Triple Team- Reverse Harem Series

by K. C. Crowne

  I continued shuffling along, unable to see the path forward on the ground clearly, until I got close to the person. When I got to them, I hung the imager on my belt, quickly knelt down, and reached out. Even without any sense of touch, I got an idea of the size of the person. It was a kid. Just a kid. Jesus. How did a child get in here? The place had been locked up tight before we'd arrived – which made me wonder if the kid was responsible for the fire in the first place.

  “Come with me,” I said, keeping my voice calm.

  The child was heavy. He was maybe about twelve or so, give or take a year.

  The child was no longer crying. In fact, no sound came from him at all.

  “Did you find him?” Wes's voice almost caused me to jump out of my skin.

  “Yes,” I said. “I'm carrying him out now, he's a big kid. Please have EMTs ready when we step outside.”

  “I'm right behind you,” a voice said in the earphones.

  A chill ran down my spine. It was Owen's voice, but Owen should have been outside, the stupid, stubborn little shit. It wasn't the time to argue or dress him down though.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” I asked, not letting him get off completely scot-free. Owen took the kid from my arms and he moved quickly toward the door.

  “Who is it?” Austin asked over the radio.

  “It's me,” Owen said before I could tell on him, or cover for him. “I've got the kid. We're heading out now, Sarah is with me.”

  When the sunshine hit us again, I took off my mask, and took a deep breath of the fresh air. With my mask in one hand, I rushed toward Owen and the boy. Owen was removing his mask by the time I got there, and as I stood beside them, I heard Wes coming up behind me. Austin and Luke stayed inside the warehouse, putting out hotspots, and making sure everything was clear in there. Owen was lucky, for now. I had a feeling that luck wasn't going to hold forever though.

  I dropped to my knees on the ground beside the boy, ready to start CPR. He coughed though, his voice dry and brittle, and stared up at me with wide eyes. He was frightened, but otherwise he looked fine. It was surprising, and he was incredibly lucky. He probably didn't even know how lucky to be alive he actually was.

  An ambulance pulled up, and the EMT's rushed over as Owen was checking the boy out. I stared down at him, my heart still not beating properly. It was the same boy I'd seen before – the one Austin had sent back to the sidewalk before we'd gone in. He hadn't been in the building when we got there, I knew he hadn't. He'd obviously slipped in somehow after we'd sent him back to safety.

  I shook my head, irritated, but not at the kid. I turned my attention to Owen.

  “Owen,” I said, keeping my voice soft so only he could hear, “what the fuck were you doing in there? You were told to stay back.”

  He didn't answer me, keeping himself focused on the little boy instead.

  “You're fine, right champ?” he asked softly.

  “Yes,” the boy said, sitting up. There was soot in his hair, which Owen wiped off to the best of his ability. “Can I go home now?”

  “These EMTs are going to check you out first, alright, little man?” Owen said. “They just want to be sure before they send you home.”

  Wes towered over us, and I looked up at the behemoth of a man. He was easily the tallest man I'd ever seen in my life, standing damn near six foot six. With broad shoulders and a near constant tan, he seemed half California surfer boy, and half Incredible Hulk. With his face mask off, you could see the boyish good looks mixed with the chiseled features that had once helped him pay the bills when he worked as a model, something Wes didn't talk about too much. His green eyes flickered to me, but then returned back to Owen and the kid.

  A male and a female EMT hustled over to us, relieving Owen from duty. It wasn't my job to scold Owen for disobeying orders and leaving his spot. Or, for failing to make sure no one entered the premises – that would be Austin's job. Still, I couldn't hold back my contempt for long, and neither could Wes. If there was one basic tenet to this job, it was that you followed orders. If you didn't, people got hurt. And Owen had blatantly violated that rule.

  Wes tossed his helmet down to the ground, his shaggy, dark blonde hair spilling over his eyes. He kept his silky dishwater hair shaved short on the sides and back, but longer on top. Long enough to run your fingers through if you wanted to. I averted my eyes and tried not to think about how long I’d wanted to.

  Owen stood up, and judging by the sheepish look on his face, he knew he'd fucked up. Without another word, he walked away from us with his head down, moving back to the sidewalk where he'd been told to position himself. There were only a few officers on the scene – not surprising, given that it wasn't a major fire – but none of the cops there had thought to relieve him of his crowd control duties. He'd simply acted on his own.

  Unless he had a perfectly solid explanation though, he was going to get a fucking earful once Austin got hold of him.

  I started toward him, my hands balled up at my sides, feeling the rage building up inside of me over his blatant disregard of his orders. He could have gotten any one of us killed. He could have gotten that boy killed. I was pissed, and I was right to be so. Wes grabbed my shoulder, stopping me before I could get started though.

  “Austin will handle it,” he said.

  “I know, but – fuck, Wes,” I said. “He screwed up. Huge.”

  “I know it. You know it. Hell, judging by the look on his face, Owen knows it too,” Wes said, his voice low. “No need to get in the middle of it and have the shit rain down on you too. Austin will handle it. That's his job. Not yours.”

  He was right. I knew he was right. Yet, I wanted answers from Owen, and I wanted them right away. Plus, I kind of wanted to throttle Owen for being a selfish prick. A kid could have been seriously hurt or killed because of his carelessness. Any one of us – his team – could have suffered the same fate. Owen was a liability.

  Owen stood there, at the sidewalk, a look of anger blended with anguish on his face, his head hanging low. He was over six feet tall but wasn't nearly as big as Wes. He was lean muscle, for the most part. His blonde hair was lighter than Wes's, a more unnatural, out-of-the-bottle looking color, even though it was as natural as they come. With his beautiful blue eyes and light blonde hair, Owen was your typical All-American, apple pie looking boy. He looked a little too pretty to be out there with us in the dirt, grit, and grime – and at times like these, I wondered if perhaps he thought he was too.

  “He's so used to getting everything just handed to him,” Wes said under his breath.

  “Tell me about it. Rich kid with the CEO daddy,” I spat. “He could have any fucking job in the world, and he chooses this one.”

  “He wants to be a hero,” Wes said. “Wants to hear people to praise him and tell him how amazing he is.”

  “You don't really get working for daddy, huh?”

  “Nope. But I think he's starting to realize it's harder than it looks on TV. I think he may be understanding that the job isn't just rushing into burning buildings and saving the day,” Wes said. “Sometimes, you have to do shitty, boring jobs like crowd control, or washing the damn truck. We all had to do it coming up. Time he learns his place in the pecking order.”

  I chuckled and shot Wes a look. We both remembered the time Austin had told Owen to wash the truck. Owen threw the tantrum to end all tantrums – and that was the first moment I had my doubts about Owen making it out here. The job was tough, and if you couldn't handle taking orders, thinking of the team before yourself – and yeah, doing the shit work when needed – well, you put lives at risk. Like he had today.

  “Fire's out, building secure. Looks like an electrical fire. This place is full of old, out-of-date wiring.” Luke's voice made us both turn and look at the two men who were walking up behind us, pulling their masks and helmets off.

  Austin might not have been as large as Wes, but he was still imposing as hell. He stood several inches over six feet tall a
nd weighed about two hundred and fifty pounds of pure muscle. Luke, his right-hand man, was a bit smaller, but was still just as strong. Even though I held my own, and was never a liability in the field, sometimes it felt like I was the weak link on the team. The guys I worked with never let me feel that way, though. They knew I was tough and worked my ass off, and they respected me for it. We were a good team and we trusted one another with our lives.

  Austin didn't say a word, but as he pulled off his mask, you could see it in his golden eyes. The fire might be out in the warehouse, but there was a larger one burning inside of him. He'd heard the commotion over the radios, he saw the kid being cleaned up by the EMTs. He put things together without any of us saying a word, and he looked more pissed than I think I'd ever seen him before.

  Luke joined Wes and me – all of us keeping our distance from Owen like he was patient zero in a plague outbreak.. Or maybe, a better description was that Owen was the bomb, and we were just trying to stay out of the blast range. When Austin was angry – which didn't happen often, and only when someone truly deserved it – you didn't want to get in the way.

  Austin managed to keep his cool, for the moment. We finished up what we needed to do before we packed all of our gear up, climbed back into the rig, and headed out. The whole time though, Austin hadn't said a word to Owen. Not one single word. Which told me that things were going to be bad when we got back to the station.

  * * *

  “They've been in there a while,” Wes said.

  We all sat at the table in the common room, having something to eat and playing cards together. Wes' shaggy blonde hair was wet and sticking up in a spiky faux hawk that he liked to joke around with around the station. In the corner was a Christmas tree, all decked out with red and green lights. The fresh pine scent was one of my favorites this time of year. Here in San Diego, without lights and trees, it doesn't feel much like Christmas. Sunny weather year round might be nice, but it didn't lend itself to the feeling of Christmas most of the time.

  Then again, neither did the arguing going on in Austin's office.

  We could hear bits and pieces of the argument going on behind the door. Austin and Owen were locked in there, having a discussion – a rather heated discussion by the sound of it. All we could really hear was Austin's booming voice coming through the door of the office every now and then. We couldn't hear everything he was saying, but the few words we could make out, didn't seem to bode particularly well for Owen.

  “He fucked up,” I said, picking up the cards in front of me and trying my best to not scowl at the bad hand.

  “Yeah, but we all fuck up when we're new,” Wes said, shrugging his shoulders. “It's all part of the learning curve. We've all been there.”

  “Not all of us almost cost a kid his life, Wes,” I said.

  Luke had remained quiet through all of this, and I noticed he was studying his phone pretty intently. Typically, when someone ignored you in favor of their phone, it was a reason to be insulted. It was somehow different with Luke though. He stared at it, his brow furrowed in concentration, and I knew that look in his dark brown eyes. Something had grabbed his attention – something important.

  His black hair was also wet and slicked back as best as it could be, and a light stubble lined his chiseled face. He was completely oblivious to everything around him, focused on whatever it was he was reading.

  “Earth to Luke,” I said. “You playing or not?”

  “I'm sitting out, sorry,” he muttered, scrolling down.

  Wes cocked an eyebrow and I shrugged. I had no clue what Luke was researching, or what had grabbed his attention. The guy was practically a genius and usually operated on an intellectual plane that far exceeded our own.

  Luke had gone to a prestigious engineering school for a while before dropping out. He'd quit, not because he couldn't keep his grades up, but because he’d found it too easy, and was bored. He had straight A's and a full ride academic scholarship. His life was set, and he was going to be making money hand over fist when he graduated.

  Yet, he'd given that all up to work with the likes of us, doing grimy, shitty, thankless work, for which we weren't paid all that well, and put our lives on the line every single day. Though it took some time for us to get to know him, Luke and Austin had grown up together. They were best friends through and through, and Luke had eventually followed him into the field.

  I put my cards face down on the table. My hand was shitty, and I was going to lose, so any excuse not to play it was one I was willing to grab hold of and run with.

  “What's going on?” I asked.

  “Another wildfire,” he said. “This one's in Escondido.”

  “Getting closer,” I said. “Think we'll get called in?”

  Technically, wildfire season had passed. Fall and winter meant that we were supposed to have a few months to relax, to not worry about fires destroying entire towns and cities and endangering the lives of thousands. The past few years though, the wildfires had been getting worse and worse. The season was getting longer and longer, with less rain every year, and so much dry brush to burn out there.

  As bad as it was getting though, this still seemed to be even worse than usual – even for Southern California.

  “Nah,” Luke said. “They have this one under control.”

  “Good,” Wes said, eyeing his cards, and looking over at me as if trying to encourage me to play.

  “So what has your interest, Luke?” I asked. “You seem pretty focused on whatever it is you're reading there.”

  “Just that – well – I need to talk to Austin first,” he said.

  As if on cue, we heard Austin's raised voice from the other side of the door – and this time his words were clear as day.

  “You could have fucking killed that kid,” he shouted. “What in the fuck were you thinking, Owen?”

  I muttered, “I think he's going to be in there awhile. Owen is kind of dense at times, Austin’s gonna have to repeat himself.”

  The look on Luke's face piqued my interest. He knew something he wasn't sharing with us, and that irked me a little bit. Sometimes, it felt like he thought less of us, simply because he was the brains of the operation. There was no question he was the smartest one in our house, and it seemed like sometimes he didn’t think we’d get what he was thinking.

  Hell, maybe I was just being overly sensitive, and assuming things about him. He'd never been rude to us, or overtly condescending, or anything – but he mostly talked to Austin. Don't get me wrong, he was a good team member. He was always reliable, and we'd had some laughs over the years, but he was always a little distant. Always seemed to keep us at an arm's length.

  Luke continued scrolling, falling silent and tuning us out again.

  “You gonna play your hand or not, Spencer?” Wes asked.

  He only used my last name when he was egging me on or trying to get under my skin. It used to be a joke, because he'd struggled with working alongside a woman, and Spencer sounded more masculine than my first name – Sarah – obviously. It made working with a woman on the rig more palatable to him. He was a bit of a typical dude at first, but things had changed over time. As he got to know me and learned that I could handle my own out there, he grew to respect me. Now, he used my last name as a way to annoy me.

  “It's a shame we're not playing strip poker,” I teased, trying to talk up my hand. “Because you'd be naked as a jaybird here in a second.”

  “Ooh, I'm shaking in my boots,” Wes teased. “Now show me what ya got, Spencer. Unless you know you're going to lose.”

  I couldn't let him get away with it. Even though my hand was total shit, I had to keep up appearances. The minute Wes thought he had the advantage, he was unbearable about it, so I found it best to never show weakness in front of him.

  Picking my cards up off the table, I smirked as I stared at my random assortment of suits. I was just about to make a move – a stupid move that probably would have cost me a lot had we been betting anyt
hing of value – when the door to Austin's office swung open, crashing into the wall behind it.

  Owen rushed out, a grim look on his face, and caught us all staring at him.

  “Fuck off,” he muttered as he stalked past us.

  “Merry Christmas to you too,” Wes chuckled.

  Owen hurried toward the showers, leaving the rest of us in a stunned silence waiting for Austin to join us at the table and fill us in. I never liked drama, and usually did my best to avoid confrontation. I just wasn't into yelling, screaming, and general hysterics. Never was, never would be. It seemed like a childish way to handle things, but when it came to Owen, Austin often had little choice.

  A few moments later, Austin waltzed out of his office, an amused little smirk on his face, looking pleased as punch. He wasn't even mad anymore, which was a shocker to me given how pissed off he'd sounded behind closed doors. Then again, he was the type of guy who let things roll off his back pretty easily. Owen was the reason for his bad mood, so he ripped Owen a new one and now it was over and done with. He was ready to move on.

  There was a reason Austin was the chief. He could be stern when need be but was typically calm and collected most of the time. He never held grudges and always acted on behalf of the team first.

  My heart fluttered just a bit when he stepped over to the table and stood beside me. I felt my cheeks flare with a little heat, and I had to look away from him. I'd always had a little bit of a crush on my boss – ever since the first day I saw him step out of the showers in nothing but a towel. His chestnut brown hair was cut neat and trim, and his body was a marvel. The tight, corded muscle and ripped, washboard abs that rippled underneath his tight shirts, taunted me. My imagination often got the best of me and it was all I could do most days to keep from drooling all over myself.

  All the men I worked with were hot as hell. I mean, they were firefighters after all. Yet, Austin was something else. He was a cut above the norm, in my opinion. Maybe it was the broad shoulders and chiseled facial features, but I thought it was more than that. His very nature was attractive too. He was always in charge, and he handled it well. A leadership role seemed natural and suited him well. If you needed anything, you knew Austin would be able to help.