Throw Him My Way

Chapter 2

That had absolutely not gone well, thought Christian Sanders as he stared at his phone.

It wasn’t even as if he had wanted the date to go very well. He hadn’t really cared. He’d only really agreed to be set up on a blind date because his aunt had been badgering him since forever to find a girl and settle down.

It wasn’t like he was looking for something of the sort. He was just twenty-seven, for crying out loud. He was definitely not ready to even start looking for anything along the lines of a ‘happy ever after’.

But his aunt had gone on and on about that preschool teacher, and he had finally said yes.

Boy, talk about incompatible!

She liked country music, Gothic novels and knitting.

While Christian agreed that there was absolutely nothing wrong with any of those, she had obviously found his chosen profession extremely frightening.

He wasn’t sure if she’d expected him to turn up covered in soot and wearing smoking overalls, but she’d looked so relieved when he’d got there wearing jeans and a plain white shirt.

They’d had a drink each, and then it had turned out that she was allergic to just about everything.

That, too, was not her fault. He understood circumstances beyond your control only too well.

But then she had claimed to love some rock music, too. Then she had elaborated: she loved Nickelback.

There had been no going back from that, and Christian refused to feel bad about that.

He would not feel guilty. He would not be manipulated into calling a Nickelback fan back for a second date, no matter how much Aunt Susie needled him.

It was absolutely not going to happen.

Oh God, he prayed, please don’t let it happen.

It was odd how he was perfectly brave when he had to run into a blaze, risking injury and death, to rescue a damn cat. But when it came to standing up to any of his aunts, his courage failed him, completely and utterly.

Maybe it was the knowledge that they were as courageous as he ever could be, just in different ways.

When his mother added her voice to the aunts’, he was sunk.

He really needed to head off a second date with Peggy the pre-school teacher with her wide eyes and her soft, curly hair before his mother got involved.

What he could really do with, he thought, was a nice emergency to give him a good excuse to not reply to his aunt’s texts.

But that was apparently asking for too much.

“Hey, Chris! How was your date last night? You don’t look sleep-deprived.”

He grinned as he saw Rick, his best friend and colleague, walking towards him.

He would take the teasing and the banter over his aunt’s questions, any day.

“She likes Nickelback,” he told Rick.

Rick winced in sympathy.

“I hope you didn’t leave her with the check, man.”

Chris shook his head.

“I paid. But there isn’t going to be a second date,” he said, firmly.

Rick shrugged.

“I can only be thankful not to have your aunts on my case. Though I have a feeling they were sizing me up at the last barbecue.”

Christian laughed.

“Oh, you’ll find yourself being pulled up soon enough. You might as well resign yourself to it.”

Christian wasn’t big enough a man to feel bad about that. As the only bachelor in the family, he wanted somebody else to take some of the heat off him.

He thought that was a fair enough expectation, considering how much chicken and potato salad Rick always managed to have at their family barbecues, where he was always invited.

Of course he was invited. He was family.

He was jolted out of the funk when the alarm went off.

“Got a call.”

They kitted out and went to the truck as the details were given, including the address.

Apparently, it was an apartment that wasn’t one of the places they had down as potential fire traps, but the person on the phone had been quite hysterical.

They were quiet as they got to the building, and swung into action. They barely needed any words to communicate.

The training was far too thorough and ingrained. He could do this if he’d been asleep. He knew what to do better than he knew how to brush his own teeth.

“Third floor. I’m on stairs. First in.”

The announcement was made as if it were matter of fact. As it was.

He and Rick worked very well together.

Christian didn’t look back to see if Rick was following. He knew he would be.

“Clearing the floors,” said Rick.

They had their masks on. It didn’t look too bad, thought Christian, but it was in the part of his mind that he didn’t completely acknowledge. Now, it was all about letting the training take over.

The source was spotted quickly enough. For one thing, the door was open.

Christian ran in, and saw that it could be contained.

To be honest, it could’ve been contained by a levelheaded civilian.

Bet the damn apartment didn’t have a fire extinguisher. Well, he did, and there were no people in there.

Quickly, methodically, he sprayed foam, noting the direction of the wind from the window that was wide open and countering it without even thinking about it.

By the time Rick was in there, it was under control. But it was training for him to stand by his side and get every tiny lick of flame out.

It hadn’t affected the exterior, but the smoke was bad enough for them to be grateful for their masks. The heat was not the worst he had known.

The worst he had known was something he didn’t think about, too. If he did, he might have to quit. Sometimes, you needed to compartmentalize.

Rick opened the rest of the windows, made sure that everything was safe, and made his way back out, his eyes stinging and watering.

Christian wasn’t far behind.

“I sure hope whoever owns that place has insurance,” said Rick, after he had pulled his head gear off and guzzled about half a liter of water.

Their efforts always made the place look even worse than the fire. They even got complaints from irate owners about it.

That’s the thanks you got, thought Christian, shrugging.

There would be quite a bit of smoke damage in that apartment. Everybody on that floor would complain about the stench of the smoke.

And he had spotted what had caused the fire. Of course he had.

Somebody had lit a candle and let it catch the curtain, fluttering in the wind thanks to the open window.

It was just the dumbest of luck that it hadn’t been worse.

“That went better than the idiot deserved. Of all the stupid…”

Christian trailed off, but Rick had been distracted by the goddess.

The goddess with a silly little dog, realized Christian. She looked vaguely familiar, but bathed in the afternoon sun, with her rich, dark skin, large, nearly liquid eyes and all that hair spilling out of her bun into large curls, she looked like she didn’t belong on earth.

She looked far too beautiful to be real.