by Dizzy Hooper
But he also smells like warmth and spice, and I was already turned on before he popped out from around a corner to randomly insult me. The way he's looming over me just brings that back to life.
His nostrils flaring and his eyes dark, he darts his gaze from my eyes to my mouth and back. He licks his lips. Is he turned on, too?
Or just pissed?
He flicks his gaze down the hall. "To get involved."
It's like a bucket of icy water dropped over my head.
Oh, God.
He scared me so bad I forgot about the scene he must have witnessed. Jaquan squeezing my arm, me leaning into him. Corey brushing his warm lips against my cheek.
How much does he think he knows? He basically called me an idiot, but he didn't call me a slut. I might be both, but I'm not prepared to admit to either.
Standing my ground, I tilt my head up. "What's it to you?"
"You came into this station, all prickly, giant stick up your ass."
"Hey—"
He leans in even closer. "And here I thought, finally. Someone I can relate to."
I blink. Well, that's a curveball. But a flashback comes to me of the first time I ran into him—literally. Sal had just called me out for being as bad as Street, and Street had looked at me with these fathomless eyes, and I had felt it, too. A connection.
Even now, with him bitching at me, it radiates between us. We're loners by nature. Scarred.
And yeah, I may have taken up with a a few of the guys at the station. But that doesn't change anything.
Does it?
To Street, it must. His mouth curls down into a twisted frown. "So much for that," he all but spits. "You're just like all the rest." He turns to go. "Well, forget you."
And there's something about the way he dismisses me. All the mixed up emotions I've been grappling with for weeks now suddenly come together, and they're not a cloud. They're not a haze.
They're a fucking fireball, and they hurl white flames at the insides of my ribs.
"Bullshit," I call after him.
He lurches to a stop, shoulders heaving with the power of his breaths. "What did you just say to me?"
"I said, 'Bull. Shit.'" I swallow hard. We're frozen, a half dozen feet apart in this corridor. Tension fills the air, but I can't keep the fire inside me quiet. So hurl the worst thing I can think of right at his head. "You're not disappointed in me for letting these guys in. You're jealous."
He twists his neck around, long hair flying, eyes blazing. "You wanna say that a little louder?"
My heart thunders in my chest, adrenaline spiking in my veins. But that still doesn't shut my stupid mouth.
"Would it be easier if I wrote it down?"
His entire body pivots toward me.
Oh, shit. Street is huge, and he seems even huger as he advances on me. I take another step back, only to find the wall at my spine. He keeps moving, keeps crowding me back into it until there's only a sliver of space between us. Anger comes off him in waves, and it's really, really fucking stupid that my pussy is wet at having his body so close to mine, but I can't help myself.
"Girl, you don't know what you're messing with."
No shit, but in for a penny, in for a pound.
Besides, I'm pretty fucking sure I'm right. "I think I do."
"You think I'm jealous of you for being buddy buddy with those assholes?" He leans in, his breath hot against my ear. "For letting them fuck you?"
My nipples tighten to hot points, and my clit throbs. Strange is it sounds, there's no judgment in his tone. He couldn't care less that I spread my legs for half of our crew, and that I haven't yet for him.
His anger goes way deeper than that.
So I grit my teeth and stand there. I don't deny it. I don't let him so much as see me flinch.
"Jealousy hasn't got a goddamn thing to do with it, princess," he growls. He pulls back by a fraction.
Little does he know, he might as well have slapped me.
Misplaced rage boils inside my chest.
"Then what is it?" I ask in challenge. I tilt my chin up. "What made you such a hardass that you can't even bear to sit down in the same room with them most of the time?"
And bless him, but he doesn't back down either.
Holding my gaze, he reaches for the sleeves of his shirt. He jerks them up, the fabric threatening to tear under such rough treatment.
My breath sucks in.
He reveals the same ink I saw that first day. The RIP is clearer now.
So are the scars.
"I got involved once." Pure pain turns his voice to gravel. "Nice girl. Could climb a ladder, too, if you know what I mean."
And there's innuendo there, but there's honesty and respect, too.
I see through to the core of it in a flash. "She was on your shift?"
"Went up through all our training together. Fucked in every ambulance in the city, on every rig." He traces the memorial tattoo on his forearm with his thumb, digging in until the skin underneath flashes white.
My throat chokes up. "What happened?"
"Burned to a crisp. Wasn't even twenty-five years old."
His voice breaks, but he says it so matter-of-factly it takes my breath away.
For the first time, I falter. "I'm sorry."
"You will be." Just like that, the mean son of a bitch is back. "Getting attached—it's a fucking trap. People die. They get hurt, they change. Sometimes they go into a burning building, and it doesn't matter if you rush in right after them. They don't come back, you hear me?"
Yeah, I do. Loud and clear.
He's bristling, every muscle tense, and God. I want to wrap my arms around him. I want to hold him close until he can't push me away anymore. I want to watch him shake and sob.
But he'd never let me. Not in a million years—certainly not now.
I soften my voice, though, letting some of the tension and defensiveness leak out of me. "That's why you refuse to have anything to do with any of them."
"Bingo." He steps back, letting air rush in between our bodies. I can't decide if it's a relief or a disappointment. His eyes, still ringed with pain, flash cold. "If you were smart, you wouldn't, either."
I have nothing to say to that. I had my reasons for staying away from my shiftmates when I first started here. They were good ones, too—maybe not as good as Street's but good. My old crew betrayed me. I didn't think I could ever trust again.
I'm still not sure I can.
But I know I'm happier now than I was when I was pushing them all away.
I bet he would be, too, if he ever decided to let himself.
I'm not enough of an asshole to call him out on that again, though. Not after he just ripped his ribcage open and showed me the beating, bleeding heart of him.
But apparently I am enough of an asshole to reach right in.
"What about you and Walker?" I ask quietly.
The glare he shoots me stops me cold. "You don't know a goddamn thing about it."
With that, he storms the rest of the way down the hallway and out the back door.
For a second, instinct screams at me to follow him. Nothing about that conversation feels done. He slung accusations at me. He confessed his own pain, and then he stalked away, and now I'm standing here, watching an afterimage of him as it recedes.
I shiver down to my bones.
I don't move a muscle, though. I stand there, trying to collect myself.
If I did follow him, it wouldn't end well. He's running too hot, and maybe I am, too. We'd probably end up screaming at each other, tearing into the weak spots we seem to be so incredibly skilled at finding.
That or we'd fuck, hard and wild and angry.
And even I know that would only make things worse.
Sighing out a long inhalation, I head in the opposite direction. I still need to find the guy I'm relieving and check in, figure out what duties I need to tackle this morning before any calls come in. All I can do is hope he and the rest of the guys in
the house didn't stumble upon me and Street during our confrontation.
I chuckle darkly to myself as I round the corner toward the common area. The last time I was worried about someone walking in on me, I was getting spit-roasted on a bathroom floor. Now I'm just hoping nobody heard me telling my obviously traumatized co-worker that he's full of shit.
Man, my life is complicated these days.
Shaking it off, I make a bee-line toward the kitchen, because clearly I need more caffeine. For a second, I dare to dream that the place will be deserted.
But no. Of course it isn't.
"Morning," Walker says in greeting.
As always, he looks unfairly good, standing in front of the coffee maker, his red plaid flannel shirt tucked into his jeans like he's a freaking sexy lumberjack fireman or something. He has his radio and his clipboard and this empathetic frown of concern on his gorgeous face.
Because of course he heard everything.
Of course.
And I can't even fucking deal anymore. I toss myself into one of the barstools lined up by the counter and drop my head into my hands.
"Please. Just give me some coffee before you yell at me." I squint up at him from between my fingers. "Please."
28
For a few seconds that feel like hours, Walker stands there, staring at me. I groan and cover my eyes again.
Another beat or two passes before the sound of ceramic clinking on formica pulls me out of my despair. The slosh of hot coffee hitting the bottom of a mug has me feeling about as close to cheery as I think can be reasonably expected.
I lift my head as Walker slides the steaming mug toward me. I accept it gratefully. I blow on it once, then take a scalding sip.
Okay, that's better.
I still wince in anticipation as I raise my gaze to my lieutenant's again.
His expression is serious, but the hint of a smile playing with the corners of his mouth betrays him.
Now there's just the question of whether he's laughing with me or at me.
I take another fortifying sip, then put the mug down. "Okay, fine, go ahead."
"I don't have any idea why you think I'm going to yell at you."
"Really?" I wave in the general direction of the hallway where I flirted with and/or yelled at sixty percent of the guys on our crew.
Softening his mouth and his eyes, Walker crouches to lean his elbows on the countertop. It puts his clear blue eyes more or less level with mine.
"Whatever you want to do on your time is your prerogative, Chapman."
Sure, right. Indulging him, I glance at the clock. "And my shift started three minutes ago. What about that?"
"You planning to perform your duties at your full capacity?"
"Of course."
"Any interpersonal shit with the crew going to affect how you work with them?"
"No." I grit my teeth.
I would never. Even only knowing them for a few weeks—I have their backs. I swore that oath.
I may never one hundred percent trust them to have mine, but that would be true whether I was fucking them, screaming at them, whatever. That's my own damage, not theirs.
Then his voice deepens. Gazing right into my eyes, he asks, "Are you happy?"
And I swear to God, the way he's looking at me, it's as if he actually cares.
For a second, I flounder.
My last lieutenant was fine. Impassive, kind of above his people, apparently willing to fuck me over at the drop of a hat, but other than that…fine.
The only other person I've served under who seemed to actually care about me was Duke. From the first time I met him to the last time he sent me out on that final fucking job, he always had a kind word, always asked after me on a personal level.
But I never saw him stare as deeply into my soul as Walker is right now.
Walker doesn't just care if I'm happy. He's invested.
The warmth radiating off of him terrifies me, at the same time that melts right on down to my bones.
"Yeah," I croak. "I mean—"
There are so many caveats to that, so many levels on which I can't believe anything that's happening is real.
Walker doesn't want to hear any of them. "Good," he says with finality.
Then he reaches out. He places his hand over mine where it rests on the handle of my mug. He squeezes, and the warmth turns into liquid heat.
It's a reassuring touch, but fuck me if it isn't an arousing one, too. I can't help it. I release my mug and turn my hand over, intertwining our fingers for a long moment. My blood goes hotter, tingles shooting up and down my arm.
Then he lets me go. Rising to his full height, he takes a couple of steps back. He's putting distance between us. Cooling the heat that just flared up between our bodies.
But it doesn't feel as if he's closing any doors.
I draw in a deep breath and let it out nice and slow. The never-ending thread of arousal that seems to be humming through me this morning thins out into something I can think past, at least.
Walker reaches for his own coffee, which he'd abandoned by the machine when I wandered in. We drink our caffeine in silence for a few minutes. The air is heavy, the quiet loaded, but it's comfortable all the same.
A persistent thought keeps ticking around in the back of my brain, though.
All the things Walker just said were vague, but it seemed pretty clear that he was talking about what's going on between me and Corey and Sal and Jaquan.
Only that wasn't the real powder keg I walked away from in that hall.
I mull it over for a bit, trying to decide how to open up that particular can of bees. Finally, I just go for it. "And what about Street?"
Walker chuckles into his coffee, but somehow it almost sounds sad. "Isaac? I wouldn't worry too much about him."
"Don't pretend you didn't hear him at me yelling back there."
"If I started freaking every time someone on my crew got yelled at by Street, I'd never stop."
"But what he said—"
"Believe it or not, him opening up to you is a good thing. He may act like he's pissed, but he'll come around. He was just excited to have another grumpy cat to sulk around the station with. Turns out you're not planning on letting yourself be miserable for the next ten years, so he's disappointed, sure. But that's not your problem." Walker sets his coffee mug down, the tilt of his mouth turning grave. "He's one of us, okay? He may not act like it half the time, but he is. Don't ever doubt it."
I doubt everyone, but that's not the point.
I swallow, my throat tight. "And what he said at the end there, about you and him…"
I threw that verbal spear at him mercilessly. To my surprise, he not only took it in his chest, he basically drove it in deeper.
But the bond between Walker and Street is obvious. Street may try to hold himself apart, but Walker pulls him back in.
Sadness colors the normally bright blue of Walker's eyes. "It's complicated."
"Are you guys…?" I'm not even sure what I'm asking.
"Friends? Yeah, I like to think so. Even now."
"Is that all?"
He'd have every right to slap me if he wanted to. I'm not trying to imply they're gay for each other or anything. It just seems like whatever exists between them is more than simple, strained friendship.
"We've known each other for a long, long time," he says carefully. "Was it ever more than that? No. Could it have been?" He considers for a moment, gaze going distant. "Who knows? We're both mostly straight, but we're also both…flexible." His knuckles flash white against the countertop. He shoots me another tight, sad smile. "Doesn't really matter, though."
I rein in my frown.
I may be new here.
But I'm pretty sure it matters a lot.
29
Despite the first fifteen minutes of my shift involving more interpersonal conflict than I think I had in my first three years as a firefighter back upstate, the rest of the shift passes without any major incide
nts.
Street won't meet my gaze, while Walker constantly keeps trying to.
Corey's more or less normal, except that hangs back with me a little more than usual. When we return from a routine call-out, he sticks around to help me out of my gear, his fingertips lingering on the sensitive skin at the nape of my neck and at my wrists.
And Jaquan makes a big deal of eating a peach as if it were a pussy, which is totally fine, and doesn't have me flushing all the way down to my toes.
Sal smiles conspiratorially at all of it.
It's these little things, though. My chest goes tight as I realize exactly how invested I've gotten in the handful of weeks I've been here. I still eat my meals alone, but I smile at co-workers in the hallways. I joke with them during drills.
Things I never thought I'd get to do again. Things I never imagined I'd ever want to.
We get another couple of call-outs in the evening—one set of Christmas lights with bad wiring that set some curtains on fire, one burned casserole and an oversensitive smoke alarm.
After, I shower alone, then end up plopping down in the common room to watch some mindless TV. Street wanders in like he often does. He does a double-take at my presence, then darts his gaze away with a glower. My chest tightens up, and I half consider heading up to my bunk just to avoid him, but fuck that. I work here. I have a right to be in this space.
Similarly, stubbornly determined, Street tosses himself into the recliner on the opposite end of the room from me. His simmering annoyance radiates across the space, but it comes with a certain charged tension, too.
After my show ends, I grab the remote and hold it up in offering. He lifts his hands to catch it, and I toss it to him.
And that's the end of our interaction for the night.
In the morning, we part ways with a shared grunt of acknowledgement, which basically puts us back where we were before he cornered me and sexily told me I was an idiot, so I guess that's basically settled.
I trade off my duty list to the good old Bob, then hit my locker for my coat. I shrug it on, hanging for a minute to see if any of the other guys might be on their way out, too.