesced.