The Firefighter and the Virgin Princess (5 page)

"What would you call it?"

"I'm humoring you."

"
Humoring me?"

"You wanted me to come out, so I did.
Hopefully, by the time we're done eating, you'll realize that our
worlds are too far apart, that I'm not very interesting, and you'll
be saved from the trouble of future attempts."

"Jeez. So you're doing me a favor. And here
I was thinking maybe you liked me."

"Why would I?" she asked flatly.

Good thing he had a tough skin, he mused.
But it wasn't the first time Joe Rossini was on the outside when he
wanted in. He was tough, a fighter. People didn't mess with Joey,
unless they mistook his cheerful, generous demeanor for weakness.
Then they soon learned differently.

Her lashes flickered. "I meant to say, I
don't know you. How can I like you, if I don't know anything about
you?"

"That's why people meet and go out on dates,
Lily Keene. That's how they get to know each other."

A waitress came over to take their order and
pour coffee. Lily asked for grapefruit juice, a plain yoghurt and
some granola. Joe ordered pancakes, sausage and two eggs over easy,
bagel and cream cheese. His dining companion's eyes grew wider as
he continued reading from the menu.

"And a hot chocolate with whipped cream.
Lots of it."

"Sure." Scribbling on her pad, the waitress
wandered off again.

They were the only customers in the place
and looking across the bright orange table at his beautiful
companion, he had to pinch himself again to believe that this was
actually happening. He hadn't made any plan for this. After he got
off shift and took a nap that morning, he'd woken with the urge to
find her— as if he had to make certain she existed. Then he
remembered her coat. There was proof that Lily Keene did exist. He
took it to the local dry cleaner and then started looking into
NYBT. Finally, he made up his mind to get on the ferry, go to the
theater and wait for her. Like he'd said to her, it was the only
clue she'd left of where to find her.

Now here she was. Snooty Princess Blue Eyes,
honored him with a little of her precious time.

No, he hadn't planned it because he didn't
even know what she'd do when she saw him there. She might have made
a run for it. Or there might have been someone else waiting. He was
actually surprised there wasn't.

But there wasn't.

Outside, fat flakes of ivory snow had begun
to fall over the grimy city and inside— where everything was bright
neon —there was softly piped Christmas music, just to make it all
that more surreal.

"Are you a stalker?" she demanded.

He was taken aback by that one. "I'm just a
regular guy, Lily Keene. A regular guy who liked the look of a girl
he met in the street and decided he had nothing to lose by going
for it. Don't worry, right now I don't even have room in my trunk
for your body parts. It's full of Christmas presents for my
brother's family."

She studied him with that cautious gaze.
"You shop early."

"Early? It's November, twinkle toes." He
grinned. "You must be a last-minute shopper."

From the sharp hitch in her breath he must
have said the wrong thing. Her lips tightened, rolling inward.

"So what do you want to ask me?" he said.
"Now we're here, we may as well give it a try. I stood out in the
cold waiting for you for four hours, so you can see I ain't giving
up that easily."

Her lips parted in a
skeptical gasp. "
Four
hours
?"

Well, maybe more like one, but that was long
enough for a man who'd never waited anywhere for any woman before.
No one who knew him would believe it. "What can I say? I must be
nuts."

"You could have bought a ticket and gone
inside."

"They said it was sold out. Maybe they just
didn't like the look of me." He winked. "Maybe they could tell I
was an outsider who didn't belong. Too stoopid to understand the
fucking ballet."

A smile threatened to show
itself and she began to unwind her scarf finally. "We
are
very popular, and
performances do get sold out. But if you ever want to go, I can
probably get you a ticket."

"So I could see you dance?"

"Sure. If you wanted to."

"Kinda like a date, but not. 'Cos I wouldn't
be with you. I'd be sitting alone. You'd be on stage. Where I can't
touch you."

"Right," she replied, back to cautious
again. "Or I could get you two tickets so you could sit with
someone."

"Like who?"

"I don't know. Whomever you wanted to bring.
There must be lots of girls—"

The waitress brought her a skinny glass of
juice and his hot chocolate. As soon as she was gone again, Joe
leaned across the table and said, "I don't have a girlfriend. If
that's what you wanna know, Snooty Princess."

"I wasn't asking. Why would I?"

"How come you don't date? You just socially
awkward or too picky?"

She gave a hefty sigh, checking the rim of
her glass and wiping it with a napkin. "I told you. I'm a
dancer."

"But that doesn't explain it to me. I'm an
outsider, remember? I don't know anything about dancing and
dancers. I'm a dumbass regular guy, who just froze his balls off to
take you to breakfast."

Slowly her gaze traveled over his face,
taking it all in. Almost as if he had words written there for her
to read. "Do you always talk about your balls so much?"

"They're important to me. I know you don't
date men, but you know what they are right?"

"I believe I get the gist."

"So you got your dancing and I got my
nuts."

Abruptly she laughed. "I can't remember the
last time I had a conversation with someone like you. Someone so
completely...separate from my world."

"Yeah?" He sipped his hot chocolate. "I get
it. That's why you came here with me. Curious to know how the
ordinary guy lives. The other half." He felt whipped cream on the
end of his nose and saw her look. Saw her trying to quell her
laughter, pressing her lips hard together.

"I suppose that must be it," she managed
finally. "You're a novelty."

"Princess must be bored, looking for a
humble court jester."

"Maybe."

Grabbing a paper napkin from the holder, he
wiped his nose. "You oughta try this. Best hot chocolate in the
city. Honest. Hey, I never lie."

"I'll take your word for it."

"C'mon, Princess. One sip."

"No. Really."

He scooped some whipped cream on his spoon
and offered it across the table.

"Oh, I am
so
going to eat that and
let you put whipped cream all over my nose."

"Suit yourself." He swallowed the spoonful
himself and smacked his lips. "You're the one missing out. Not
me."

She looked away from him, staring out at the
snowflakes that fell more rapidly now. "You live near here?" she
asked after a long pause.

"Staten Island."

Her head snapped around again to look at
him. "You have to get the ferry back then."

"It's okay. Runs every half hour. Every hour
after 2AM."

Her eyes narrowed. "So you came to Manhattan
on your day off to wait for me and take me to breakfast, not even
knowing if I'd say yes, and then you're going all the way back on a
cold ferry."

"Yep."

"Just for me?"

"Hey, it ain't complicated, Princess. I say
what I think when I think it, and I do what I feel when I feel it.
Whatcha see is whatcha get."

* * * *

He was plowing through a plate of food as if
it was his first meal in days. And talking. The man could talk for
America. He threw questions at her.

"So where does your family live? Here in the
city or are they still in Boston?"

"There isn't anyone," she replied, carefully
stirring granola into her plain yoghurt.

"What do you mean? There has to be
someone."

She watched in amazement as yet another
pancake, lavishly adorned with glistening amber syrup, disappeared
between his lips. "My parents died in a plane accident when I was
eight," she muttered. "I lived with my grandmother after that. Then
I came here, of course, to go to school. I stayed with her on
holidays."

"I'm sorry," he muttered. "About your
parents."

What was there to say about that? She
usually avoided mentioning the plane accident. She could never
understand people pretending to be sorry, pretending to have
feelings for a couple they'd never known. "My grandmother died two
years ago. So now it's just me."

"No brothers and sisters? No cousins?"

"No." Lily was rather glad of it. Having
relatives one cared about meant that there could only be intense
sorrow when they were gone. People always left her.

Now there was no one to buy Christmas
presents for. When the fireman described to her his trunk full of
presents, she'd felt a cloud descend over her head, dark and rainy.
She'd seen shoppers in the streets, their arms full of packages.
That would never be her. Good. Who cared? She'd buy a bottle of
really excellent wine for the concierge in her building, another
for the security guard. Some flowers for the costume mistress—
always wise to stay on her good side. Then she was done. Clean and
easy.

Alone was tidier.

She vividly remembered the stiff little
black dress and patent leather shoes she wore as she stood by her
parents' graves and listened to the droning prayers. How devastated
and frightened she'd felt, but had to hide it because she didn't
want people to see her cry. Her grandmother was a stoic lady, very
old fashioned when it came to holding one's feelings inside and not
making a "vulgar display". So Lily copied her grandmother and shed
her tears inside, where they had nowhere to go and built up into a
painful surge.

Thank goodness her grandmother encouraged
her to throw everything she had into dance. The strict regime of
ballet took Lily away from the unpleasantness of real life and
taught her that even if she couldn't control anything else about
the world, she could control her own body.

"Where did you go to school?" the chatty
fireman asked, slathering his bagel with thick cream cheese.

"Well, I attended the NYBT School, which
meant three dance lessons a day and didn't leave a lot of time for
other subjects." She was boring herself with all this. Surely he
was bored too with this stilted conversation?

Maybe not. He was looking at her, waiting
for more.

"But for things like English and science and
mathematics I went to the Professional Childrens' School." She was
aware that she probably ought to ask him the same questions back
again. That was the way normal people conversed.

But Lily was too entranced by a sticky gleam
of syrup on his lips.

She was so hungry.

And he was so real. So alive.

Her grandmother would say he was a dangerous
temptation, a distraction.

On any other Sunday morning, she would be
sewing ribbons on shoes, washing tights and practice clothes,
fretting about a role, reading reviews in the paper. Everything
usually revolved around ballet. Today she had stepped away from all
that to go to a diner with this fidgety man. To insult him and tell
him she wasn't interested, all the time slyly admiring his powerful
smile and naughty brown eyes.

How far dare she go in this little adventure
with him?

Dare she take another step to break out of
her frustrating circle?

Suddenly she reached across the table and
wiped her thumb over his syrupy lip. At last, he stopped
talking.

Lily brought her thumb back to her own mouth
and sucked off the delicious sticky sweetness of a forbidden
treat.

He was staring at her again. "You want some
more of that?" he asked, his voice low and husky, eyes twinkling. A
boy, daring a girl.

Yep, he was dangerous.

Did she want more of that?

Maybe
. Oh god, her heart was pounding out of her chest. Just as it
did when she stood in the wings, waiting for her cue. She'd never
felt this much excitement outside of dance before.

Since he boasted of being honest and
straightforward, she'd be the same in return. See how he took
it.

Lily cleared her throat. "I'm a virgin."

His eyebrows flew up, and he choked on a
bite of bagel.

"I thought you should know," she added,
steering a glass of water toward him with her fingertips. He
grabbed it and drank a hearty gulp to dislodge the obstruction.

She licked her lips, tasting more of that
syrup. "Are you shocked?"

He wheezed, "You might say that."

"I suppose you never met one before?" she
muttered wryly.

He wiped his mouth on a bunched napkin and
looked at her, his eyes warm, mischievous and definitely
interested. "I'm just kinda surprised at the way you announced it.
I mean, one minute we're talking about schools and your
grandmother—"

"You are attracted to me and want to have
sex with me. Isn't that why we're here? Isn't that why you waited
in the cold?"

He leaned back against the bright vinyl
seat, his fist still clutching the napkin. "Wow. You really come to
the point, huh?"

"You claim to say what you think and do what
you feel, but you're taking a circuitous route to a purpose. I just
wanted you to know that small talk isn't necessary. We both know
why we're here."

Lily went back to her yoghurt, letting him
adjust to the idea of her virginity. Poor man, did seem a bit
shocked. Just a bit.

Chapter Four

He couldn't tell with her. She had a dry
sense of humor and one of those deadpan faces.

"You're kidding me, right?"

"About what?"