by Kaye, Laura
The best truck company in the city. No, the world. No matter what the boys in the city’s other companies said.
The center bay door stood open, so Sean walked inside the garage, past the big, long ladder truck and around the new Seagrave pumper. Off to the left, everyone’s personal protective equipment hung on racks—some of it brown with yellow reflective stripes, which he still wore, and some of it the city’s new black and yellow—ready and waiting for the next call.
The company’s emblem was emblazoned on a large cut-out sign hanging on the wall above the gear—a skull and cross bones, of a sort. It had a grinning skull wearing a black fire helmet labeled with the 4th battalion insignia, with a length of hose and a Halligan bar crossed behind. Above the helmet were the words, House of Flame.
He didn’t find anyone in the garage, which meant the guys were probably either upstairs in the dorms, hanging out in the day-room, or chowing in the mess hall. But since one of the rear bay doors was open, too, he poked his head outside. The space behind the fire house consisted of a large diagonal parking lot for their personal vehicles. It was also where they washed their trucks.
And it was where they grilled when the weather was good and the guys on mess duty had barbecuing skills. Sean smelled the mouthwatering aroma of grilled meat before he found three of his brothers shooting the shit around the big Coleman.
“How many firefighters does it take to grill some burgers and dogs?” he called out.
They turned to see him standing there, everybody grinning and exclaiming his name.
“Yo, Sean, good to see you,” Tucker Jacobs said with a bit of a southern accent as he waved the grill tongs. He was one of the best cooks of the group, and everyone was always happy when Tuck was in charge of their chow.
“You, too. Looks like I came at the right time.” Sean waggled his brows at the grill.
Tuck winked. “I’ve got more than enough meat here for everyone.”
Sean smirked. “That’s not what the ladies say.”
Everyone chuckled even as Tucker glared. “Just for that, you get the one that fell on the ground, Riddick.”
“Hey, man,” Jeff Evans said, coming to shake Sean’s hand. Jeff was one of the old timers in the house, old enough that he remembered when their station house was brand new back in ’84. But he could stretch the line as good as or even better than a lot of the younger men. And he was a hilarious storyteller to boot. “See what happens to you when you’re not on a job?”
Nodding, Sean shrugged. “You shoulda seen the other guy, though.”
Jeff pointed at him. “I believe it.”
Next to greet him was one of their probies, Seth Malone, a twenty-two-year-old who Sean liked to hassle for preferring DC Comics over Marvel. They clasped hands. “How you doing, Sean? It’s good to see you.”
“You, too. What’s been going on?” Sean asked the group, a part of him feeling more at ease for being here.
“We stretched three times last night,” Tuck said, adjusting the DCFD baseball cap on his head. “Structure fires all three times. It was fucking crazy.”
“I heard the sirens at least twice,” Sean said. It was part of what had kept him awake and on edge last night—not being here to help. “You the black cloud around here, probie?” He teased Seth for cursing them with the high frequency of calls. Some people loved a “black cloud” because they wanted to be out there fighting the fire as much as possible, whereas other people prized the “white clouds” whose presence seemed to chase all the calls away. For himself, Sean probably fell on the side of keeping busy. Black clouds were okay by him.
Seth groaned. “Not you, too. It ain’t my fucking fault.” Everyone laughed, razzing him mercilessly because he let them see that it got under his skin. Rookie mistake.
“Chief said you’re off for a whole month,” Jeff said. “That true?”
“Fuckin’ A, probably. I gotta wait for my eye to heal and I’ve got a chest wall injury that makes shit difficult.” Not that he’d ever admit it to Dani, but his chest was a lot sorer today than it’d been yesterday before they christened his black leather couch. He’d actually given in to some pain meds last night, too. Worth it, though. So damn worth it.
“So how stir crazy are you going?” Tuck peered over at him as he flipped the burgers.
Sean crossed his arms, then uncrossed them again when his body immediately began to protest the movement. “This week wasn’t too bad, but yeah, I can feel it coming.”
Meow. The sound was accompanied by a soft rubbing against Sean’s calf.
“Hey, Winston. Did you miss me?” Sean leaned down and scooped the old boy into his arms. He was grey-striped with patches of all-white fur here and there. He meowed again and curled his head into Sean’s palm as he petted him. “I think you did.”
Tucker filled a tray with dogs and another with burgers. “All right, probie. Grab a platter and lunch is served.”
Seth moved his ass like a probie should and then all four of them—well, four a half with Winston—went upstairs to the mess hall. The station’s living quarters weren’t fancy—the floors were a cream-colored linoleum, the walls a plain off-white, the furniture in the dorm rooms generally spartan. But the camaraderie more than made up for the lack of decor in the day-room and the plastic chairs in the mess hall.
By the time they made it up the steps, Winston was purring like a little engine in his hands. Sean swung into the mess hall with the others, and it only took about five seconds for one of the ten or so guys gathered there to do a double-take at his presence. Greetings echoed around the room, causing Winston to swan dive out of his arms.
“Riddick!” a guy about his age named Jersey called out.
“Welcome back, man!” Bobby clapped him on the back. And then the guy cringed. “Shit, sorry.”
“You’re good, B, no worries,” Sean said, shaking another guy’s hand. And another.
Chief came around the table and held out a hand. “How are ya, kid?”
They shook, and Sean met the older man’s gaze. “Getting better every day.”
“That’s what I like to hear. But I thought you were supposed to be, you know, relaxing.” The man shook his head.
“I can sit on my ass here with you fine people as easily I can sit on my ass at home.” Everyone chuckled.
“But you can only eat my meat here, Riddick,” Tucker said to a round of raucous replies and loud guffaws.
Sean held his hands up. “I literally don’t know what to say to that.”
He settled in at one of the tables and piled a plate high. He answered everyone’s questions about what happened to him. When conversation turned to all the routine things firefighters complained or talked about, Sean reveled in the normalcy of it. Damn, being here was good for his mood. Maybe he should’ve come around sooner, even if he wasn’t in fighting condition right now.
He’d eaten about half his burger when the two-tone alert went off in a series of high-low tones that meant one thing: structure fire. The lights in the mess hall blinked and the digital screen above the door lit up, the text matching the dispatcher’s mechanical voice. “Engine eleven. Truck six. Structure fire. 1428 Meridian Place, Northwest. Time out: two minutes fifteen seconds.”
That was damn close.
People were off their asses as soon as the tones went off. Guys called hasty good-byes to Sean as they choked down the last of their burgers and dogs. Except for him and a pair of EMTs whose rig hadn’t been called, the room had cleared out in about thirty seconds.
Well, fuck.
Downstairs the trucks started up, their engines rumbling on an echo in the garage. And then the rumble deepened as they pulled out onto 14th Street, their sirens wailing to part the inevitable traffic in front of the fire house.
“I guess we’re on clean-up,” one of the EMTs said to the other.
“I’ll help,” Sean said, because if he didn’t have something to do with his hands right goddamn now, he was going to lose his shit. It
’d been good to come see the guys. It made him feel like he was a part of something again. It’d grounded him and reminded him of who he was—or who he was trying to be. And it’d gotten him out of his own feels about what was or wasn’t happening with Dani.
But watching his buddies leave while he sat there twiddling his fuckin’ thumbs?
No. That was unsat in the extreme. He should be out there watching their backs. Instead, he was limited to being a damn scanner jockey—a non-responder whose curiosity made him need to know what was going on. If any of them got hurt, it would be in his place, or because he hadn’t given them another set of hands to fight the beast.
Fuck.
When Sean finished clearing the tables, the EMTs told him they’d load the dishwasher, so he cleared out. The fire was close enough that he could smell it, and it lit a spark in his belly that made him almost restless with the need to fight.
Sean walked the two blocks down 14th to the cross street where the incident was unfolding and could just make out his guys on the heavily smoking roof of one of the row houses. He glanced at the looky-loos gathering to watch the fire and couldn’t stand being one of them.
So he hoofed it back towards his house. It was less than a fifteen-minute walk, which meant no way would it be enough to release the pressure suddenly building up inside his head.
Planting his ass on the couch in his basement, he honestly didn’t know what would be capable of doing that for him right now. And maybe sitting on this couch wasn’t the best idea when he was already so wound up since it made him think of Dani and the fuckin’ fantastic time he’d spent with her on it. The physical side of their relationship—or whatever it was they had—was damn near perfect. But the not really knowing what the two of them were or what they were doing added to his restlessness and agitation…because maybe he wanted it to be something. Which, fuck. Sean didn’t know what to do with that kind of desire since he’d never had it before and because Daniela England was too fuckin’ good for him by far.
“I’m not better than you. I hated that you said that, and I hated that I made you feel that way…”
He’d appreciated her saying that. Really, he had. But if he had any good qualities it was being able to be real and face facts. And he had a lifetime of facts that told him who he was. Sean scrubbed his hands over his face and debated what the hell to do with himself.
And then his phone dinged an incoming email message that answered that question—and that, surprisingly, helped calm down a little of the bullshit churning in his head.
Chapter Eleven
The third of July was just five days away—six if you counted the rest of today. But since it was almost six o’clock, doing so made no real sense.
Bracing her gloved hands on her knees, Dani exhaled heavily and watched as her sweat dripped down on the mats. Between a busy shift and now training at WFC, she was kinda exhausted out of her mind.
That’s not why your head’s a mess and you know it.
Okay, fine. It was those five days being all that separated her from the anniversary. She wasn’t sure why, but it seemed to be weighing on her more than usual this year, as if it was something to be dreaded or like her body and mind’s restlessness were some sort of a premonition.
She looked across the circle they’d all formed around the tag-team grappling drill they were currently running and found Mo frowning at her, a question on his face. She could almost hear his deep voice asking, “You okay, D?” She gave him a nod and a small smile and forced herself to get her head back into the game. Literally.
Jesse and Jud were in the ring, both of them trying to dominate the other. This drill focused entirely on groundwork, forcing each of them to use their wrestling and grappling skills to achieve submission. A fighter’s turn ended only if they had to tap out or if they got close enough to the edge to tag in a teammate.
Jesse and Jud were total opposites—Jesse was more reserved where Jud was always chatting someone up. Jesse possessed the kind of cool and calculating demeanor you’d expect from a guy who defused bombs for a living, while Jud had an infectious, playful, and gregarious personality. And Jesse had dark hair and eyes, where Jud was more fair with sandy blond hair and striking dark blue eyes. But they were pretty evenly matched in the ring, which was why they’d been at it for almost five minutes and neither had been able to achieve a submission. And right now, they were both shit-talking up a storm.
“Come on, old man, you gonna make a move?” Jesse taunted.
“You’re only two fucking years younger than me, asshole,” Jud said in a southern accent that made Dani picture the cowboy hat he sometimes wore. “Plus, I’m a lot fucking prettier.” Laughter, cheers, and jeers filled the room. Jesse didn’t still work on Jud’s and Tara’s commercial diving team, but the men’s friendship obviously remained strong despite Jesse’s jump over to the DCPD.
“Come on Jesse,” Tara cheered, laughing when Jud threw her an exaggerated wounded look at her lack of support. Everyone laughed.
Everyone except Jesse, who used Jud’s distractedness to get a hold around his chest. They struggled for a long moment, and then Jesse flipped him over and went for a rear-naked choke. He couldn’t quite get it though, and they ended up in a series of attacks that brought them closer to where Dani stood just outside the circle. Jesse reached out a hand—tagging Dani in.
“Go get him, Dani,” Jesse said, clapping her on the shoulder.
“Well, hi there, pretty lady,” Jud said, his tone well aware that his words would irritate her. Their love of teasing, innuendo, and sarcasm was probably one of the reasons that Sean and Jud had become good friends over the past few months.
“Are you here to talk or fight?” she shot back as she got into position.
Around them, the cheering, clapping, and shit-talking escalated as Jud and Dani attacked, resisted, and fought. He’d been in the ring for a good ten minutes now, so his sweat made getting a good hold hard. In a burst of effort, Jud pushed Dani flat on her stomach. He reached for one of her legs and went to straddle her, which told Dani that he was either going for an ankle lock or a stepover toehold facelock, neither of which she was letting him get. So she rolled into a ball and then, using the last of her energy, exploded open with her knees and elbows in a way that threw him off balance.
The room erupted.
Coach blew the whistle.
Jud held out his hands as he pushed to his knees. “Aw, come on Coach Mack, I gotta redeem myself here.”
Everyone laughed, including Coach. “Live to fight another day, Jud. But that was some damn good fighting.” Coach pointed at her. “Dani, you’re looking strong.”
She nodded but felt like such a fraud. And she was still feeling that way thirty minutes later when she and Tara hit the women’s locker room to get ready for dinner.
“What’s up with you tonight?” Tara asked, peering at her warily, as if Dani were a cornered animal that might lash out.
Dani supposed it wasn’t an unreasonable analogy since the question put her hackles up—not because Tara was out of line, but because Dani just didn’t want to deal. But clearly she needed to, so she forced her shoulders to relax as she tossed her gym bag on a bench. “Just a rough week.”
“Aw, I’m sorry. What’s been going on? Work?” Her friend’s expression was so earnest in wanting to be there for her that Dani dropped into a sitting position.
“No, things are good there. I mean, I had to tell my Department Director I wasn’t taking his promotion again, but I think it might’ve actually penetrated his skull this time.”
Tara sat beside her and tugged off her fingerless gloves. “That’s good at least. So if it’s not work, is it Sean? I mean, is he doing okay?”
Dani blew out a long breath, tired of keeping so much bottled up, but afraid to voice half of what was going on inside her. She’d been carrying all of her own emotional water for so long, she no longer knew how to set down the buckets. “I went to the eye doc with him yesterday and th
e prognosis is hopeful. I know he’s still worried, but all things considered, he’s really good.”
Tara nodded, then smirked. “How good is he?”
Dani’s brain tripped on the innuendo, on deciding whether to play it off or dismiss it entirely, and instead she freaking blushed. Brilliantly. Heat flooded her face.
“Oh, my God!” Tara’s eyes went wide as she grinned. “Dani! Shut. Up. Right. Now.”
She was so busted that she dropped her face into her hands and groaned.
“Oh, my God, omigod!” Tara pulled at one of Dani’s hands until she uncovered her face. Dani peered at Tara and found her friend’s expression filled with pure delight. “I need details. Big, muscular, juicy details.”
Dani chuckled despite herself.
And then she sighed, debated, and let her admission fly. “So…on Thursday night, we had sex. He proved himself an orgasm-giving god among men. And now…I don’t know what we are or what I want or if I even want anything.” Tara’s eyes got wider with every word Dani uttered. “And if you ever tell him I said he was an orgasm-giving god I will have to kill you even though I really like you.”
“I won’t. I promise,” she whispered, even though they were the only ones in the locker room. “Wow. Wow!” Tara stared at Dani like she’d just won the lottery. If only her feelings about Sean were that clear. Or, like, even a little clear.
But now that Dani was sharing, she figured she might as well come all the way clean. “And this wasn’t the first time it happened.”
Tara’s jaw dropped open and she slapped her gloves against the bench. “What? When?” And then her eyes narrowed into all-knowing slits. “The freaking Halloween party. Tell me I’m not right!”
“You’re right.”
“I knew it! I totally knew it! That’s why you two have been throwing off the fuck-me-or-fight-me vibes all this time.” Tara was pretty much wearing a perma-grin now.
Geez, had it really that obvious? Dani chucked her gloves into her bag and yanked out her towel. “I guess. The thing is, it’s been different spending time with him this past week.”
