When I was a firefighter Chapter 5 part 9 of 10

When I was a firefighter
Chapter 5 part 9 of 10

I said, “I get why you stopped with her, but you said there were no romance or romantic feelings connected with the intimacy. It was like a ‘friends with a few benefits’ arrangements. Right?”

Not getting my point, she asked, “Yeah?”

I replied, “So what’s the problem?”

“What do you mean?”

I explained, “I mean, the two of you have this life-long relationship established and you are both aware of the emotional boundaries and those boundaries haven’t been breached. So, I really don’t see the problem.”

“Wait,” she said, “are you telling me that you don’t care if I do that again with Olivia?”

Shaking my head, I said, “No, I’m not telling you I don’t care. This is something that involves and concerns you: so of course, I care. I’m saying it wouldn’t bother me if you continued.”

Cherry was a little surprised and asked, “Why not?”

I explained, “Honestly, if we had been together for a while before you started doing this with Olivia, I would probably feel differently. Because that would mean you were not getting something you needed from me and sought it with her.
But that’s not the case. Instead, there was something you weren’t getting from her, and I’m guessing you found that with me. So now you are getting the intimacy you used to get from her with me. And Olivia is left feeling alone in that respect.”

Cherry said, “So, you think I should start back with her again.”

I said, “I didn’t say that. That is something only you can decide if it is the right thing to do. I do think that Olivia is a true friend to you and I think she needs you. But you have to follow your heart: if you think it is wrong because of what we have, then you should leave things how they are now. Just don’t make your decision based on trying to save my feelings: I know what we have and I trust you completely. You have to ask yourself if you still want to be the one to help her in this way, even though you aren’t necessarily going to be getting the same benefits from it as she is. Does that make sense? ”

She nodded while contemplating my words but did not make a decision immediately. I was glad to see that she was going to give it some serious thought first. To lighten the mood, I made a small joke.

“Besides,” I teased, “Lesbians are hot!”

My joke earned me multiple, justifiable punches to the arm and a few more to my ribs.

Cherry finished punching me before she went back to hugging my arm and huffed, “I am NOT a lesbian!”
“I know…I’m just playing with you, Babe,” I said while wrapping both arms around her.

We sat in silence for a while; Cherry seemed to be carefully weighing her thoughts as we simply enjoyed each other’s company. I was still digesting the new information about her history with Olivia and it was a little shocking, to say the least. I thought about everything I said in my initial reaction to the news and saw no reason to second guess my position. Then I realized something and wanted her to confirm my suspicion.

I said, “So, you never dated anyone before me—it was always you and Olivia until now.”

She said, “Yeah, that’s true.”

“That means you started out by wanting your first kiss from a boy you liked, and ended up having Olivia as your first kiss.”

She reflected for a moment and said, “I never thought about it that way, but I guess that’s true, too.”

Cherry then asked me, “When do you want me to give you an answer on what I decide to do about her?”

I said, “You don’t owe me an answer about that and I don’t expect one. If you want to tell me, that’s fine with me. And if you would prefer to keep it between you and her, I won’t take that as you keeping secrets from me. It’s all up to you in how you choose to handle your friendship with her—I’ll never ask you what you decided if you don’t tell me.”

She said, “I’m going to tell you. I just don’t know yet what I’m going to decide. Besides, this is something that I’m going to have to talk about with her, too; she has just as much say in what happens, you know? She might not even want to have things go back to how they were between us.”

I told her that was ‘fine’ and we ended the topic. We talked about nothing in particular after that and kept the conversation a bit on the ‘light’ side. It went without saying that finding a private spot to have sex was not a good idea at the time: it was getting late and, more importantly, with her being on her period, sex would make a mess that would be impossible to clean without the use of a bathroom and a change of clothes. Besides those obvious points, I found that being together and NOT having sex seemed to actually build the Love that I felt for her.

The sun was painting the clouds in hues of pink and purple when a voice from behind us interrupted us. Neither of us needed to turn around to know who it was.

“Cherry, we have to go: it’s getting late,” Olivia said.

Cherry looked over her shoulder and asked, “One more minute?”

Olivia began walking away before she said she would be in the car waiting. Cherry thanked me for coming to watch her practice and gave me a kiss. It wasn’t a passion-filled kiss; rather, it was a really sweet kiss as if to say ‘thank you for listening, understanding, and being supportive’.

She asked if I would be at the game and I told her that I would be (of course). Before going our separate ways for the evening, we told each other ‘I Love you’ and shared one more lingering kiss.

Just as I was about to park in front of my apartment, Cherry texted me and said she and Olivia were ‘talking’. I knew what that meant; I wasn’t going to disturb them with texting or phone calls. A while later I received a text that said, if I was sure about my position, they were going to try and go back to the relationship they had before I came into the picture. I just texted back ‘I’m sure’. She sent me a string of heart emoji icons followed by faces with puckered lips; I just replied simply, “U 2!”


To be continued