“No shit?”
They loaded the plates, and Mitch slid under the bar. Nic stood directly over his face to spot him. He couldn’t help staring up her loose-fitting workout shorts. Stop. He closed his eyes and grunted off fifteen reps. She helped guide the bar back to the rack.
“You farm boys bench press cows when you get bored?”
As he sat up, Nic straddled him and said, “Let me see that ink on your arm.” She lifted off his T-shirt. “Damn, Garner, you have one hell of a bod.” She rested her warm hand on his tense stomach and examined the jumping green deer. “The guys said that’s a tractor emblem? I don’t get it. A tractor instead of your high school sweetheart?”
“I guess you think it’s pretty stupid, but I’ve seen some pretty stupid tattoos around here too.”
“Oh, settle the fuck down. I’m just asking.” Her face reddened. “You talking about mine?”
“I’m just saying. I don’t know what I’m saying.”
She pulled down the front of her T-shirt and red sports bra exposing a tattoo of a small white dove above her left breast.
“Looks like a pigeon,” Mitch said. “Why wouldn’t you have a tattoo of your high school sweetheart?”
She laughed. “It’s supposed to be a dove, idiot. But you’re right. It looks like a stupid pigeon.”
“What about the one on your ahh…”
“My ass? Bad mistake.”
She ran her hands up and down his arms. Her eyes turned glassy. She ripped off her T-shirt and red sports bra in one motion. Mitch gulped. His erotic fantasies didn’t do her justice. Nic grasped the back of his head and kissed him hard, running her tongue over his. Her hand moved over his chest, down to his waist, and into his sweatpants. She gazed into his eyes as she gripped his hard-on.
He pulled her hand away. “Okay, okay, okay. You had your fun.”
“What you talking about?”
“These games you’re playing. This is getting crazy.”
“What games? I just wanna fuck.”
“Wait, what?”
Her turquoise eyes glistened. She slid her hand back inside his sweatpants.
What the hell? He grabbed the back of her neck and pressed his lips to hers.
He stopped. “What if we get caught?”
“I know, hey? Now shut up.” She pushed him back on the bench and tugged off his sweatpants. “I see I got your attention.”
She slid her shorts down her thighs. Mitch sucked in a deep breath. This was really happening. As she was stepping out of her shorts, the fire alarm chimed with a report of a house fire only two blocks away. She pulled her shorts up and slipped on her T-Shirt, leaving the red bra on the floor. She nodded at Mitch’s erection and said, “Don’t trip on that thing.” She laughed and sprinted to the stairs.
Mitch snatched his scattered clothing off the floor. After yanking on his sweatpants, he flew up the stairs, ran to the rig, and geared up. Nic was on the other side of the rig. Together they jumped into the cab.
The rig left without Kenny. As soon as they hit the street, Mitch smelled smoke. A dark cloud of brown and black smoke mushroomed high in the sky. Captain Reemer leaned around his tall seat and said, “We got a worker. Kenny had to run out for supplies. You two will have the fire. I gotta take command. The chief and Truck Twelve are at another fire.”
Nic nodded at Mitch, her expression scary serious. “Ready to rock and roll?”
Adrenaline electrified every cell of Mitch’s body as they approached the dilapidated Victorian. Most windows were boarded. The ones that weren’t spewed churning, angry smoke. The boss keyed the rig radio, “Dispatch, Engine Fifteen reporting fire in a three-story wood-frame vacant. Smoke coming from all floors.” He handed Nic his portable radio. “Take this. I’ll use Crusher’s.”
“Let’s go, Garner.”
Mitch and Nic hoisted hose onto their shoulders, allowing it to play out as they rushed to the back of the smoking house.
Nic kicked open the back door. Hot ink-black smoke gushed at them, the kind of smoke that could ignite in a deadly flashover without warning if not vented. They’d have to wait for backup before going in. The hose line snapped rigid behind them. Air hissed from the nozzle as Nic bled the line until water flowed. She shut it down. “Mask up. We got water.”
Mitch couldn’t believe what he heard. The idea of crawling into this blinding hot blackness had his guts churning. She disappeared into the smoke. He had no choice. He followed, keeping one hand on her back.
“Help me find the basement door,” she said, her voice muffled by the face piece. “It should be around here somewhere.”
He slid his free hand along one side of the wall and then the other. “Think I found it.”
“Okay, stay off to the side and open it.” Her hand was now on his back.
Scorching heat blasted at them. “Close it,” she hollered. “I hate fucking basement fires.” Into her radio, she said, “Hey, boss, we’ll need the basement windows out.”
Mitch’s heart hammered at his ribcage, and she sounded like she was placing an order for pizza. He remembered Crusher telling him how Lt. Laubner screwed up and lost a cub because he made a bad call at a basement fire. He looked back to where he thought the back door was.
Shattering glass. “Windows are out,” Nic said. “Open it. Let’s go.”
He hesitated.
“Goddammit, Garner, get that basement door open.”
He yanked it open. “Too hot. We gotta back out.”
“No way. This is our fire. Stay low.”
“It’s too hot.”
“Fire’s waiting.”
When they got to the bottom, it was hot, but nothing like the top of the stairs. Nic stopped. “Listen for it. Most of these basements are loaded with shit. Makes it a bitch to find the fire. Hear it? Off to the left. Let’s get the son of a bitch.”
He struggled to stay with her while dragging the heavy hose behind him in the pitch-black darkness. He kept getting hung up on abstract shapes. The searing heat bled through his turnout coat as they blindly crawled deeper into the maze. He hunched lower.
“It’s just ahead. See the orange glow?” Nic said. “Here, take the line.”
Mitch slammed open the bail. The water rip-rapped through the hose. He blasted the orange glow, swirling the nozzle in a figure eight pattern, chasing fire through the basement until it banked down and went out. He finally felt the exhilaration of knocking down a working fire.
The fire was extinguished by the time Engine Thirty’s crew came down to back them up. When the smoke cleared and masks were off, Engine Thirty’s lieutenant poked Mitch in the chest. “Tell your asshole crew we didn’t forget about those doughnuts. Payback’s a bitch.”
“Eat shit, dickhead,” Nic said from behind Mitch. “You and your crew would be experts on that, hey?”
“We’re done here,” the lieutenant barked to his crew. “Let the dyke and her cub finish.” His crew followed him up the stairs.
Mitch faced Nic and they both broke out in belly laughs.
Captain Reemer trotted down the stairs. “See you got to Nowicki. Good.” He surveyed the charred basement. “Nice job.”
“It was all your cub,” Nic said.
The captain nodded. “Wet it down one more time and pick up. I gotta give the chief a report. Meet you at the rig.”
“Why’d you say that?” Mitch asked Nic.
“You got the fire, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, but you’re the one who—”
“Look, we’re all scared shitless at our first basement fire.”
If they had backed out and Engine Thirty took the fire, Mitch knew he could never have faced Ralph and the crew.
When they finished in the basement, Mitch went to the bottle rig for fresh air bottles. Jamal’s friend, LaMont, shuffled up to h im, h is head hanging.
“I didn’t know your company was here,” Mitch said.
Tear tracks lined LaMont’s soot-covered face. “Shoulda never
told Jamal about my sister.”
“What the hell you talking about?”
LaMont didn’t answer.
“C’mon, let’s get away from the rig.” Mitch pulled LaMont between two houses. “Now, what?”
“My baby sister, Chirelle, been hanging with that One-Niner, DeAndre. She come home beat bad, her face all angry. An’ here she carrying his baby.” He paused. “Momma was crying an’ I got agitated. What could I do? Can’t go messing with that bunch.”
Mitch shook LaMont by the shoulders. “What about Jamal?”
“Never shoulda told him.”
He shook him harder, then let go. “Why…”
LaMont rubbed his shoulders. “You and Jamal tight. Figure you got a right to know.”
“Why didn’t you go to the cops?”
“Chirelle be dead before they ever got to him. An’ me too.” He slumped away.
* * *
While cleaning hose back at the firehouse, Nic asked Mitch why he was so quiet. He told her he was exhausted from the fire. He didn’t know what he was going to do but knew he had to keep it to himself. There would be an investigation.
After lunch, he went to the joker stand. At two-thirty, the dark blue Mercury Cougar stopped across the street and Jasmine got out. DeAndre leaned his head out the window, flashing his gold front teeth in a sneering grin at Mitch. The car pulled away, trailed by thumping bass.
Mitch had asked Jasmine about DeAndre once. She told him she got rides home from him, that’s all. Mitch needed to mind his own business.
“Always study with your books closed?” Nic asked from behind him.
“I was such a wuss at the fire.”
“Forget that.” She waved her red sports bra in his face. “How about we go out tomorrow night?”
“Okay? Hey, want to help with the kids this afternoon?”
“Can’t stand kids.” She headed to the hallway. “Keep an eye on those little shits. They’ll steal you blind.”
As soon as she left, he went back to thinking about DeAndre. Jamal deserved justice. And Jasmine deserved to be free of that miserable bastard before it was too late.
Chapter 29
Mitch pulled his high powered .30-06 Browning hunting rifle from the closet. He’d gone up to his flat without stopping to visit Miss Bernie this morning. She’d know something was wrong.
He tore the rifle down and went about cleaning and oiling it. The smell of light oil and feel of cold steel quickened his pulse. He snapped the Browning together and put the smooth wood stock to his shoulder. Pointing it out the window, he focused the scope and clicked the trigger. On the farm when a predator tormented their herds, Mitch hunted it down and killed it. The rifle was ready. He was ready. But first, he had a date.
* * *
Nic’s apartment was on Knapp Street, not far from Water Street, on Milwaukee’s trendy East Side, where he and Jamal had spent many nights drinking. He knocked on her tenth-floor apartment door. He waited and knocked again. He rapped harder and the door flew open. A large red bath towel covered her dripping body. “Jesus, Garner. You always gotta be early?”
“Wasn’t sure if I could find the place.”
She wagged her finger in his face. “Hoping to catch me in the shower, you perv?”
“I can come back.”
“Don’t be stupid. I got a bottle over there. Whiskey’s what you country boys like to swill, isn’t it?”
“Prefer Courvoisier, but I’ll settle for your cheap whiskey.”
“You should smile more. Looks good on you.”
He stepped inside the one-room studio apartment. Along the back wall were folding closet doors. A small sofa bed took up one whole side of the room. On the other side was a narrow counter with a sink, a half-sized fridge, and four small cabinets; everything white. It was no larger than the bedroom of his flat. Dirty clothes were piled in the corner. Crusted dishes littered the sink and counter. A touch of mildew hung in the air.
“Feel free to tidy up while I finish getting ready.” Nic disappeared into the bathroom, trailed by her smoky laughter.
Mitch rinsed a dirty water glass and poured himself some Jack Daniels. He settled onto the sofa bed.
He fought the anger boiling below the surface. Fucking DeAndre.
She emerged from the bathroom rubbing her strawberry blond hair with the red towel, naked.
DeAndre can wait.
She smirked as she passed him on her way to the closet.
The flaming orange and black wings on her lower back belonged to an eagle staring at the crack of her ass. Watching her dig through the closet had him craving her naked body. He pretended to examine the glass of whiskey as she slipped into her powder blue lace bra and panties, then slithered into some faded jeans that had holes in interesting places.
She smoothed her beige, tight-fitting V-neck sweater over her curves. “Ready?”
“Can’t afford new pants?”
She crossed her arms. “You some kind of fashion expert?”
“I’ve thrown out jeans with fewer holes.”
“Very flattering, thanks.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean …”
“I’m fucking with you.” She grabbed his drink and threw down the rest of the straight whiskey without flinching. “Let’s go.”
Mitch followed her out. The exquisitely placed holes in her jeans exposed the back of her tanned thighs and the edge of her blue panties. They strolled down the well-manicured streets lined with high rises. A cool September breeze blew in from Lake Michigan, carrying the fishy smell of the shoreline. The area was alive, nothing like Miss Bernie’s neighborhood where people locked themselves away after dark.
While walking to Water Street, Mitch told her about the crap he was getting from Ralph.
She listened and when he was done tousled his hair. “Oh, poor boy. Try fitting in when you don’t have a cock and balls.”
She told him how she got hit on, talked about, and ridiculed. They were careful not to push her too far since her dad was a chief. The wives and girlfriends of her crew despised her because they didn’t want their men sleeping in the same room and using the same showers. Her looks didn’t help.
“Okay. I’m confused. The guys told me you were gay. Then we make out in the basement. And now we’re going out.”
She laughed hard and rested her forehead against his. “Those animals were all over me when I came on. They’d rub up against my ass while I washed dishes and try to sneak peeks when I dressed. And the stupid shit they’d say. They thought they were so fucking clever.” She sneered. “I couldn’t go to my dad. And I didn’t want to go sniveling to the boss.”
“What about sexual harassment rules?”
“Rules? Companies in the Core make their own rules.”
“So you’re not gay?”
She snickered. “Okay, listen close. I faked being gay to get them off me. I had a friend drop by one afternoon, a very sexy girlfriend. Took her behind the firehouse and I knew they’d be watching. We groped each other and swapped spit. Can’t say I minded it and she got into it. We went at it pretty hot and heavy, put on quite a show.” She pulled him close and ran her tongue up his neck, nibbled his ear, and ended on his lips. “But I like to feel a man inside me.” She leaned back. “Get it now?”
“Aren’t you afraid I’ll blab your secret to the others?”
She squeezed his balls. “You wouldn’t do that, would you?”
“Doesn’t it bother you what people think?”
“What do I give a shit what people think? After that, I got treated like one of the guys, and the wives actually talked to me when they came to visit their sweet hubbies.”
* * *
They made the rounds. Nic could drink as well as she fought fires. Every stop she was greeted by friends, most of them well-dressed and attractive. She made sure to introduce Mitch. She was showing him off, and he was liking the attention. When no one was looking, she’d brush her breasts against him and run her hands up
the inside of his thigh. The music, pulsing crowds, and this seductive woman had him deliciously intoxicated and horny by closing.
Staggering back to her apartment, they stopped and groped each other, their tongues jousting. Nic pulled back. “Mitch, why so sad all the time?”
“Miss Jamal.”
“You never seemed happy before, though.”
“I don’t know, Jen.”
“I’m Nic.”
His face flushed. “Sorry, I’m drunk.” He turned to walk away.
Nic grabbed his arm. “Oh, no you don’t. You’re not bailing on me now.”
Once inside the apartment, she pulled the sofa into a bed which was spread with sapphire-blue sheets. When she turned back to Mitch, he lifted her snug sweater over her head and guided her onto the bed. “Tonight you’re the cub.” He tugged her jeans off while she watched him, smirking.
She unclasped her powder blue lace bra and tossed it across the room, then stretched her arms behind her head and lay back. He slid her lace panties down her legs.
He started at the nape of her neck, nibbling with a feather-light touch until she moaned. She turned her head to the side and closed her eyes exposing more of her neck. He lifted her hand to his face and lightly kissed her wrist and palm. He moved over her body with his lips, tongue, and fingertips, lingering when she trembled. Her moaning turned to gasps. Mitch’s excitement rose along with hers. She clutched his hair and pushed his head between her legs. He teased her until he felt her thighs tighten, then pushed his tongue inside. Her hips ground into him. She shuddered violently.
She looked down at him, gasping for breath. “Where’d you learn that? Holy shit.”
“You approve?”
“Jen taught you well. Now get your clothes off.”
She watched Mitch strip. “Stand there a minute. I just want to look at you.” She blew out a loud whistle while scanning his naked body. “Okay, my turn. Lay down on your belly.”
“I’m not into any of that anal stuff.”
“Relax.”
He stretched out on the smooth satin sheets.
Nic took a small bottle from her bed stand and lathered her hands with lavender-scented oil. The oil smelled like Jennie’s hair. He shook the memory from his head and lost himself in the pleasure of Nic’s strong hands working the oil into his back and thighs.
Beneath the Flames Page 16