Feel the Fire (Hotshots)

by Annabeth Albert

Luis’s mouth went chalky and dry. As always, he tried to push away the memory of the hasty phone call when Tucker had revealed his dad’s health crisis as the reason he couldn’t make the move they’d planned for years. He’d always admired Tucker’s family-first stance, but hell, it had hurt back then.

  “So anyway, with Dad sick, no way can I leave. Not now.” Tucker’s voice had crackled, a bad connection for even worse news.

  Luis slumped down on his bed, glad he was alone. “But—”

  “They need me.” Tucker’s voice was firm. It was deeper now, subtle changes after a year apart, and Luis missed him with a fierceness that had him hugging a pillow tight against his chest, trying to keep his emotions in check.

  “So do I. I need you too.” It was true. He needed Tucker, needed his smile, the way he grounded Luis, needed him to keep Luis steady.

  “I know you do, but we’ll have the whole rest of our lives together.” Tucker was whispering now, cautious even though Luis had heard the door to his room close.

  “Which is going to start when?” Luis hated the edge to his tone, but he liked even less feeling as though Tucker was patting him on the head, dismissing his concerns so easily.

  “I...don’t know.” Tucker’s exhale echoed across the crackly connection, static that scraped down Luis’s tense spine. “Might be a while.”

  “I can’t keep waiting, Tucker. It’s not fair.”

  And that was where Luis had to end the memory, had to stop before he remembered all too well his role in how things had ended—his ultimatum, his own failure to be there when Tucker needed him. It was no wonder he had been in such a bad mood the past few days—all those old frustrations resurfacing along with a healthy dose of self-condemnation that he’d thought he’d put behind him.

  “Your dad’s still around though?” Luis forced himself back to the present, to making small talk.

  “Yeah. Moves a lot slower these days, and Aaron does most of the ranch business, but he’s still with us. Guess that’s a blessing.” Tucker didn’t sound entirely sure, and there was probably a story there but before he could pry, their drinks arrived in the window.

  “I’ve got no idea how you can drink hot coffee in this heat.” Tucker shook his head as he slipped a tip in the jar on the windowsill.

  “Tastes better.” Luis laughed. “Mike and I had this argument all the time. He always said...” Fuck it. He trailed off awkwardly because he had not meant to mention Mike at all to Tucker, ever.

  “Mike?” Tucker’s question as he pulled away from the coffee hut was soft, curious without being demanding.

  “Boyfriend.”

  “Ah.” A Grand Canyon’s worth of meaning existed in that single syllable, and hell if Luis could unpack it all.

  “He died the same year as my dad.” Honestly, it might have been easier if he’d used present tense for Mike, pretended to have something waiting back home, another layer of distance between them, but while he was many things, a liar wasn’t one them.

  “Wow. That’s...something. Must have sucked.” Tucker’s eyes were on the road, but the sympathy was clear, both in his eyes and his voice. “You were together a long time?”

  Luis had to swallow hard, both the unwanted empathy from Tucker and his own churning emotions making his throat tight. “Yeah. Almost six years. We were on the same crew. He died in the same fire where I injured my back. Shitty year doesn’t begin to cover it.”

  “I’m sorry. That’s terrible.” There was something in Tucker’s tone, something personal and compassionate, and it wiggled under Luis’s skin, burrowing deep in ways he wasn’t prepared for.

  “It’s okay.” It wasn’t, not really, not any of it, but accepting the sympathy, giving in to voicing more of his pain, that he couldn’t do.

  “Still. I hope you had a good support system. I don’t like thinking of you—anyone really—going through that much alone.”

  “I had people.” Luis focused on staring out the window at the narrow road and waves of trees broken up by a few signs of modern life. Usually he found a certain peace in vast spaces like this. He might enjoy urban amenities like live music and a wealth of dining options in his off time, but he also loved the outdoors, particularly the sorts of vistas many weren’t privileged to see. It opened up his chest, loosened his shoulders, made his worries small and insignificant, balancing him. But today, the gorgeous surroundings might as well have been rows of concrete pylons for all the effect they were having.

  “Good.” Tucker’s nearness was a problem, as was his unexpected caring. The last thing he needed or wanted was Tucker having an opinion about what he’d done with the past twenty years. He didn’t need evidence that Tucker’s sensitive side had survived adulthood, that somewhere under those muscles and rugged features lived the sweet boy who had rescued kittens and stood up for his friends.

  For his own self-protection as much any other reason, Luis let them drift off into silence as they passed into increasingly hilly terrain before Tucker came to a stop.

  “This is the first stop. Edge of where we’ll be doing the controlled burn. Fred wants your perspective on the plans.”

  “Hills always make it more challenging,” Luis said as they exited the truck, slipping back into work mode, a little less comfortably now. It was harder to stay distant when Tucker was being nice on top of being professional. Distance was in even shorter supply when his body responded to how good Tucker looked in the summer sunshine, light glinting off his short hair, sunglasses giving him a certain badass vibe, muscles flexing as they walked around. Fuck. It was one thing to appreciate Tucker’s manners and another altogether to go noticing him physically—that would only lead to more awkwardness.

  You’re not sixteen, he reminded himself. He didn’t do crushes anymore, and it didn’t matter how good Tucker’s ass looked in those work pants, admiring it was only going to get him in trouble. No, it was better to take a cue from Tucker. Be polite. Nice. But absolutely, positively no infatuations.

  * * *

  Luis was good at his job. Like infuriatingly good, to the point Tucker had to appreciate his skills. The sun beat down on them, getting on to midday, making Tucker grateful for his hat and sunglasses as he kept up with Luis’s long, fluid strides. He needed to quit making assumptions about who Luis was as an adult. The kid who had staged paint wars backstage at play rehearsal and been more obsessed with pop lyrics than algebra had grown into a professional who knew his way around a burn zone. He walked the entire perimeter of the planned area, asking smart questions about the procedures in place as he examined everything from soil to wind.

  Never once did the conversation stray back to the personal, but that didn’t mean his presence wasn’t unnerving. If anything, the focus on matters at hand allowed Tucker’s brain to wander back to what he’d learned earlier as they picked their way through the trees. Six years. Luis had been with someone that long. Another firefighter. He’d loved someone and lost them. It made Tucker’s jaw clench thinking about that kind of loss. And that sympathy was accompanied by something else, a weird twinge in his chest.

  Couldn’t be jealousy. Not possible. He hadn’t really expected Luis to spend decades pining for a teen romance that had only a handful of kisses to its name. He should be happy that Luis had built a life for himself, one where he was loved, where he could freely share that love...

  Maybe that was it. A little what if game pinging around in Tucker’s head about how different his own life might have been if he’d had Luis’s kind of bravery sooner.

  “I’m gonna tell my parents. Feels weird them not knowing.” Luis’s legs swung back and forth as he sat on the edge of the old fort in his expansive backyard.

  “Don’t do that!” Tucker leaped up, risking crashing through the brittle wood floor. His heart hammered, lips going numb at the same time, breath coming in gasps.

  “Why?” Luis turned to look at him,
holding out a hand to get Tucker to sit back down. He didn’t take it. Couldn’t.

  “Mine would kill me.” He knew it in his bones. Maybe not literal murder, but nothing would ever be the same if they knew about the kissing and hand holding with Luis.

  “Well...okay. But I’m not hiding forever.” Luis nodded with the sort of certainty Tucker wasn’t sure he’d ever have. Not here, at least. He liked playing the what-if game with Luis, imagining a future together, but it was always away from here, one of the funky little Californian neighborhoods Luis was always going on about where two men could be together and where Tucker’s family’s judgment couldn’t reach him.

  And now here he was, decades later, older and wiser, and Luis was too, and he’d apparently stuck to that resolve. Good for him.

  “You said you also wanted to show me a recent suspect spot fire?” Luis asked as they rounded back in sight of the Jeep.

  “Yup. Did you get all the data you needed here?”

  “Yes, it should be a fairly straightforward burn unless we get wind. I’ll discuss contingency plans at the next meeting and work with Garrick to make sure Dispatch is ready for any changes that might come up.”

  Huh. That was usually Tucker’s role, readying the team, working on alternative plans in case of weather, and coordinating the various crews that would be needed on site. However, he couldn’t deny Luis’s expertise. In keeping with his goal of treating him like any other coworker, he nodded curtly. “Sounds good. Keep me in the loop.”

  “Will do. Now lead on.”

  Tucker didn’t call him on his bossiness there either. And if he was honest, it wasn’t merely in the interest of keeping the peace either. He maybe liked Luis take-charge, and that was something he needed to sit with a bit. Attraction like this didn’t come along very often for him, and he needed to remind himself how foolish it would be to let it get out of hand.

  The drive took them farther into the federal lands, winding roads that gave way to an unpaved logging trail that required tight concentration to navigate and not as much opportunity for conversation.

  “When was the last rain?” Luis asked as they got out, his head apparently already deep into the job. Unlike Tucker.

  “Two weeks ago or so. I can get you exact precipitation data tomorrow back at the office.”

  “Good. I’ll need that.” Luis continued to pepper him with questions as he examined the scorched trees and blackened earth, looking at the burn pattern, tracking even minute details.

  The aftermath of a spot fire was always almost spooky—burnt trees dancing next to ones that had been spared, a weird stillness settling in the area like the terrain itself was wounded, retreating to attempt to heal.

  “I’m pretty sure this is intentional versus natural causes, but I want to do more examining.” Luis straightened from examining a particular stump.

  “You always did love a puzzle,” Tucker observed, still trying to reconcile who Luis had been with who he was now.

  “Oh yeah.” Luis gave him an unexpected grin. “My niece and nephews all love me. I’m the tio with all the Legos and contraptions. And now that the nephews are getting older, they call for me to come help out at science fair time too.”

  “Raul and Carlos had kids? How many?” Tucker remembered Luis’s older brothers as gangly college-bound sports-obsessed teens, not dads. Wait. You’re a dad too, Ryland.

  “Three boys in four years for Carlos, God love him and my poor sister-in-law. Then Raul’s two came along a little later, a boy and a girl. Five grandkids for Mami to dote on. Makes for loud holidays, but it keeps her from bugging me about adding to the numbers.”

  “She...ah...” Tucker wasn’t entirely sure how to ask what he wanted to know, but he bumbled ahead anyway. “She liked your guy? Mike?”

  “Yeah.” Luis’s smile took on a softer edge, fond and distant. “She really did. Papi took longer to warm up to him, but then they’d sit and watch Dodger games together. Mike let him talk historic stats all he wanted. That probably got him in his good graces faster than a grandkid even.”

  Tucker laughed at that. “Sounds about like your dad. Win him over with math.”

  “Yup.” Eyes clouding, Luis nodded. “Mike wasn’t out for a long time, and his family never quite knew what to make of me even after he came out. We fell out of touch pretty quickly, but my mom still brings flowers to his grave. He was a good guy.”

  “Anyone lucky enough to land you better be.” Tucker meant the words to come out as a tease, but his firm belief in the sentiment took on a more emphatic tone.

  “Ha. More like anyone crazy enough to put up with me.”

  “I’m glad you had him.” Still resolute, his voice shifted to something quieter. “You...deserve to be happy. And for what it’s worth, I truly am sorry that you lost him.”

  “Thanks.” Luis swallowed audibly, looking away at the valley below them. The air itself seemed to shift in that moment, warm breeze coming through. “Guess we should head back?”

  “Yeah.” Strangely reluctant to leave this spot, Tucker turned back to the Jeep. This time their silence felt more comfortable as they made their way back to the main road. Predictably his personal cell beeped with Walker’s ring tone as soon as they were back with a decent signal. “Can you do me a favor and glance down at my phone? I just want to make sure it’s not an emergency with the boys and don’t want to pull over if I don’t have to.”

  “Sure.” Luis grabbed Tucker’s phone from the console. “Nice case.”

  “Wade gave it to me last birthday.” It was a metallic case with subtle imagery from the reboot of the space franchise he and Luis had been obsessed with back in the day.

  “Message says, ‘FYI that we’re having dinner at Mary Anne’s tonight. Her cousin is in town and wants to meet Wade.’” Luis laughed as he set the phone back down. “Setup much? I’d say poor kid, but maybe he likes that sort of thing. So maybe lucky kid?”

  “It’s Wade. As long as the cousin likes football and hearing about workout plans, he’s good. And darn, you and I skipped lunch. I’m absolutely starving. Was counting on cooking with the boys.” A rogue thought wiggled into his brain and refused to leave. “How about you? Hungry? Want to get something after we return the Jeep?”

  If Luis truly were another coworker from out of town, he wouldn’t hesitate to make the invitation. He didn’t like eating alone, and he’d eaten countless meals with contacts in the firefighting community. It didn’t have to mean anything. But still his pulse sped up as he stopped at a four-way intersection and waited for Luis’s answer.

  Releasing a whistling breath, Luis shook his head. “That’s probably a bad idea.”

  “Come on. You need to eat. I need to eat.” Strangely, the more Luis shook his head, the more invested Tucker was in his suggestion. “This doesn’t have to be complicated. Surely we can share a simple meal together?”

  “Simple?” Luis raised an eyebrow. “When have things ever been simple between us?”

  “They could be.” Shrugging, Tucker looked away to make his turn. “They were. Once upon a time. We were friends. Nothing says we can’t be friendly again. The way I see it, we’re stuck working together. Figuring out how do that is a smart idea.”

  “There’s a lot left unsaid.” Luis’s voice was quieter now, more considering.

  “Yeah.” Tucker couldn’t dispute that. And yet he still wanted this, bad idea or not. Maybe Heidi was wrong—maybe they did need to clear the air, at least a little, if they were to find a more amicable way forward. “And maybe that’s more reason to spend a little time away from work. Eat. Talk.”

  “Talking is possibly an even worse idea than dinner.”

  “Possibly.”

  “Well, at least you’re honest.” Luis’s laugh was part snort, but not as dismissive as before. “And I am hungry. Blaze can wait, I guess, for us to grab a quick dinner.”


  “Blaze?”

  “My cat.”

  “Ah.” Another part of Luis’s life he had no clue about. Tucker had always been the animal lover, not Luis. People change, he reminded himself yet again. “Well, we won’t keep Blaze waiting too long. I know a brew pub with good wait times even at the height of the summer season.”

  “I still say this is a bad idea.”

  “You’re probably right.” Tucker laughed, but he wasn’t entirely kidding and doubted Luis was either despite his lighter tone. But perhaps more troubling than dread over the coming talk was the satisfaction at having won Luis’s agreement and the anticipation for more of his company. Yeah, Luis was right—this was a terrible, risky idea, and he was still counting down the minutes.

  Chapter Five

  This wasn’t a date, not by any stretch of the imagination. Luis had been on plenty of dates. He would know. But somehow knowing something logically did nothing for the churning in his stomach as he pulled into the restaurant Tucker had chosen. The place wasn’t far from his Bend hotel and the department headquarters, and Luis was unreasonably glad that Tucker wasn’t making him drive to Painter’s Ridge. Less chance this way of running into people one or both of them might know.

  While he waited for Tucker to pull in, he stretched his back, which was tight after hours in the Jeep. He’d need more than some basic stretching that night if he wanted to sleep. Exercise followed by the hotel’s hot tub sounded like a good prescription for getting rid of not only his sore muscles but also the tension that had plagued him ever since Rosalind had given him this assignment. The day spent with only Tucker hadn’t helped any, especially with him showing compassion and concern. Damn it. He didn’t want conflicting feelings where Tucker was concerned. Frustration was much easier to deal with.

  “Hey. You found it okay?” Tucker exited a dark blue SUV with bumper stickers promoting the Painter’s Ridge Football Boosters and the high school’s honor society. The large vehicle looked particularly suited to hauling half a soccer team and dwarfed Luis’s little compact.