Lights and Sirens

by Lisa Henry

  God, what a day. It was nice to get a break from general duties once in a while, but yeah, he could really use a drink.

  He glanced down at his First Aid Manual, and then rolled his eyes at the smiling ambulance officer on the front cover. He swept the book off the passenger seat and into the foot well. The smiling ambulance officer landed on his handsome face, and Matt grinned and imagined it was Hayden.

  He pulled out onto the main road and headed back toward town.

  CHAPTER

  FIVE

  “Oh, fuck my life,” Hayden muttered as he turned around from the bar and saw the group taking up residence at the table next to the one Kate had snagged.

  Matt Deakin, of course, and Newbie, and an entire table full of coppers.

  He fixed a smile on his face and headed back to Kate’s table.

  It was Kate’s daughter Heather’s nineteenth birthday, and Hayden had been roped in, as Kate said, to keep her and Jimmy sane. Heather and her friends were all dressed to the nines, clearly intending on hitting the clubs down Flinders Street East after dinner. The girls were all in strappy short dresses and heels, and the guys were in skinny jeans and tight-fitted shirts. When they were all been introduced, Hayden was fairly certain that one of the guys was giving him the eye, and for a moment his interest was piqued, but then it turned out that it was Heather’s Performing Arts boyfriend, and no. Because if Heather was half the woman her mother was, and she was, then she could definitely take Hayden in a fight.

  He set the drinks down on the table. The drinks here were stupidly expensive, weirdly hipster, and came served in mason jars. Hayden hadn’t been here before. He sure as hell hadn’t realised it was the watering hole of choice for Matt Deakin and his team.

  He sat down, and slid Heather’s drink over to her. “Happy birthday, Heather.”

  She beamed at him, her face already a little shiny. She was wearing the silver bracelet he’d bought her. “Thank you, Hayden!”

  Sam, Kate and Jimmy’s son, was sitting at the end of the table. He looked like he’d rather be anywhere but here.

  Hayden sipped his drink, forcing himself not to drink too fast. At these prices he’d be bankrupt before he was buzzed. He fell into a conversation with Jimmy, and tried to ignore the bunch of coppers sitting right behind him.

  It didn’t work for long.

  “Hayden! Kate! How’s it going?” Linda popped up beside them.

  “Yeah, good,” Hayden said. His gaze slid past hers, and landed on Matt Deakin. Arsehole looked hot. He was dressed in jeans and a graphic t-shirt, but he wore them well. He was resting his forearms on the table. His muscles corded as he lifted his drink and raised it to his mouth, and Hayden looked away before he was caught staring.

  Linda chatted for a few minutes before returning to her table.

  “Oh,” Kate said, elbowing Hayden in the ribs. “Your favourite copper’s here too.”

  “Yep.” Hayden drank his Moscow Mule much faster than he intended and ignored Kate’s smirk.

  When the food came, he ordered another drink. With his back to the coppers’ table he couldn’t see what was going on, but every time a roar of laugher sounded from them, Hayden’s spine stiffened and he felt the urge to turn around and make sure he wasn’t the butt of whatever joke they were telling. He tried to enjoy the company instead, and his surroundings.

  City Lane was a purpose-built alley that ran between Flinders Street and Sturt Street. It had bars and restaurants on each side, with seating spilling out from each one and meeting in a central area. The public toilets were situated near the exit onto Sturt Street. It took two drinks for Hayden to have to go and search them out. He picked a path through the tables and stools, the slight rush of dizziness warning him to slow down his alcohol consumption. He wasn’t driving—the apartment he shared with Monique was at the bottom of Stanley Street, less than a five-minute walk away—but he didn’t want to have to crawl home either.

  The toilets were oddly quiet after the sound of so many people outside talking and laughing in a small space. Hayden pissed, and then washed his hands. He inspected his face in the mirror, checking he wasn’t obviously drunk yet, and then pulled a paper towel out of the dispenser. He wiped his hands, and turned to toss the towel in the bin—

  “Shit.”

  The balled-up paper towel bounced off the front of Matt Deakin’s graphic t-shirt, and landed on the floor.

  Matt Deakin looked down at where the paper ball had landed, and then back up at Hayden. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  Hayden showed him his palms. “That was an accident, mate.”

  “Oh, I’m your mate now, am I?” Deakin snorted. “Constable Dickhead?”

  Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.

  Hayden’s stomach clenched, and heat rose in his face. He didn’t want to escalate things with Deakin, but he didn’t want to back down either. He had to stand his ground here, right? Or was that just the alcohol talking? All Hayden could remember was that you were supposed to stand up to bullies. And, okay, possibly he was the bully in this situation given that he’d been the one calling Deakin names, but the principle was still the same, surely? And besides, Deakin had started it.

  He held Deakin’s gaze. “To be fair, you were a dick to me the night we met.”

  “Excuse me?” Deakin’s eyebrows shot up. “You mean the night you tried to flirt your way out of a speeding ticket?”

  “Wait, what?” Hayden blinked. “I wasn’t trying to flirt my way out of a speeding ticket! I was just trying to flirt!”

  “What?” Deakin asked, his voice flat.

  “I was just trying to flirt!” Hayden huffed out a breath.

  Deakin stared at him. “Are you for real?”

  “Yes! Fuck!”

  Deakin’s mouth twitched, and he appeared to be fighting the beginnings of a rueful smile. “Seriously?”

  “Yes!” Hayden raised his hand to cover his own smile, but a laugh bubbled out of him that had as much to do with the buzz of alcohol in his blood than it did the absurdity of the situation. The tension drained out of him. “Holy shit!”

  “I—” Deakin looked almost abashed. “I’m sorry?”

  It came out like a question, and who could blame him? Even Hayden didn’t know if Deakin owed him an apology or not.

  “Well, I didn’t have to be a dick about it,” Hayden admitted.

  Deakin raised his eyebrows. “You really didn’t.”

  Hayden shrugged. “To be fair, I totally thought you started it.”

  “Jesus.” Deakin didn’t hide his smile this time. He laughed, the skin at the corners of his eyes wrinkling. He shook his head. “So who owes who a drink in this scenario?”

  Hayden smirked, and let his gaze drift down Deakin’s body. “Is a drink all I’m going to get out of this?”

  Pushing his luck maybe, but Deakin looked good. His shirt was tight enough to pull a little across his chest, and the sleeves hugged his upper arms nicely. And yeah, there was that tattoo of his, the ink climbing his arm and vanishing under the sleeve of his shirt. Hayden was very interested in seeing how far that tattoo went. He was also interested in what Deakin was packing in his dark jeans. Even when the guy had been a dick—and the thirty seconds or so that had cleared that little misconception up wasn’t quite enough time to adjust to Hayden’s new world view that he wasn’t—he’d been hot.

  “Are you serious?” Deakin asked, his voice low.

  Hayden wet his bottom lip with his tongue. “Are you up for it?”

  For a moment neither of them moved, and then suddenly Deakin was closing the distance between them, pushing into Hayden’s space and shoving him up against the wall. For a sharp, breathless moment Hayden didn’t know what was happening, and then Deakin was kissing him.

  He tasted like beer and salt.

  Hayden opened his mouth, jutting his chin out to meet Deakin’s aggression with some of his own. He reached up and gripped Deakin’s hair, tugging, making sure Deakin felt it. Then he slid his
other hand down the curve of Deakin’s arse, gripping tightly and swallowing Deakin’s answering moan.

  “Yeah?” Hayden asked, pulling back, challenging. “You wanna do this?”

  There were two stalls in the toilets.

  Hayden pushed himself off the wall, knocking Deakin a few steps back. Hayden grabbed him by the belt, reeling him in again and dragging him into the stall.

  Deakin slammed the door shut and twisted the lock.

  Hayden almost laughed at the absurdity of this moment. Of being here. With Constable Dickhead. But why the hell not? A stressful job and shift work meant that Hayden preferred hook-ups—no awkward ‘getting to know you’ phase when he just wanted to fuck or be fucked. Deakin probably knew that feeling, right? They were on the same page here—there was nothing wrong with a little bit of mutual stress relief. Nothing wrong with remembering they were alive, even if sometimes it took a real effort for Hayden to remember that the body underneath his wasn’t the old man’s from yesterday, melting into the bed, wasn’t the woman’s with maggots in her wounds, wasn’t something decaying with disease or death. Hayden had seen the human body at its most disgusting. He hated leaning in for a kiss and suddenly getting a flashback to someone’s ulcerated mouth and tongue. Dissociation was the name of the game, until his libido kicked in again.

  Not with Deakin though. Not tonight. Hayden was fully onboard with every moment of this.

  Hayden pushed Deakin up against the back of the door, making it rattle in the frame. He leaned in, mouth crashing against Deakin’s in a move that felt too aggressive to be called a kiss. He tugged Deakin’s shirt up, and slid his palm across his abdomen. Nice. His abdominals were tight without being too sculpted. Deakin was clearly no gym junkie, but must keep in shape. Hayden swept his palm along Deakin’s abdomen, laughing into his mouth when Deakin sucked in a sharp breath and his stomach at the same time. Hayden followed his treasure trail downward, sliding his hand into Deakin’s jeans, his fingers grazing the elastic of his underwear.

  He leaned back from the kiss. Deakin’s blue eyes were wide.

  Hayden held his gaze, and popped the button on his jeans. As Hayden peeled his fly open, the rasp of his zipper was loud.

  The stall was small, but not too small. There was plenty of room for Hayden to drop down onto his knees— The floor was dry, thankfully. Hayden was nowhere near drunk enough to be cavalier about kneeling in piss. He looked up at Deakin’s startled expression, and flashed him a cocky grin, giving Deakin a moment to push him away. When that didn’t happen, Hayden tugged his jeans down. Deakin was wearing plain blue jocks. It amused Hayden that Deakin clearly hadn’t been expecting to get lucky tonight. Either that, or these were his fanciest underpants and he just had shit taste. The dick straining at the fabric wasn’t inferior quality though. It was a good length, solid thickness, and the pre-come dampening Deakin’s jocks made Hayden’s mouth water. It appeared cut too, which Hayden confirmed when he hooked a finger under the elastic of Deakin’s jocks and freed his dick.

  “Jesus,” Deakin muttered, his head thunking back against the door.

  Hayden reached into his back pocket for a condom.

  “Jesus,” Deakin said again, his breath hitching.

  Lucky Hayden wasn’t here for the vibrant conversation.

  Hayden rolled the condom down over Deakin’s dick, relishing the way Deakin squirmed a little, and the muscles in his abdomen tightened, and his fingers curled into loose fists that knocked against the toilet door. Hayden could shatter a guy into pieces with a blowjob—Deakin was about to get more than his dick blown, that was for sure. Hayden was going to ruin all future hook ups for him.

  He circled his fingers around the base of Deakin’s dick and then leaned in. He breathed out a blast of hot air that made Deakin’s dick twitch. Then, still grinning, Hayden licked a stripe up the underside of the condom. He hated the taste of latex—it reminded him too much of work—but if the alternative was not sucking dick, then he could live with it.

  “Holy shit.” The words escaped Deakin on the tail end of a gasp, and his hand came to rest on Hayden’s head. His fingers carded through Hayden’s hair.

  Hayden wet his lips, and then slid his mouth over the tip of Deakin’s dick. He shuffled his knees further apart, adjusting his stance so that he could get his free hand to his fly and pull the zipper down. As he worked Deakin over with his mouth, he squeezed his aching dick through the fabric of his boxer briefs.

  Deakin’s grip in his hair tightened. Hayden tensed, but Deakin didn’t try to force him to take his dick deeper.

  Hayden closed his eyes. Deakin’s breathy groans, combined with the girth and the weight of his dick in his mouth, were all the incentive Hayden needed to push through the twinge in his jaw. He licked and sucked, his chin wet with spit, squeezing the shaft of Deakin’s dick while he worked over the head.

  And then he opened his throat and swallowed Deakin down.

  “Fuuuuuuck.” Deakin jerked like he was having a seizure.

  Come on, Hayden thought. Come on.

  And then Deakin was coming, the toilet door rattling in its frame as he shuddered against it. Hayden stilled while Deakin came, and then shifted back to sit on his heels. His dick was almost painfully hard. He gazed up at Deakin, at his still-shocked face and his slack jaw, and finished himself off in three quick strokes, catching most of the mess in his hand.

  “Shit,” Deakin said softly. He slid the condom off.

  Hayden grabbed for a handful of cheap, scratchy toilet paper, wincing as he cleaned his hands. Then he climbed to his feet and dropped the paper into the toilet before flushing it. He zipped himself up again, and flashed Deakin a satisfied grin.

  Deakin peeled himself off the toilet door, still looking shell-shocked.

  Hayden washed his hands and inspected his flushed face in the mirror while Deakin wrapped the condom in layers and layers of paper towel from the dispenser and shoved it down the side of the bin.

  “Give me your phone.” He held out his hand.

  Deakin checked his pockets, fumbling his phone when he unlocked it and handed it over.

  Hayden entered his number in Deakin’s contacts. “There,” he said, passing the phone back. “Maybe next time you can return the favour?”

  “Yeah,” Deakin said, blinking at him. He huffed out a breath that sounded like it was trying to be a laugh. “Sure.”

  Hayden checked his reflection one more time and sailed back outside to rejoin the party.

  Monique was out when Hayden got home. They got on fairly well, but the apartment was definitely more hers than Hayden’s. Monique was a uni student, which the eighth-floor apartment overlooking Ross Creek didn’t really reflect. Hayden had never asked for details, but it was obvious that money was not an issue for her at all. The apartment looked like it had been furnished out of a glossy catalogue—Monique’s parents owned a high-end furniture place, so it probably had been—all except for Hayden’s room. Hayden’s room definitely had the feel of an impoverished university student’s hovel instead, even though he was the one with an actual fulltime job.

  Hayden checked the kitchen cupboards for a snack and helped himself to one of Monique’s homemade choc-chip biscuits. He put the lid back on the container, then thought the better of it and helped himself to another two.

  He poured himself a glass of milk from the fridge. It was two days past its expiry date, but it still smelled okay. Hayden wasn’t worried enough—or desperate enough—to help himself to Monique’s soy milk instead. He wasn’t a masochist.

  The milk killed the last of his beer buzz. Hayden left the glass in the sink and wandered into the living room and sat on the couch. The remote control was out of reach, and he couldn’t be bothered to move, so he ate the biscuits and listened to the hum of the air conditioner. The short walk home from City Lane had left him feeling sweaty. It wasn’t quite summer yet, but the humidity was already starting to creep in. Even at night the temperature didn’t drop by much. Hayden had
some hot, sticky nights to look forward to, and not in a fun way.

  Not like tonight.

  His mouth quirked as he thought of Matt Deakin and his stunned mullet impression. Yeah, he’d sucked the guy’s brains out through his dick. He wondered if Deakin would call him. Hayden didn’t do relationships—those he’d attempted had usually crashed and burned under the pressures of shiftwork, as well as other things—but he wasn’t opposed to the idea of a repeat performance with Deakin. Deakin had a nice dick, and Hayden definitely liked the idea of getting it inside him at some point.

  His grin grew. Funny how things worked out. If anyone had asked Hayden earlier tonight how much he hated Constable Dickhead, Hayden could have delivered a thesis, complete with pie charts and a PowerPoint presentation on just how far that arsehole got under his skin, and offer up his top ten suggestions on all the horrific ways Deakin could die. Now though…

  Now Hayden really wanted to suck his dick again. Deakin was hot, and had a nice dick, and a nice laugh, and Hayden still hadn’t mapped out the exact dimensions of that interesting tattoo yet. It was important to have goals, right?

  He dug his phone out of his pocket and checked for messages.

  None yet, but Hayden smiled at his reflection in the home screen anyway. He didn’t doubt for a second that Deakin would call, and they could pick up where they’d left off.

  Hayden drifted off to sleep with his phone clutched to his chest, and biscuit crumbs littering the floor around the couch.

  CHAPTER

  SIX

  The sun was well and truly up by the time Matt rolled out of bed. He yawned and dragged his hands through his hair. He smelled of stale alcohol and sweat. Apparently he’d been so drunk last night he’d just face-planted into bed and not even bothered to turn the ceiling fan on. The day already felt heavy with humidity.