"Who says it's a he?"

Stop what?

"You look fl.u.s.tered," Courtney said. "A little hot and bothered, even."

"No, I certainly don't look hot and bothered. Or if I do, it's because it's hot in here, but I'm not bothered." Maybe just a little.

She turned her attention back to her phone.

Stop saying stuff like that. Remember all the reasons you shouldn't kiss me?

And then we kissed anyway.

Dammit, that was true.

No more kissing.

"It's definitely a he," Ashley said, and Lydia looked up. "Just tell us who this n.o.body is and be done with it."

"I can't."

Her sister gave her a sharp look, mimicked slightly by the two women who had been her best friends for her entire life. "What do you mean you can't? That's very different from won't."

Her phone chimed again.

Okay. No more kissing. Gotta go.

Disappointment coursed through her, even though she was the one who'd put it out there first. And had something suddenly come up or had he lost his interest in texting her the second she ended any possibility of further intimacy?

"You can't tell anybody," Lydia said, setting her phone screen-down on the table. "I mean anybody. Especially you, Ashley."

"You know we won't. And why especially me?"

"Because it was Aidan."

Ashley's expression didn't change. "Aidan who?"

"Aidan Hunt."

Her expression changed then, with her eyes and her mouth both making big O shapes. "He's Scotty's best friend."

"Yeah." Lydia took a sip of her wine because her mouth was suddenly dry.

"He's a firefighter."

"Yeah."

"And he's like a second son to Dad."

"I know." Strike. Strike. Strike. Three strikes and he should be out. She'd already done the baseball thing. "It's no big deal. He texted something funny and I laughed. Not really a big deal."

"And anybody but us might believe that," Becca shot back.

"Are you sleeping with Aidan Hunt?" Ashley asked, her face still stuck in the you can't be serious position.

"No, I'm not sleeping with him." Lydia paused for a few seconds, and then she shrugged. "But I did kiss him. Or he kissed me. We kissed."

"When?" all three of them asked at the same time.

"A few nights ago, at the bar." She told them what happened that night because, if she could trust anybody in the world, it was these three women.

"And you haven't seen him since?" Courtney asked.

"No. We've both been busy and he did two night tours. He's texted me a few times, but that's about it."

Ashley leaned back in her chair, shaking her head. "I can't believe he had the b.a.l.l.s to kiss you with Dad right around the corner."

"He must have really wanted to kiss you," Courtney said, and then she sighed dreamily. She'd always been the romantic of the bunch.

Becca shook her head. "He's Scott's best friend, though. Isn't there like some kind of code or something?"

Before Lydia could answer, Ashley jumped in. "Not only would Aidan sleeping with you be against the best friend code or bro code or whatever the h.e.l.l it's called, but they're firefighters with the same company. Sisters are off-limits."

"I know all about firefighters," she said, her voice a little sharp.

"And that's the other thing," Ashley said. "You swore you'd never get involved with another firefighter ever again."

"I'm not getting involved with him. We kissed one time."

"And now you guys are texting," Becca pointed out. "And he's making you laugh and blush."

"That's more of a relationship than I've had in two years," Courtney said.

Ashley snorted. "h.e.l.l, that's more of a relationship than my marriage is right now."

"It's not a relationship. It's not even close to a relationship. Did you guys decide what you're having for dessert?" she asked, abruptly changing the subject.

She'd had her heart broken and her life turned upside down by a firefighter before, and she'd struggled having a father and brother doing the job. She wasn't ever going to open her heart to a firefighter again.

The best way to keep that from happening was to keep her legs closed, but she already knew that was going to be a lot harder than keeping her heart closed.

AIDAN SHOVED INTO Gullotti and hooked his stick past him to send the puck toward the net. Walsh dove for it, easily catching it in his glove, and Gullotti laughed.

"Mrs. Broussard could have gotten that between the pipes," he taunted.

Aidan jabbed the guy with an elbow and then skated away before he could retaliate, either verbally or physically. Being told he wasn't as good as the guy's elderly landlady was bad enough.

His head wasn't in the game. Well, it wasn't really a game. It wasn't even a practice for league play. It was more of a pickup game just to keep everybody from getting too rusty and to blow off some steam on the ice.

Scotty skated up to him, also laughing. "You suck today, Hunt, and you never suck on the ice. What are you thinking about that's better than hockey?"

No way in h.e.l.l was Aidan answering that question. Not honestly, anyway. After days of flirtatious texts, he'd finally gotten the one he was waiting for.

Dad's going to Fitz's to watch the game instead of watching it in the bar. Wednesday nights are slow. You should stop by and say hi.

That wasn't an invitation he needed to hear twice. She'd have plenty of downtime to lean against the bar and talk to him face-to-face, instead of over the phone, and Tommy wouldn't be there giving him looks that probably didn't mean anything outside of Aidan's paranoia.

"Guess I'm getting old," was all he said.

"Bulls.h.i.t. If you're getting old, I'm getting old. And that ain't happening anytime soon."

After another forty minutes on the ice, Aidan was starting to wonder, though. They hadn't had a lot of practice time lately, since most of the guys preferred being outside when the weather was good, and he was going to have even more aches and pains tomorrow morning than he had this morning. Four hours knocking down a fire in a warehouse, with several more hours checking for hot spots and killing flare-ups had sucked more than usual because Mother Nature brought the heat and humidity in spades.

When their time ended, they hit the locker room and Aidan let the steaming hot water beat down on him, hoping it would help to keep some of the stiffness at bay. The guys talked and laughed around him, and he took comfort in the familiarity of it, even while guilt gnawed at him.

He was flat out lying to Scotty now. Maybe it was a lie of omission, but that was just as bad, if not worse. Deliberately going behind his friend's back to hide the fact things were getting hot between him and his sister was about as bad as it could get.

Once he forced himself to shut the shower off, he wrapped a towel around his waist and rubbed the water out of his hair with another as he walked to where he'd left his bag on a bench.

"I could use a beer," Walsh said. "And a burger. What do you think the chances are I can get served at Kincaid's?"

"You're always welcome there," Scotty said. "You know my old man doesn't have a problem with you."

"It's your sister I'm worried about."

"Lydia's cool. And I know Ashley was going to some kind of bridal shower thing with a friend of theirs tonight, so she won't be around."

Aidan watched Danny consider it for a moment, and then he nodded. "I could really use a burger and a beer."

"That sounds like one h.e.l.luva plan," Gullotti said. "Kincaid?"

When Scotty nodded, Aidan felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. The lack of customers and Tommy not being around meant nothing if everybody else they knew-including her brother-showed up.

"How about you, Hunt?"

"Yeah," he said. "I could go for that."

He got dressed, tuning out whatever small talk they were making, and trying to mentally shift from talk Lydia into going out back and making out to don't even look at Lydia because he might give away how badly he wanted her. It sucked, but there really wasn't a valid reason he could offer up as to why none of them should visit one of their favorite haunts. Especially since anything he could come up with-gas leak, health code violations-would be something Scotty would know before him. Or be able to disprove the story with one what the h.e.l.l phone call.

Aidan was just going to have to suck it up and pretend his interest in the gorgeous bartender was the same as it had always been-she was his best friend's sister and therefore a friend. They could chat. They could laugh. But he couldn't kiss her up against the brick wall again.

They'd ridden over to the rink in two vehicles, so they all threw their bags and sticks into the back of Scotty's truck. Then they divided between that and Gullotti's jacked-up Jeep for the ride to Kincaid's, with Aidan automatically getting shotgun in the truck.

"You feeling all right?" Scotty asked when they were almost there. Grant and Gavin, who were each the young guy in their companies, were chatting in the backseat.

"Yeah, why?"

"I don't know. Your game seemed off tonight, and you're pretty quiet. Something going on?"

Aidan swallowed past the lump in his throat and stared out the pa.s.senger window. Maybe if they'd been alone and not in a moving vehicle, he would have been honest. But it wasn't the time. "Nope."

"You're not going through some kind of midlife crisis or something, are you? I already told you, we're not old enough for s.h.i.t like that."

Aidan laughed. "No crisis, though I wouldn't mind the Corvette that supposedly comes with it."

"Maybe a hot blonde in the pa.s.senger seat."

Or a hot brunette with a hotter temperament and dark eyes a man could lose himself in. "Maybe a rich, hot blonde whose daddy has Bruins season tickets. What the h.e.l.l, let's give him season tickets to the Patriots, too."

"Just in case we ever meet her, I'm calling dibs right now."

They were laughing when Scotty pulled the truck down the narrow alley that led to a small parking lot reserved for Kincaid's employees and the upstairs tenants. Cutter parked on the street and they met up outside the door.

The good feeling Aidan had managed to momentarily capture faded with every step he took toward the door. The night was going to be very different from how he'd spent a good part of the day imagining it and, instead of enjoying Lydia's company, he was going to be doing everything possible to avoid it.

The thrill Lydia felt when Aidan walked through the bar's front door was short-lived. The look he gave her was nothing short of apologetic and she knew why when he stepped inside and Scotty, Danny, Grant Cutter, Gavin Boudreau-who was with Ladder 37, though she didn't really know him-and Rick were right on his heels.

They weren't part of the plan. None of them were, but especially her brother.

"Hey, guys," she said when they all stepped up to the bar. "Did you all just randomly happen to arrive at the same time?"

"We were playing some hockey," Grant told her. "And then Danny said he was in the mood for a burger and a beer and then we were all in the mood for burgers and beer."

"You came to the right place, then," she said, giving him her work smile. She actually liked the young guy well enough, but it wouldn't be very professional to have her expression mirror what she was actually feeling on the inside.

There were a lot of bars that served burgers in Boston. If Tommy hadn't gone out of his way to turn Kincaid's Pub into a second home for the local firefighters, she could be flirting with Aidan already.

He didn't look any happier about it than she did. He was down near the end of the bar, standing with her brother, and every time she looked at him, his gaze skittered away. The knowledge he was that worried about Scotty's opinion of their relationship-or flirtation or whatever she should call it-was annoying.

She took her order pad out of her ap.r.o.n pocket and slapped it on the bar, then pulled out a pen. "Okay, let's have it."

Grant hadn't been kidding about them all being in the mood for burgers and beer and, once they all had a drink, they disappeared into the pool room. A minute later, she heard the rattle of pool b.a.l.l.s being cued up and male laughter. It caught the attention of three women sitting at one of the tables, and she wondered how long it would be before the men had company.

Then she wondered which one of them would try to lay claim to Aidan and felt a surge of jealousy. If any one of them put a hand on him, all three of them would find themselves out on the sidewalk pretty d.a.m.n quick.

When the woman facing her met her stare and did a double take, as if the look on Lydia's face had startled her, Lydia forced a smile and went to give the cook the burger orders.

She had no claim on Aidan and he was free to do whatever-or whomever-he wanted. So they'd kissed once and exchanged a bunch of text messages. On the relationship scale it was a lot more teenage crush than grown-up monogamy, so she needed to watch the death looks she gave paying customers.

As she waited for the burgers to be done, she leaned against the inside of the bar and watched a few minutes of the game. Or pretended to, anyway. If she listened hard enough, she could differentiate Aidan's voice from those of the other men, and she liked hearing it. Text messages were quick and fun, but they weren't the same as the in-person conversations she'd been looking forward to having tonight.

When the cook rang the bell to let her know the order was up, Lydia pushed away from the bar and walked down to the pool room. "Somebody come grab a few plates."

Scotty and Rick were in the middle of a pool game, and the other guys were all seated at the tables, while Aidan leaned against the wall with his arms and ankles crossed.

"I'll help," he said, walking around the pool table. "At the rate they're going, this game won't be over until midnight, anyway."