Sudden Response (EMS #1)(36)

When he kissed her she should have put a stop to it and pulled away and laughed it off like she did when they were fourteen. But had she done that? Oh no, not her. She practically swallowed his tongue and was seconds away from begging him to screw her on the kitchen table before Nathan thankfully came by.

Now they weren't talking. They'd never gone a day without talking, but not one word from him over the past three days. Then again she wasn't exactly reaching out and trying to connect with him either. For the past of couple of days she'd been screening all her calls and avoiding all his usual haunts. If Nathan and Caitlyn hadn't showed up and bugged the hell out of her until she gave in and let them drag her here to the Fireman's Muster she'd still be avoiding him.

"You're not still mad at him, are you?" Nathan asked, thankfully drawing her attention back to him before Eric saw that she was watching him. The last thing she needed was for Eric to think that she thought that kiss meant something when it clearly didn't.

Not at all.

She barely even thought about it or how good it felt to be in his arms. It was the furthest thing from her mind. Of course she also wasn't curious about what would have happened if Nathan hadn't showed up or wondered if it would have been good. She didn't, because that would be counterproductive when she was trying to forget it ever happened and figure out a way to act like it never happened.

"Everything's fine, Nathan," she said with a shrug.

"Really? Is that why he won't even look this way and you haven't gone over there to kick his ass for getting you kicked out of the competition?" he asked, throwing his arm around her shoulders and gave her a gentle pull until she was walking with him towards the food vendors.

"It's just a simple misunderstanding. It's nothing," she explained as they stepped in line, hoping he'd let it go. Thankfully by some miracle he did.

"I'm starving. What are you buying me?" he demanded as he gestured towards the two man team working the grills.

"Nothing. You kidnapped me. That means you feed me."

"I guess I'm not up to date on my kidnapping etiquette."

"Guess not," she said, feeling her lips twitch in amusement. "You'll have to work on that."

"I guess so."

"Hey, Joe!" a familiar voice suddenly yelled.

She looked past Nathan to see Johnny, an EMT from the 505, waving to get her attention. "We need a patient. You interested?"

Was she? Yes, yes she was. The fact that she'd be helping the competition beat Eric didn't hurt. She was still pretty pissed about being kicked out of the Muster and after all this weirdness was behind them she fully planned on kicking his ass for screwing her over like this.

"I'll take a rain check on that double rack of ribs," she said, pulling away from Nathan to go help kick Eric's ass.

"Wait. When did I promise to buy you a double rack?" Nathan asked, sounding adorably confused.

"About ten seconds before you promised to buy me a double fudge brownie sundae," she said, throwing him a wink.

"Gold digger!"

********

"What the hell is she doing?" Dave asked as he gestured behind him.

Eric looked back and had to bite back a curse or two as he watched Johnny Powers sweep Joe off her feet and place her on his stretcher. His eyes narrowed to slits when the bastard ran his fingers through her hair as he moved it out of her face.

What the hell was she doing?

Was she really that pissed at him that she was willing to help his competition? Or was it something else, he wondered. Everyone knew that Johnny had the hots for Joe. Although whenever anyone told her that she'd just laugh it off. She thought Johnny was just a buddy and being friendly. She was so f**king naive sometimes.

"That reminds me. We're going to need a patient too. Should I go get my sister?" Dave asked, moving to go do just that.

"Nah, I got it covered," he said, tossing the straps back on the stretcher.

He ran his fingers through his hair, questioning his motives even as he weaved his way through the other teams getting their equipment together.

"Maybe after this we can go get a drink," Johnny asked, sounding eager.

Joe opened her mouth, probably to say yes since the damn woman no doubt thought it was just the guys hanging out together. He really had no idea why the hell she couldn't figure out that she was pretty much the only one that saw her as one of the guys. All the other guys as far as he knew looked her at her as a hot piece of ass and she was too damn oblivious to see that, which was pretty f**ked up since she wasn't like this with guys from outside of work.

"She's busy," he said, cutting her off before she could inadvertently lead the poor bastard on as he shoved past Johnny and scooped her up. He ignored her sputtered protests as he carried her back towards his ambulance.

"Where the hell are you going with my patient?" Johnny called after them.

"She's mine, dipshit," he yelled over his shoulder, wishing like hell that he didn't like the sound of that.

He dumped her ass on his stretcher and before she could make a run for it he clipped her in. Of course she moved to unclip the safety restraints, but he simply readjusted them so that the belt at her waist covered her forearms and tightened it so that she couldn't move. He did the same with her legs of course.