by Emilia Finn
Rory, our lady on dispatch, speaks above the din so her voice pulses from the speakers installed all over the station. “Residential fire, one-oh-one Grafton. Fibro house, two stories, called in by the neighbor. No one is home.”
“That makes this better.” The second Cootes throws herself into the truck beside the rest of us, I slam the door shut, and Sloane starts us forward. “No one is home, no one is trapped, no one is hurt. We put the wet stuff—”
“On the red stuff,” the guys call back as one.
“As soon as we arrive on scene,” I look to Rizzo, “hose operator. You know your job. Get us connected, get it done fast.” I look to Cootes. “Pump operator. You know what needs to be done.”
I don’t need to say any of this. I never do; my crew is well practiced, and we haven’t had an incident on the job in years. I can trust these people with my life—and do, daily—but talking it out while we drive is how I align my thoughts. It’s how I center myself and prepare to face the heat.
“Tillers.” I look to Crow and Chow, named for the first’s inability to shut up, and the latter’s inability to stop eating. “Ladders up, get us onto that second level as soon as I give you the go.”
This town is small, the streets, often empty, so it takes only a minute in the truck for us to spot our target and my eyes to scour it.
“Heavy smoke showing on Alpha and Bravo.” I speak for my crew, but also into my radio, for the firehouse and my superiors who listen in. “Gonna stretch the two inch and come in through the front.” I look to Cootes. “We’re gonna hit the exterior with the deck gun while you guys get set up. I want a second gun on the garage. And once we’re in, I want to vent horizontally, then I’ll start my primary search.”
“Yes, Lieutenant.”
“In and out, let’s do it right,” I tell them all. “Be safe, be smart, and if we’re fast, we’ll still hit end of shift.”
Axe barks out a loud laugh and looks to the clock in the dash. “Five minutes till end of shift, Lew. Can we do it?”
“Sure we can. Besides, I have somewhere to be tonight, so we don’t have a choice. If you make me late, you’re running more laps the second we’re back on.”
At seven on the dot, after handing the Grafton scene over to another team for monitoring, I enter the opulent ballroom inside a new hotel in town named the Oriane. Flowers and crystals drape from the ceiling, silk curtains, and sparkling chandeliers. Fairy lights dangle between the lace and silk, and candles illuminate each table so the fancy dishes and shiny silverware sparkle against the folks in gowns.
It’s all a massive fire hazard. But hell, who cares about that nonsense when someone gets to show off their diamonds, right?
I wear a monkey suit on direct orders from my sister Abby and soon-to-be sister-in-law Nadia, seeing as how Mitch pulled his finger out of his ass and landed a keeper fish. My tie chokes me, and my shoes don’t feel nearly as comfortable as my boots, but I’m under strict instructions to be here and look ‘dapper’.
That’s the word those heathens used when they invited me. It was more like they demanded I come, and when I said I was busy working and whatnot, they threatened my life and essentially accused me of lighting fires to get out of fancy events.
So basically, not even the hoarder home on Grafton could keep me away from this shindig, for fear of the girls saying mean things about me.
“Nixon?”
I glance up and grin when Abby bustles my way in a gown much too grown for the woman I still consider a child.
My sister is tiny, five feet nothing, and weighs much too little. She’s lost both of her breasts to cancer over the years, and her hair is still a little short from her last battle with the disease this past year. She’s well now, thriving, even, but her appearance is always a stark reminder that she’s fragile and fighting a disease that very much wants to end her life.
Which is why I show up to events like this, looking all ‘dapper’ and shit.
“You look so handsome.” She stops right in front of me, red hair flaming beneath the glow of the chandeliers above, and fixes my tie.
Of the six Rosa children, Abby got our mother’s Irish looks: the fiery hair, the pasty skin, and the freckles scattered all over her face and chest. But the rest of us, five boys born over five consecutive years, take after our Portuguese father. Olive skin and midnight-black hair, not one of us is under six feet tall.
I’m the youngest, the fastest at track, and arguably the kindest of us all.
Mitchell is snappy and ill-tempered.
Beckett is kind, too, but he does it with the express intention of falling into bed with a long-legged woman.
And Corey and Troy rarely take the chance to be kind. They simply don’t interact if they don’t want to.
I’m the peacemaker of the Rosas, the more sensitive one—probably because I was the baby until Abby came along. Once she did, our world was tipped on its head when she needed extra care and attention.
Being sensitive isn’t a trait I dislike in myself; in fact, my ability to not be a cave dweller comes in quite handy when in public situations.
Today’s incident involving a fire hose and an apple pie shouldn’t count. Everyone knows not to fuck with a man’s pie.
When Abby is done fussing with my tie, I lean in and drop a kiss to her cheek. “You look beautiful, Cadabby. How do you feel?”
She rolls her eyes, tired of me asking the same question every single time I see her. “I’m fine. Actually,” she adds, “I spoke to my oncologist today, and everything is good.” She flashes a wide grin. “Everything is perfect.”
“Where’s Serrano?” I look around the ballroom in search of her seven-foot-tall commando husband—yeah, her choice in men surprised us all. “Did you force him to come to this mess, too?”
“Yup. And he’s here, doing the right thing and supporting our new friend.” Abby snags a glass of wine from a passing server, then a second, and thrusts it into my hands. “Cheers, Nixon. To the Oriane, and the client I’ve slaved over for months because I really, really wanted the contract.”
“Yeah,” I huff. “Totally worth all the stress. Cheers.”
She clinks her glass against mine and snickers. “Grump. How was work?”
“Shit. We were called out nine minutes before the end of shift.”
“Cussing,” she smarts. “You could have just said your day stank, or was hard, or the fires were bothersome.”
“But why say so many words,” I tilt my head, “when I could just say shit?”
She smacks my arm and draws a teasing laugh from my chest.
“I saw smoke in town this afternoon,” she adds when I don’t apologize for the swears. Abby is anti-cussing, but apparently pro-army-commando-husband who carries weapons and has machine parts for a heart. “That was yours?”
“Yeah, over on Grafton. Hoarder house, but the family was away, so no one had to rush in. We beat it down pretty quick, and now the B team are keeping an eye on it while I put on a suit and monkey around for my baby sister.”
Stepping around her, I take a second study of the room. Soft piano music comes from the platform at the front. People, hundreds of them, mill about in their formal best. My brothers do their part, talk to people, smile even when they don’t want to, all because their sister asked them to, and the other women in my life—Nadia, and Arlo, Nadia’s cousin—walk laps of the ballroom and make sure this event goes off without a hitch.
“Remind me again why this hotel is so important to you, Cadabby? From where I stand, you’ve delivered your flowers, and whoever bought them has paid for them.” I narrow my eyes and lean closer. “You invoiced the client, right? You’ve been paid?”
“Of course she paid me,” she huffs. “We’re here because the owner is my friend. She’s put a lot of work into this place, a lot of money, and if it flops, she’ll be sad as heck.”
“And we don’t want this stranger to be sad as heck, right?”
“Right. We don’t want an
yone to be sad as heck. But especially not Idalia. She’s sweet, and she busted her butt for this. She deserves the win.”
“Idalia?” I let that name roll over my tongue just to see how it feels. “Have I met this person and completely blanked it?”
“No, silly. She’s new to town, and was traveling back and forth during the build.”
“Okay, and you know her… how?”
“Flowers, Nixon!” She smacks me square in the middle of my forehead. “Pay attention.”
“I’m trying to,” I laugh. “I’m tired, okay? And I’m trying to figure out why the hell you’re so invested in someone’s hotel when you’re only the florist. I mean, there’s Bobby Kincaid,” I point toward a dude as he wanders by with his blonde bombshell wife. “You create a bouquet for him every single week. Yet I don’t see you climbing through his kitchen window to make sure his marriage is going well.”
“You’re so strange,” she grumbles. “I am invested in their marriage, but they’re so solid, they hardly need my good wishes. And like I’ve said a bunch of times already, this hotel is special because the owner is special.”
“But you said the owner only just moved here. So she’s barely an acquaintance.”
“You’re barely an acquaintance,” she grumbles, only to perk up and glance across the room when she hears her name.
Arlo is an eighteen-year-old… jack of all trades. She kinda rolls around town and does whatever she wants: tutoring, flower arrangements, art murals—aka graffiti—helping old biddies cross the street… and then there were the couple days last month when she came into the station and tried her hand at dispatch.
It didn’t work out.
Not because she’s incompetent, but because her aspirations go bigger than a desk job and being tied down for eight hours at a time.
She calls Abby over now with a head tilt that men are yet to understand, but women, I guess, are born naturally with that translator.
“I have to go.” Abby turns back to me. “Be good. And don’t fall asleep in the corner. I can already see the bags under your eyes, but it’s barely seven p.m.”
“I just finished a twenty-four-hour shift, Cadabby.” And speaking of it makes a yawn take over my body. “I’m staying for an hour, honoring my promise to you, then I’m hitting the sack and staying out for eighteen.”
“Solid plan.” She nods toward a set of double doors. “Kitchen is that way. If you stand by the doors, you’ll get first pick at the snacks that roll out.”
“Works for me.”
When Abby makes a beeline through the crowd and disappears amongst the horde, I head toward the kitchen and grab Beckett when he leans in on a woman he has no business leaning in on.
“Come this way before you get yourself killed.”
“What did I do?” My brother is about my height, but a little slimmer, a little lighter. Somehow, he makes wearing a suit appear easy. Tolerable, even. “Nix?”
I shake my head as I pull him into place. “Stand here and wait for the food. And stop trying to get a peek at Jess Bishop’s ‘baby,’ everyone knows you’re looking at her tits.”
“Not everyone evidently,” he snickers. “I’m still alive, aren’t I?”
“Yeah, but that has nothing to do with your charm or subtlety, and everything to do with the fact that Serrano protects you. Serrano knows Abby would be sad if her brother was maimed and murdered, so he shields you from Bishop. But that patience will run out soon. Better make your peace with God, Beck. You’ll be meeting him soon.”
“Oh, food.” The moment the kitchen doors open and a server in black and white steps out, Beck sweeps the entire tray from her hands, and gets away with it because of his grin. “Thank you, darlin’.”
“Oh…” Stunned, the woman stands between us for a moment, empty-handed and without purpose. Then when Beck clicks his tongue and nods back toward the doors, she twirls and disappears.
“Abby will kill you.” And yet, I sidle up on his left and begin picking at the tray of… “What the fuck is this?”
He stuffs a handful into his mouth and shrugs. “Mushrooms, I think. With weird stuff in the middle.”
“I’d have preferred pigs in a blanket,” I admit. “But beggars and choosers and all that shit.” I toss some in and groan at how delicious they are. “Jesus, I don’t remember the last time I ate.”
“I heard there was apple pie today.”
“Not for me,” I grunt. “I don’t wanna talk about it.” I grab another stuffed-with-something-soft mushroom and toss it into my mouth. “Those motherfuckers ate my pie while I was on the phone. Then we caught a fire, and now I’m here.”
“Thought you didn’t wanna talk about it?”
“I don’t. Shut up.”
When another server, not the same as before, steps out of the kitchen, Beck switches our trays. He hands over our half-done mushrooms, and snags a tray of something else.
I study the woman, barely older than Arlo, and smile. “Do you know what’s being served for dessert?”
“Er…” The girl is dumbfounded at our ravenous hunger. Or perhaps it’s our complete lack of manners that makes her gulp. “I don’t… I don’t know.”
“Do you think you could find out?” Beck purrs. “Pretty please?”
“If it’s apple pie, I might die and go to heaven,” I add with a groan. “But really, anything with sugar is fine.”
“Add a dollop of cream to the side,” Beck inserts, “and I’m marrying the chef.”
The girl watches us in silence for a moment more, then Beck does what Beck does; he nods toward the kitchen in a total douchebag way, but somehow convinces the girl it’s sexy.
“Could you check for us?”
“S-s-sure. I’ll check.”
He grins and bites his bottom lip. He’s in full smolder mode. “Thank you.”
When she’s gone, he looks to me and drops the sex-kitten act. “If they serve apple pie tonight, you owe thanks to some higher power. Or, ya know, you thank that chick for running out to Jonah’s Store and buying it for you.”
“How was your day?” I pick at the new tray of food—pastries of some sort—then nudge him. “We’re getting closer to the pigs in blankets.”
“My day was good. Patricia had her babies.”
“Again?” I scowl and study my older brother. “Wasn’t she pregnant last year, too?”
“Yup. It’s getting dangerous, so I’m gonna say something soon. A woman can’t be expected to pop them out just because he wants it every two fucking minutes.”
“You should put that in a brochure,” I laugh. “‘Beckett Rosa, misogynist at first glance, but a feminist at heart. A woman’s reproductive system should not be for commercial gain.’”
“Sounds like a TV jingle to me,” he snickers. “You for hire?”
“Nope. Fuck you. Oh, the hotshots are coming to the house in a couple weeks.”
“Fire jumpers?” He plops a pastry into his mouth and angles around to face me. “Forest fire fighters? Why are they coming?”
“Because we’re surrounded by forest,” I tease. “They’re coming down for a training thing. We’ll get to learn about their shit, they’ll learn about ours.”
“And you’ll have a chance to fangirl for the crazy fuckers who jump outta planes for fun?” He snorts. “Pack extra tube socks and tissues.”
“Filth,” I grumble. I toss another pastry in and finally feel the effects of food expanding in my belly. It’s touching the sides, when, an hour ago, I wondered if I’d ever truly feel full again.
When the kitchen doors open once more, Beckett thrusts the platter forward and prepares to steal a third, but this server has nothing to offer us. Her hands are empty, her eyes large and glacial.
She wears black and white, like everyone else, and heels, though they’re short and sensible, considering she’ll be on her feet all night. Plump lips, thick hair, and, well… I don’t want to sound like Beckett, but when I peek around back, I find she fills out her
pants in the most delectable way.
“Gentlemen. Is there a reason you’re standing at the kitchen doors and stealing platters before they make their way to the guests?”
“We’re guests.” Beck likes what he sees, and he’s never once in his life not jumped first. So with a sly grin and a subtle re-tuck of the platter so he’s no longer expecting the server to take it, he steps forward and ducks his head in such a way that he can peek up through his lashes. “You’re accent, Miss…? What should I call you?”
“Uninterested,” she brushes him off. “Why are you harassing the staff?”
“Italy?” he pushes on. “That’s an Italian accent. Milan?”
“Is that the only Italian city you could remember off the top of your head?” She scoffs. “You need to move along and stop hounding my—”
“Rome,” Beck inserts. “Sparta.”
She stops and firms her lips. “Really?”
“We. Are. Sparta.” Beck flashes his fuck-me-now grin and stops barely short of the jazz hands. “Right?”
“No,” she counters in a flat tone. “It’s ‘This is Sparta’, culo. And Greece is not—”
“Culo?” He barks out a loud laugh. “I know what you just said! Jesus, Italy. What would your boss think if they found out you were sassing the guests?”
She chooses silence instead, writes my brother off from existence, and looks to me. For the first time since stepping out, her eyes meet mine, and her body tenses. From exasperation to… fear? Shock? Mayyyybe she thinks I’m sexy.
“Hi.” I smile—a real smile, not anything I learned from my moronic brother—then I offer a hand and have to swallow when she takes it. “He’s stupid,” I tell her. “And we’re sorry for bothering the staff.”
“Greece isn’t a part of Italy.” She pumps my hand once, twice, slowly as her eyes scour and catalogue my face. “You know that, right?”
“Yes,” I chuckle and release her hand. Did I make it sweaty, or was that her? “I know that. And I know Gerard Butler is neither King Leonidas, nor is he Grecian.”
“Naples?” Beck asks.