Afternoon Delight Read Free

appetites.”
    â€œWhat did he say?”
    â€œThe sauces could be hotter.”
    â€œAnything else?”
    â€œThe cheesiest pickup lines I’ve ever heard in my entire life. Delivered with a smile, though.”
    Trish shifted her weight and watched Tim take long, loping strides toward the park’s entrance. “That guy? You’d think he’d know his way around. Or maybe he’s too arrogant to put in the effort. He looks like Thor.”
    â€œHe’s not that bulked up,” Sarah said absently. “Unlike your average action movie hero, I’m guessing he could lift his arms over his shoulders.”
    Trish snapped out of her reverie. “Okay, so he’s an EMT, which means he knows cops and firefighters and other EMTs, all of whom eat lunch at light speed from fast food places and trade recommendations. Word of mouth. I’ll follow some of the official Twitter accounts.”
    â€œAnd I’ll keep experimenting with the hotter sauces.”
    â€œWe’re a team,” Trish said, and stirred the simmering black beans. “Let’s hope for a mid-afternoon rush.”
    ***
    â€œJust hold still, sir,” Tim said, then, more helpfully, leaned on the drunk’s shoulder to immobilize him while Casey applied a pressure pack to his forehead.
    â€œIt’s nine in the morning,” Casey groused under his breath. “Who’s drunk at nine in the morning?”
    â€œAlcoholics,” Tim said tersely. And, occasionally, EMS personnel looking to numb themselves after a bad day. Or week. Or year. Eventually Casey would learn how EMS personnel counteracted a long night of drinking with the bags of IV fluids nicknamed banana packs that contained vitamins and minerals necessary for rehydration. As the job started to wear on him, Tim had done his share of drinking, but it didn’t work for him. The definition of crazy was doing what you’d always done and expecting different results, so he gave that up for a life lived at high velocity, moving too fast for the consequences to make an impact. Stay in the present, don’t think about the past or the future. Especially no futures. No one knew better than a paramedic how futures disappeared. Sometimes they vanished in the split second it took for a knife to find an artery, or a bullet to tunnel through a brain; sometimes they vanished into dementia or chronic disease. The common factor the job had taught him was that they all disappeared.
    The thing was, at the most inconvenient times he’d started to drift into the memory of a hippy-dippy chef in her blue skirt and her shiny red clogs and her V-neck T-shirt and her apron. His type came in all shapes and sizes, blond or brunette, skinny or a healthy weight, the common factor a similar approach to life. High rate of speed. No futures.
    â€œSorry, sorry,” Casey yelped as the drunk flailed free. Tim leaned on both shoulders and focused on the job.
    He didn’t even know her name, but he couldn’t stop thinking about that lightning-quick smile lifting the corners of her equally quick mouth. She moved at the right pace, and she just might fit right in to a currently empty spot in his life.
    ***
    A few days later, Tim shook off the lunch crowd and walked to the park just after he got off shift. “I thought I’d see how you’re doing with your challenge.”
    â€œNice to see you again,” she said with a pleased smile. “How hot can you handle?”
    â€œHow hot can you make it?”
    One hand on her cocked hip, she looked down at him and said, “Pretty damn hot.”
    â€œDo your worst,” he said.
    â€œGo on and have a seat,” she said. “It’ll take me a minute to dish this up.”
    Choosing a bench at random (closer to the truck, because that’s where the sunshine was, not so he could watch her . . . but there was that advantage), he sat down and stretched his arm across the