Burn

by Shey Stahl

  Once Izzy’s finished, and I’m in a jelly state, I stare at Scarlet who’s still looking through a magazine. “Why aren’t you working?”

  Scarlet shrugs. “I’m tired. And disgusted.” She peeks over her magazine at me and Izzy. “You wouldn’t believe it but the rich, pretentious assholes who stays here are a bunch of dirty motherfuckers.”

  I slide off the table and smooth out my skirt. “Actually, that’s not surprising at all.”

  “I found so much hair in a bathroom this morning from a man, I could have made a small dog with it.”

  “Speaking of dogs . . .” I smile, and I know she knows where I’m going with this. “What happened with Owen?”

  Izzy shakes her head and pulls the sheets off the massage table, wadding them up and then replacing them with fresh white ones. She never dishes dirt on Gigantor.

  “Nothing happened. We had sex, and he left,” Scarlet tells us, like it’s no big deal. It probably isn’t to her. I wish I had her self-control. But I don’t. I’m weak and contemplating starting fires to find Caleb.

  Fire Ground

  The operational are at the scene of a fire area in which incident commander is in control. Also used as a name of radio frequency to be used by units operating in the fire ground, as in “Responding units switch to fire ground.”

  I used to love my schedule as a firefighter. Now it’s too much damn time to sit and think.

  About Mila.

  Mila is all I can think about. And when you have four days off work, that’s a lot of time to think. And a lot of time in the bathroom trying to rid the need she instills in me. Images flash through my mind, constantly. Her blue eyes, olive skin and her tight ass. Brown flowing curls flowing over her shoulders, a woman who doesn’t have to try to be beautiful, it comes naturally for her.

  I should have gotten her number, or at the very least, asked her last name. I could have found her if I knew her last name. Goddamn, this is unbearable. You’d think given my track history with women I’d be able to forget her. I should forget her.

  Now all I’m left with is a memory of her. The way her dark hair spilled over my pillow and her back arched off the bed as I ate her pussy. The way that hair felt fisted in my hands as her lips slid over my cock.

  Fuck. I’m driving to work with a semi and wishing I could take care of it, or I’m going to be frustrated all day at work. I don’t jerk off at work. Sure some guys take care of it at the firehouse. If I had to guess, 50 percent don’t, 40 lie about it and 10 percent are the dirty fucks and tell us about it. Owen is part of the dirty fucks crew.

  It’s the day before New Year’s Eve when I’m on duty again, and I’m hoping we have a busy day to keep my mind from drifting to Mila. In fact, I’m hoping for a raging fucking inferno to get my adrenaline pumping and a good chunk of the day gone.

  Most people have the assumption firefighters sit around a firehouse playing cards waiting for the next fire to come in. Not exactly.

  As firefighters, we’ve evolved into a public service agency with an increasing workload. We’re expected to know and maintain our skills on emergency medical treatments, hazardous materials, computers and technology, public education, fire protection systems . . . apparatus and equipment education . . . the list is endless and oh yeah, firefighting.

  Whenever someone asks me what my typical day is like I want to laugh. It’s never typical. Anything can and does happen in a twenty-four-hour shift.

  Nonetheless, my day starts around seven when I’m at the firehouse in the morning. Shift changes happen at eight, but most of the guys show up early to get a handle on anything that happened the night before.

  Owen smiles when I walk into the apparatus room where the trucks are parked. Surprisingly, I haven’t seen him since that night at the bar. We live together, but he was out of town visiting his parents in Oregon for a few days. “You banged the chick from the club, didn’t you?”

  I stand with tense shoulders, coffee in hand. “Shut up.”

  “I bet you blew your load too soon.” He nods arrogantly. “Should have given her to me.”

  What a fuck face.

  Owen’s a player and thinks no one else can handle a woman like he can. He’s got another thing coming, but I also don’t want to talk about it this early in the morning.

  He’s the last person I’d tell by since that night, I haven’t stopped thinking about Mila and have jerked off a half a dozen times to the image of her.

  I shove him away from me. “I told you to shut the fuck up.”

  He doesn’t let up though and well into our equipment check in the morning, he’s asking questions. “She knows you’re a firefighter, right?”

  I nod.

  “Maybe she’ll set herself on fire and call you.”

  “Maybe.”

  I’d put the fire out for sure and then start one between us.

  Wanting to change the subject from me to him, I ask, “What happened with you and her friend?”

  “Fucked on her floor.”

  I’m not surprised by it. Owen does shit like that all the time.

  His arm wraps around my shoulder like a proud father. “I’m glad you got laid. Your forearms needed the break.” He demonstrates making a jacking-off motion I don’t appreciate.

  “Fuck off.” I roll my eyes shrugging his embrace away.

  Unfortunately, there’s truth to his statement and it puts the images of Mila into my mind again. Not like they were far to begin with.

  “Hey,” he defends, holding up his palms. “I’m just jealous you fucked her before I could. Maybe I’ll be next.”

  Over my dead body.

  IT’S AROUND TEN in the morning when we’re in the middle of doing equipment checks when a call comes in for a bird in a tree. Not just any bird. Some rare exotic bird the owner thinks is her baby.

  “Ma’am, does the bird have a name?” I finally have to ask the hysterical woman while Owen clings to one tree, me on the one beside it because the fucking bird has clipped wings and keeps jumping from one tree to the other.

  I don’t like birds. I didn’t like them before this job, but now it’s my general assessment I really don’t care for them.

  “Can we just shoot it?” I mumble to Owen who thinks this is the funniest shit he’s ever seen.

  “Hey, Cap,” Owen calls down, hanging from a branch by one gloved hand and kicking his legs to reach the branch below him. I hope he falls. Mostly because then we could at least do something besides rescue a damn bird. “Caleb wants to shoot it!”

  The woman screaming for her bird, who I now know is called Birdie, screams at me. “Don’t you dare shoot my bird! I’ll sue the department if you kill Birdie.”

  By the way, how original on the name. You’d think for a bird she claims cost five thousand dollars you’d at least have the decency to give the fucker a badass name.

  “No one is going to shoot your bird, ma’am.” Cap glares up at Owen. “Knock it off and get the bird out of the tree!”

  Our Captain, Kirk Gibson, or Captain Kirk—I know, not very original—as we call him when we’re trying to piss him off, tolerates our bullshit for a long time before he yells at us. I think the only reason he’s yelling now is because we’ve been on this call for an hour and it should have taken five minutes.

  “Easier said than done.” I laugh, only out of frustration. The bird’s now on the tree I’m in about a foot out of my reach. I can see it between the branches, shitting all over the place and on me. I have so much bird shit on my turnout coat it looks like my shoulders are pure white.

  Sadly, it hasn’t shit on Owen once.

  “C’mere, you little fucker,” I growl, letting go of the branch to reach for him, only I miss and fall out of the tree, landing on my ass on the ground.

  It hurts like you wouldn’t believe.

  “Man down!” Owen screams, laughing.

  “I hope the fuckin’ thing eats you!” I know, not the best threat and pretty fucking weak, but it’s the only th
ing I can think to say. I did just fall ten feet on my ass. And I think I broke it.

  I flop back and lay in the wet grass staring up at the clouded sky. “Goddamn it,” I grunt, feeling like I’ve maybe in fact broken something.

  Cap shakes his head at me and then looks at Evan and Jay standing next to him, both smiling. “E, grab a line. I’m sick of this fuckin’ bird.”

  I don’t see why we didn’t do that in the beginning, but I’m not the captain. They grab a line and spray the tree until the bird falls out on the ground, unharmed.

  “That’s how it’s done,” Evan remarks, smiling arrogantly at me and then kneels next to me. “You’ve got some shit on you. Want me to hose you off?”

  I kick at his leg. “Sure, if you think you can reach that far.”

  He’s got the firehouse in his hand, and anyone else would shut the fuck up because he knows he could fuck me up if he turned it on. He won’t though. He’s not stupid. Maybe with relationships, but when it comes to firefighting, he’s one of the best.

  While the woman is drying the bird off and I’m trying to get off the ground, Owen climbs out of the tree and smiles at me as he takes his helmet off. “Maybe you should call Mila and ask her if she’ll give your ass some attention.”

  See? Dirty fuck.

  But then I’m thinking about Mila again and no longer concerned with my ass because there’s something else I’d like her to take care of.

  My hose.

  BIRDS IN TREES, those are the easy calls. I’ve seen some shit. Some calls you’ll never stop thinking about. Like the one we just came from where I pulled a boy from the back of a car only to have him die in my arms.

  I’ve seen some fucked up shit over the years. My first year as a firefighter five years ago is one I’ll never forget. I saved some lives, lost more and thought I had a pretty good idea of what to expect as a firefighter on an engine company.

  And then I switched over to truck and my world became something I wish I could shut off at times. I’ve carried kids from fires with their skin melting off them, delivered a baby on the side of the freeway and had to pick up a head rolling down the sidewalk. An actual head, no longer attached to a body.

  Within a year on the job, I thought I’d seen it all.

  Every day I’m proven wrong. It’s the reason why when people say, “Tell me about the crazy calls,” that we usually pop off with something funny. They don’t want to hear about dead babies and kids burning alive and having to pull them out of the fire with no skin left. They want to hear about people like that Justin dude who sticks things up his ass.

  So I smile and tell them about the easy shit, the reasons why they think we sit around the firehouse playing cards and watching television.

  By three in the afternoon, I’m hanging on by a thread ready to lash out at anyone who gives me the opportunity. It stems mostly from the call we just came from before we’re called to a structural fire, and it’s certainly not the raging inferno I’m hoping for this afternoon. It’s contained to the family room and kitchen.

  “It took you forever to get here! Save my house.”

  It’s because of this bullshit right here I’m in quite possibly the worst mood ever.

  “Yeah, well—” I smile sarcastically at the man standing outside his burning multi-million-dollar home, holding what appears to be a trophy I’m tempted to shove up his ass. I’ll tell you something else, too, I’ll never go to another Seahawks game either. “—it takes time to get here.”

  We were here exactly six minutes after he placed the 911 call. Does he realize we can’t snap our fingers and be at his home the next second?

  Probably not.

  I bet this fucker didn’t know, or care, that we’d just come from a job where a four-year-old boy was killed in the back seat of his parents’ SUV when his dad ran a red light.

  But now here we are, twenty minutes later, trying to save this guy’s house with no one in it just because he had possessions inside he says are valuable.

  Those parents will never be the same. Every day they are going to wonder what they could have done differently to get their son back. And from that dad who ran the red light, failed to pay attention for whatever reason, not a day will go by that he won’t wish it was him instead of his son. That I can be sure of.

  I saw the look in his eyes as his son was covered with a tarp.

  Some days I can handle what I see and brush it off because I have to. Others, I can’t. That one with the boy got to me, and now I’m in a bad mood because of this guy complaining about his possessions. Fuck him and his meaningless trophies.

  We had just started overhaul, a part of the job where we go through the house and check for any remaining sources of heat that can spark a new fire. We also attempt to search for anything salvageable to prevent any further loss.

  Naturally, given my shitty mood, I’m not being very careful, probably because this guy showed little respect for us being here in the first place. In my lack of caution, I knock over what appears to be a sentimental trophy of his.

  Owen smiles at me, smudges of black covering his face. “You do realize this guy plays football for the Seahawks, right?”

  “Yeah, well”—I walk past Owen, bumping his shoulder—“he can shove these trophies up his ass for all I care.”

  Finn, who’s standing next to me with a halligan in hand and eyes wide looks from me to someone standing behind me.

  I don’t have to turn around to know who’s standing behind me.

  It’s the football player, who’s basically hovering over us, overhears what I said and starts threatening that he’s going to sue me and some shit about going to the fire marshal and chief for my remarks. I don’t give a fuck.

  For one, neither would my grandfather who’s the fire marshal, and last time I checked, I’m broke. I’m sure that hasn’t changed. Suing me would do this joker no good.

  I’m not sure what his intention is, or he’s just a fuckin’ dick, but the football player picks up one of the trophies and throws it at me. He nails me in the head with it and knocks my helmet off.

  Unfortunately for him, it does nothing but piss me off.

  Kicking my helmet aside, I grab him by his shirt and toss him into a closet next to the front door.

  I slam the closet door shut, smoke filtering up from underneath the door. There’s no fire in there, but there’s enough residual smoke in there he’s probably having some trouble breathing.

  He pounds on the door, coughing and screaming like a bitch. “Let me out!”

  Casually, I lean into the door and position my foot so he can’t open it. “Settle the fuck down and I’ll let you out.”

  The guys find me. With wide-eyes, Finn glances from me to Owen like he can control me. “What the fuck is he doing?”

  Owen shrugs beside me, leaning into the other side of the closet with his shoulder. “Who’s in there?”

  The football player slams his fist into the door. “Let me out!”

  I smile. “That guy. He hit me with a trophy. He needs a timeout to think about assaulting the men who just saved his home from burning to the ground.”

  “Caleb,” Evan warns, coming around the corner. “Don’t do that. Open the door. You just got off probation for threatening to shove a halligan up Cap’s ass two weeks ago.”

  “No one can prove I actually said that.” Aside from Cap because I did say it, but I never like to admit when I’m wrong. I knock on the door with my knuckles. “Hey, asshole, how’s the heat?”

  “Caleb,” Evan warns again. “Come on, open the door.”

  “Oh fine.” I open the door. “I was only kidding.”

  The football player rushes outside, screaming at me and anyone else who will listen when Cap gives me a pointed glare. “What’s he talking about, Caleb?”

  Removing my mask and SCBA pack, I shrug. “He hit me in the back of the head with a trophy. I was only trying to calm him down.”

  Cap sighs and crosses his burly arms over his che
st, eyes narrowing at me. “Listen, I don’t like this guy any more than you do, but we can’t do shit like this. I know what you witnessed before this . . . but I don’t ever want to see this kind of behavior again.”

  I stare at the ground, his words hovering over me like a dense fog. Does he know what I witnessed? Sure. He was there but does he know the images I’m focusing on now? The ones of the boy I pulled from the SUV covered in blood only to have him take his last breath in my arms?

  I don’t think he does because he saw all that from a distance.

  “I THOUGHT FOR sure Caleb was going to get himself arrested today.” Jay stretches as we all step out of the truck.

  “It wasn’t as bad as the time he almost threw that guy out the window when he wouldn’t go down the ladder with him.” Owen laughs, rousing me with ribbing to my side.

  “He had it coming.” I shrug, carrying SCBA tanks across the apparatus bays.

  “You need to keep your anger in check,” Evan tells me as he’s unloading the truck with the help of two other guys. “You’re gonna get hurt out there.”

  Evan tolerates nothing. He can be the biggest asshole you’ll ever meet, but on the job, he’s precise, never messes up and does everything exactly by the book. No hero bullshit. He makes moves and only the ones he knows the outcome of.

  Me, I’m the complete opposite. If I think there’s a chance, I try it even if the outcome won’t be in my favor. I’m not going to risk my life if I think it will kill me or someone else. I’m not into dying. But I’ll definitely push the lines when it comes to firefighting.

  “Whatever.” And when I begin to walk away, Evan sidesteps and stops me, his hands on my shoulders.

  He glares at me, offering me the big brother advice he assumes I need. “Just. . . for Christ’s sake, control yourself,” he whispers, eyes wandering around the apparatus bays. “It’s a dangerous job. When you get emotional, you make it worse.”