Life Changer (Chicago First Responders Book 2) Read online

“Couldn’t get me out of your head?”

  “No. I mean . . . Shit.”

  “It’s okay. I mean, if you were to stalk me, I don’t think I’d complain.” She lifts her wine to her mouth, smirking against the glass.

  “And I definitely don’t want your panties.” My words don’t register until her eyes widen and her lips twitch. “Oh, shit. I mean—”

  She pushes up to get out of the chair, and for a second, I panic.

  “Stop. I—”

  Leaning forward, she rests her hand on my arm, sending a jolt of heat through me. “I’m fucking with you, Rhodes. But since we said we’re being honest . . .” She moves in closer and drops her voice to a whisper. “I’d at least consider the request if it came from you.” Then she snickers and leans back in her seat, leaving me sitting there stunned speechless.

  Marco, Renee, and Jake return, my son taking the seat on the other side of me, looking between Dee and myself.

  “Sooooo . . . how’s it going . . .?” His singsong voice has me torn between shoving him off his chair and cracking up laughing. Jake trying to be a love guru when it was Marco and Renee was funny. When it involves me—not so much. To make it worse, he’s going to want a debrief on the way home, and knowing Marco, he’ll love being a bystander this time.

  Dee’s shoulders shake with silent laughter, whereas I just roll my eyes at my son. “How are you doing, Jake?” I ask.

  “Good, Daddio. Really good. Although”—he lifts his chin in Dee’s direction—“not as good as you, I bet.”

  “God, you two. You’re doing that weird conversation thing without having an actual conversation,” Renee says.

  “Is this what I have to look forward to when Harvey gets older?” Dee asks.

  “Probably,” I say with a nod. “Kids. Fun to live with, can’t live without them.”

  She giggles. “And they steal a little bit of your sanity as each day passes?”

  I point my finger at her. “Yes! Which means you’ve got time to protect your mind while you still can.”

  “Hey. I’m sitting right here, you know?” Jake says, pretending to sound offended.

  I roll my eyes at him. “Yeah, Jacob Dylan Anderson. I hear you.”

  “Damn, Jakey boy. Your Dad is on fire tonight.” Marco messes up Jake’s hair, earning him a teenage-boy grunt. “So, Dee. Renee and I were wondering if you’d like to join us for ax-throwing next week.”

  “Put the woman on the spot, why don’t you,” Jake mutters, earning a death stare from me. In return, he shoots me a smirk, telling me he’s having way too much fun with this.

  Dee grins. “Said woman is sitting right here.”

  Our eyes lock and she quirks a single brow.

  “What do you say, Rhodes? Want to make it a double date? I mean, Marco did bring us together, not knowing I’d already kind of asked you out.”

  “What?” Marco says. “You didn’t tell me that?”

  “In my defense, I thought Dee was being nice and offering me a meal to say thanks. It was me that made it a condition that she join me.”

  Jake stands, looking first at Dee and then me before throwing his hands in the air with a loud, “Ugh. I give up. I tried. I really did. Adults these days!” Then with a muttered, “I’ll be in the car,” he walks away, still shaking his head, leaving the rest of us to laugh at my son’s antics.

  “We’re heading off. Do you want to come with us?” Marco asks. “Or do you want us to take Jake and you’ll find your own way home?”

  Smooth, Marky Mark. Real smooth.

  “Actually, I’d better be heading home anyway. I’ve got a staff meeting and ordering in the morning, and since Mom and Dad took Harvey home with them, I now don’t have a ten-year-old to manage. So I’m thinking I’ll go relax and enjoy the serenity and have an early night.” Dee downs the last mouthful of wine and stands.

  “Yeah. We’ve got an early start too,” I say, not wanting the night to end but knowing my twenty-four-hour shift will drag if I don’t get a good sleep.

  “We’ll meet you in the car.” Renee hooks her arm in Marco’s elbow. “Nice to meet you, Dee.”

  The two women grin at each other. “You too. I’ll get Rhodes to let you know about next week.”

  Renee’s smile widens before she waves and walks away.

  “So . . .” I say, turning to face my not-so-blind date.

  “So . . .”

  “You sure you want to come on a double date?”

  “Well, it will be a hardship, but Marco and Renee seem nice enough,” she says, unable to keep a straight face.

  “You’re one of a kind, aren’t you?”

  She sighs dramatically. “It’s hard to be this awesome, but I try.”

  “You do it well.”

  Her gaze softens, and she smiles. “Nice to know I made a good impression.”

  “You made that the other day. Tonight just confirmed I wasn’t wrong.”

  She scrunches her nose in what is a quirk of hers that I really fucking like. The only problem is every time she does it, I want to kiss the confusion away. Slowly does it, Rhodes.

  Dee reaches out and grabs my phone off the table before pressing the home button and holding the screen up to my face to unlock it. She enters her contact details into my phone—even going as far as to take a photo of herself blowing a kiss and adding it to her info—before reaching around and sliding said phone into my back pocket. The blood in my body diverts south, and central, other parts of me threaten to get their hopes up.

  Then she puts a hand on my shoulder, lifting on her toes and brushing her lips against my cheek. “Call me, Rhodes, and we can arrange our winning ax-throwing strategy in person.” After shooting me a smile so dazzling it reaches inside and rocks my world, Dee turns and walks into the house, leaving me standing there, eyes on her ass in those tight jeans..

  You’d like her, Lily, I think, closing my eyes and imagining her watching with a smirk from heaven.

  And in my head, I hear her replying, . I already do, Ro. I already do.

  Chapter 6

  Dee

  I’m sitting in my office at the restaurant, buried under a mountain of supplier invoices on Wednesday afternoon, when my cell rings. “Hello, this is Dee.”

  “Hey, it’s Rhodes.” Just the sound of his deep, raspy voice in my ear provides an instant cure to my mid-week monotony.

  “Well, you certainly took your time, mister,” I muse, earning an even more arousing chuckle.

  “A man can’t seem too eager. Apparently there’s a specified timeframe in which a man must wait before calling a woman. Well, according to Firehouse 101’s self-appointed love guru. Supposedly, I’m his new pet project.”

  I lean back in my chair and lift my ankles to rest on my desk. “Is that so?”

  “So I’m told. In fact, didn’t your video today ask the same question of your subscribers?”

  I giggle at that. At the end of my vlog about best first-date foods, I asked people to comment on the current dating rules surrounding time to wait before calling. Or if the girl is allowed to call if she doesn’t want to wait for the guy. I thought for sure I would get trolled for having non-food related content but was pleasantly surprised at the varied and mostly positive responses I received. “And is the person sharing this wisdom with you single or attached?”

  “He’s very single . . . No, Scotty, you can’t talk to her. Yes, I’m dating her. No, you can’t talk me up. Goodbye,” he says, and I bite my lip, trying not to laugh. “Sorry. That man is like a dog with a bone.”

  “So tell me, how did you decide on the right moment then?”

  He huffs out a laugh. “To be honest, I couldn’t wait any longer.”

  “Right. Well, you just scraped in there before the deadline.”

  The phone falls silent. “Wait . . . there’s a deadline?” He sounds genuinely surprised.

  I take pity on him. “Nah. Although, Harvey does keep asking if the firefighter has called me.”

  “
Funny that. Jake has been hounding me to call as well.”

  “Smart boy, that son of yours.”

  “Too much so sometimes.”

  “I don’t know. He seems to have a good head on his shoulders.”

  “Yeah, he does,” Rhodes’s voice softens with obvious pride. “I can’t take all the credit. His mom was the intelligent one. He got it from her.” Then there’s rustling down the line before there’s a faint “shit” in my ear. “Sorry, I guess it’s not good dating practice to mention my late wife when calling to ask another woman out.”

  By god that thoughtfulness makes me swoon. “Hey. I won’t hold it against you as long as you don’t hold Flynn against me.”

  “Flynn?”

  “Ex-husband, baby daddy, best friend . . .”

  “Oh right. I’m messing this up, aren’t I?”

  “What could you mess up when you haven’t even asked the question yet?” I tease.

  “I’m a bit out of practice with this stuff.”

  “That makes two of us then.”

  Rhodes’s relieved sigh makes me smile.

  “Let’s make a deal. You don’t censor yourself around me, and I’ll do the same. Then, neither of us has to mull over what is right or wrong to say. We haven’t had a date yet, and I’m really looking forward to doing that, so how about we wait to agonize over mentioning important people in our past, or better still, don’t agonize over it at all.”

  “You’re a smart woman.”

  “I like to think so. Now, if you’ve called to compliment me, I’m not going to stop you, but I’m hoping you’re calling to organize the much-anticipated double date.”

  He chuckles, and that’s just as endearing as his admission he’s rusty at dating. “Anticipated?”

  “Of course. You see, there’s this hot firefighter I want to get to know better, and I’m up for a bit of ax-throwing in order to achieve that.”

  “Is that right?” he replies, sounding amused. “What a coincidence. There’s this gorgeous chef I’ve met that I want to get to know too.”

  “That is a coincidence. Maybe we should do something about that?” I cannot wipe the smile off my face. One might almost say I’m a little giddy at the prospect of spending more time with Rhodes. There’s those butterflies again.

  “Marco and Renee were thinking Sunday afternoon since our next twenty-four starts Monday morning.”

  “Twenty-four? As in, twenty-four-hour shift?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “Damn. You need an early night then.”

  He laughs, and I vow to keep him laughing whenever we’re together.

  “Hopefully not too early.”

  “Well, I wasn’t going to say it, but I was thinking the same thing.”

  “Aww, are you going to play hard to get for me?”

  “A woman has to keep a couple of tricks up her sleeve.”

  “I wouldn’t know. That’s not to say I don’t want to see what you’re hiding.”

  A surprised laugh escapes me and a few moments later Rhodes joins me.

  “Damn, sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “So you don’t want to see me naked? That’s disappointing, because I’ve definitely been thinking about you that way.”

  “What?” he says with a snicker. “You weren’t joking about being honest, were you?”

  “Nope,” I say, accentuating the P. “Ask and you shall receive.”

  “I’ll file that away for future.”

  “As long as you use it to your advantage, have at it.”

  “You’re a surprise, Dee. A good one.”

  “That makes me happy, ’cause when you haven’t dated in over a decade, it’s hard to know whether you’re doing it right.”

  “Oh, you’re doing it right.” His voice takes on a rough edge that I really freaking like.

  “Okay. So, as much as I’d love to keep talking all day—and I mean that—I’m drowning in paperwork, and I have to dash home to see Harvs before I’m due back here at six.”

  “Ah, the busy life of a famous chef.”

  “And mom. It’s hard, but so damn worth it.”

  “I hear you. I’ll let you go. The bells could ring at any moment and then I’d have to jump anyway. Does three on Sunday suit? Can you get a sitter?”

  Oh, yeah. I guess we’ll have to cross the whole ‘I live with my ex-husband’ conversation at some point. “Yeah, Flynn and Harvey have a standing Sunday dad/son date, so that’s covered.”

  “That’s good. I’m lucky that Jake takes care of himself whether I’m there or not.”

  “Joys of having a teenager.”

  “Yep. So, would you be okay with me picking you up? I may be rusty, but I’m still a gentleman.”

  Swoon! Damn, if this man is not careful, he’ll ruin me before the first date. “I’d like that, Rhodes. I’ll text you my address.”

  “Sounds good, Dee..”

  “We’ve still got our dinner at the chef’s table to organize too.”

  He laughs quietly. “And you’re planning another date before we even have our first.”

  “Hey, I’ve been wanting to feed you before my brother and your best friend decided to play matchmaker.”

  “So, you’re saying we’d be here regardless of the setup?”

  “I definitely hoped so.”

  “Me too, if I’m being honest.”

  “It’s the only way to be.”

  “For sure,” he says, as bells sound in the background. “Duty calls. But, Dee?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m looking forward to Sunday.”

  “Me too. Until then, take care and stay safe.”

  “Will do, chef. You too.”

  Then I’m left sitting there, staring at a pile of admin that has far less appeal than thinking about Sunday. I feel like a teenager again. Now I’m counting down the days to my first—albeit double—date with Rhodes.

  Before I can start daydreaming like a mooning girl with a crush, my office phone rings with a situation in the kitchen. Duty calls.

  It’s not until after Harvey’s bedtime on Thursday night that I get a chance to speak to Flynn in person and without our curious ten-year-old hanging around.

  “You wanna watch Iron Chef or Law & Order tonight?” he asks, remote pointed at the television as I sit down and stretch out at the other end of the couch. I’m in pajama pants and a hoodie, a glass of red in my hand, and I’m still trying to work out how exactly to broach the subject of Rhodes with the man who knows me better than anyone.

  “Penny for your thoughts? ’Cause that wine in your hand might distract you for a while, but it definitely won’t give you any answers,” he says, grabbing my attention. My eyes snap to find his amused ones looking my way.

  I frown at him. “It’s annoying when you do that. Get out of my head.”

  “Sweetheart, you’ve been a bundle of nerves since I got home.”

  I sigh. Sometimes getting along with your ex-husband isn’t as great as it sounds—like, say, now.

  It didn’t even take us long to get to this point. We were always good at the best-friends part. It was the being in love and passion stuff that fell by the wayside.

  I turn to face him, crossing a leg under me and cradling my glass in my hands. “Okay, so I’ll just preface this by saying I know I don’t have to tell you, but I also want to. And this was bound to happen. I didn’t see it coming though, and it’s weird to talk about this with you, because it’s new—newborn baby new—and I—”

  “Breathe, Dee.”

  I slowly inhale then exhale and my tense muscles relax. Right . . . I can do this. I don’t know why I’m nervous. I mean, he’s dated.

  “You’ve met someone,” he says, like the damn infuriating mind reader he is.

  My eyes jump wide, narrowing as his shoulders shake with laughter. “You’re such a jerk, you know that?” A disbelieving snort escapes me. “Seriously, you always do that.”

  Flynn shrugs, lifting h
is tumbler of whiskey to his smirking lips. “So, I’m right. That’s what has you so wound up? You were nervous to tell me you’re interested in someone?” He reaches over and gently squeezes my knee. “Dee, this is a good thing.”

  “Wait . . . what?”

  He pulls his arm back and furrows his brows. “It’s not a good thing?”

  “I mean, yes. It is. A good thing, I mean. But I’m. . .” Losing my god damn mind, I tilt my head. “Were you worried when you first told me about Sophie.?”

  “A little bit, but I also knew that you’d only want the best for me and you have always wanted me to be happy.”

  “I have. I do.”

  “So, my question to you now is why would you think that I don’t want the same for you?”

  “I know you do. It’s just—”

  “Weird, strange, new territory?”

  A dry laugh bubbles out of me. “All of the above.”

  “Exactly. But you and I aren’t exactly normal exes, are we?”

  “Thank fuck for that.”

  His eyes crinkle. “So, there’s nothing I want more than for you to actually get out there and live your life alongside everything else you’ve achieved. There’s never been a doubt that we love each other, Dee. It just ran its course. But I know more than anyone that you’re a good woman with a lot to give, and any decent man will see that.”

  “Probably indecent ones too.”

  “Only if you’re really lucky,” he retorts.

  I bark out a laugh and shake my head.

  “But seriously, I’m not going to go all jealous ex on you. Might screw with his head a bit, to keep him on his toes, but I want you happy, and I want to see you with someone who makes you happy.”

  “Wow. So, it’s not hard?”

  “Wouldn’t go that far. I was shitting myself before you met Sophie.”

  “Yeah, and she knew about me.”

  “To be fair, your vlog was blowing up, and you’d finished that local media tour, so I didn’t want to throw her in the deep end when she turned up to see you were in fact that Dee Duncan.”

  “Probably a good plan there. But you had nothing to worry about. I knew you wouldn’t sleep around just because we weren’t together like that anymore.”