Shift’s End

by A. R. Barley

  Jack and Diesel exchanged looks. Diesel’s expression was calm and professional, but sorrow filled his eyes. The more the woman kept talking, the more incoherent her responses became. She was getting worse, and the scent of burning plastic was getting stronger.

  Jack made a judgment call and unbuckled the kid’s car seat. “Come on, Jacko.” He bit back an oomph as forty pounds of wriggling, jiggling, preschooler landed in his arms. “Let’s get out of here.”

  They’d made it less than three steps before the boy articulated the question they were all thinking: “What about my mom?”

  “I don’t know what’s going on with your mom, Jack. Why don’t we get you settled and then I’ll check with my buddy Diesel?”

  “Diesel’s a funny name for a firefighter.”

  “Freaking hilarious, but your mom’s in luck because he’s the best. I’m glad he works for me.”

  “You’re his boss?” Little Jack thought about that for a long minute. His nose scrunched up. “Are you any good?”

  Crunch. Metal buckled somewhere behind him. For a moment everything smelled like gasoline. The scent was enough to make his head ache. He accelerated slightly and—

  Boom. Something exploded behind him, the noise making his ears ring and the force sending him stumbling forward. He had to twist hard to avoid falling and, damn, he was going to feel that in the morning. It’d be worth it. He was still upright. His legs were still moving. He hadn’t dropped the preschooler in his arms or—worse—crushed him.

  “Evers.” He couldn’t turn around, not when it would mean giving the kid a view of what had once been his car. Instead, he spoke hurriedly into his radio, repeating the firefighter’s name. “Evers, report.” Nothing. Oh, hell. “Come on, Evers.”

  Why the hell hadn’t he kissed him? Dating one of the firefighters who worked under him would be like playing Russian roulette with a fully loaded gun. It was a bad idea. If anyone from the department found out then he could kiss his retirement goodbye.

  It didn’t matter.

  He should have kissed him. “Goddamn it—”

  “Don’t swear in front of the kid.” For a moment he thought it was someone else’s voice crackling over the line. The street was full of firefighters. Maybe one of them had decided to risk his life by correcting Jack’s language in the middle of an emergency. Then he heard a cough. “We’re fine,” Diesel said. “We’re fine. It was the car behind us.”

  Thank God. Jack swung around to take in the damage. The row of junked cars was now on fire. Diesel hadn’t moved an inch. The man was a rock, holding Anne Marie together as they waited for the arrival of the paramedics.

  The rest of the crew was dealing with the car fire ten feet behind him. An ant warren of firefighters with chemical extinguishers had descended on the car still burning at Diesel’s back. Jack spotted Theo Wilkes and Lee Juracek both working smoothly, following every possible safety protocol.

  Everything was going to be okay. He’d left his antacids back at the firehouse, but he didn’t need them.

  Everything was going to be just fine.

  Diesel coughed. “Boss, we really need that ambulance.”

  And thank God for small miracles because lights flashed off the nearby windows. The ambulances had finally arrived, and the crew came running out with Alex Tate in the lead. The paramedic was one of the best. If anyone could keep Anne Marie breathing, it was him.

  “Paramedics are here.” Jack hoisted his passenger higher up on his hip. “Anyone else got something to say?” No answer. Damn it. He hated having to wait. “Wilkes, report!”

  “Yes, Captain!” Theo said, but his voice had a hard edge. It took him a minute to get started, and when he did his report was halting, hesitant. It was one of the reasons Jack had picked Troy when they both applied for the open lieutenant position. A man who couldn’t report in the field would never make it through the piles of paperwork that came across his desk every day.

  Chapter Nine

  “Looking good.” Diesel dropped down into the chair by the captain’s office window. They’d both stopped in the showers before relieving Troy in the office, and Jack’s skin was red from the hot water. “New shirt?”

  The captain grunted, but he didn’t look up from the paperwork he was filling out. Then his fingers stilled on the keyboard. “How’d you know?”

  “Magic.” Diesel grinned. No reason to let Jack know that his new white T-shirt still had creases from where he’d pulled it out of the package. That answer got a humph, but Jack didn’t say anything else. He just went back to typing up his report.

  Boring.

  Out the window the rest of the firefighters had finished refueling the truck and cleaning up after the fire. They’d split up, heading to the kitchen for a fresh cup of coffee or the lounge to hang out. The weather outside was decent and a handful of men were standing by the open door, sucking on cigarettes and shooting the shit. No one was anywhere near the equipment lockers.

  Diesel shifted in his chair, hooking his feet up on the crossbar under the seat. “Can I call you Jackie?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You told the kid that he could call you Jackie.” It was such a small thing, but it warmed Diesel from the inside out. He grinned. “What about me? I like Jackie.” Jack was rough and tough. The captain. Diesel’s boss. He was practically hewn out of living stone. Jackie was someone else, someone who talked to little kids about the difference between brachiosaurus and diplodocus.

  “Those were special circumstances.” Jack’s voice was dry. He didn’t stop typing.

  “Okay, so I’ll just call you Jackie under special circumstances.” That was an easy enough deal to make. Diesel went back to looking out the window. Nothing was happening. “This would be better with popcorn.”

  “Is this fun for you?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You’re not usually this relaxed. Did you jerk off in the shower? Or did you just want to be Encyclopedia Brown when you grew up?”

  “Who’s Encyclopedia Brown?”

  “He’s like Sherlock Holmes for eleven year olds.”

  “I’m not much of a reader.”

  “You bought books at the Woolf & Raven the other day.”

  “Sure, but—” Diesel didn’t need a mirror to know his cheeks were flushed, he could feel the heat under his skin “—those were romance novels.”

  The click-clack of fingers on keys stopped. When Diesel glanced over, Jack was studying him like he was a particularly hard-to-manage fire. His eyes sparked and flared like hard gems. “I thought they were sci-fi. You read bodice rippers?”

  “Gay romances,” Diesel corrected hurriedly.

  “Codpiece rippers? Is that a thing?”

  “Probably. You spend enough time on the internet, and everything’s a thing.”

  Outside Lee Juracek had finished his cigarette. He shoved his lighter into his back pocket and headed back into the firehouse. His steps were firm and deliberate. He made it halfway to the equipment locker then stopped and pulled his cell phone out. His fingers started moving. Video games. He was playing video games.

  Diesel sighed. “I don’t go for historicals anyway. I like romantic comedies, you know? Two guys meet cute, hijinks ensue, they get a happily ever after.”

  “I think the last romance I read was Pride & Prejudice back in college—I’m not big on fiction—but maybe you could loan me a book sometime.”

  That was surprising.

  Diesel fidgeted in his seat. Every instinct he had was screaming at him to turn away from the window and look Jack straight in the face. At least that way he’d be able to tell if the captain was making fun of him or not. “You wouldn’t mind that the main characters are men?”

  “I like hijinks.” The words were said low enough that at first Diesel thought he’d been mistaken.

  Di
esel’s tennis shoes made a solid thunk against the battered wood floor as he put his feet down. Muscles tensed in his neck. Nothing was happening down below. Maybe dinner had been served. Maybe a parade of Victoria’s Secret models was trooping down the alley behind the firehouse. Whatever the cause, the equipment bay was empty.

  He glanced away from the window.

  The conversation might not be over from his side, but Jack clearly had a different perspective. He’d gone back to glaring at his computer. There was no outward indication that they’d been talking about anything more important than the weather.

  Tension roiled inside him. It would be easier if he asked. At least that way he’d know what the hell was going on, except Jack’s sexuality shouldn’t matter to him one way or the other. Gay, straight, or undecided, Jack was still his boss. Dating him was a quick way to get noticed, and if someone started looking into his background, no amount of good recommendations by Peter or Tito would be able to save him.

  They’d find out about Chase.

  They’d hear about the things Diesel’d done, and then he’d be out on his ass like so much trash on the sidewalk.

  He went back to looking out the window.

  It was safer.

  A couple of minutes later footsteps thump-thumped on wood floors and then he heard the shh-thud of the office door opening and closing. He was all alone. He shouldn’t have looked.

  “Dumb ass,” he could practically hear Chase shouting in one ear, and he had been a dumb ass. Not only because he’d stuck with a man who called him names—they’d been together for so long he hadn’t noticed when Chase’s small barbs turned into tongue lashings—but because he hadn’t noticed what else Chase was doing. One day he’d gone to bed with his long-term boyfriend, a property developer who liked to get his hands dirty at the construction site, and he’d woken up with a criminal mastermind who had fingers in a hundred different pots all up and down the eastern seaboard.

  Crunch. He still heard the police bursting through the front door of their small apartment in his nightmares. Damn. He’d loved that apartment with the exposed brickwork and the view of the park. The first time he’d seen it, he’d questioned how they could possibly afford it. “Don’t worry,” Chase said. “I’ve got a buddy who owes me a favor. He’s letting this place go for a song.” And then he’d mentioned a price that was a stretch to Diesel’s small budget but wasn’t completely out of the question.

  It wasn’t until the trial was underway that he’d discovered Chase’s buddy was a weasel-dicked politician with a history of taking kickbacks for city contracts.

  He couldn’t have known, he told himself. It was the same mantra he’d been holding on to for the past year. He’d met with the prosecutor’s office a dozen times, and they’d never suspected him of anything more than bad taste in men.

  Except someone must have assumed Diesel knew more than he was saying because the night before the sentencing hearing he’d been visited by a gang of men in black masks. He couldn’t remember any identifying features, but he’d never forget the feel of his bones breaking under their baseball bats.

  The worst part? Diesel might not have recognized their faces, but he couldn’t miss the yellow shield printed on the leader’s shirt. He’d been a member of the Atlantic City Fire Department, someone Diesel worked shoulder to shoulder with every day, someone he should have been able to trust.

  Oh, damn. He took a stammering breath, forcing air down into his lungs. He was safe. This was New York, not Atlantic City, and even if Chase’s conviction had been overturned on a technicality—letting him out after less than six months of his ten-year sentence—he’d never be able to find Diesel in a new state.

  “Coffee.” Jack shoved a heavy coffee cup into his hand. The captain must have come back in when he was lost in his own mind. Fuck. That was one more thing he needed to work on.

  Diesel wrapped his fingers around the mug. It said World’s Greatest Aunt on one side. “I don’t have any siblings.”

  Jack stared at him for a long moment, those damn lush lashes shading his skin. “Excuse me?”

  “I can’t have any nieces or nephews.” He rotated the mug so Jack could see the words. “Because I don’t have any siblings.”

  “I’ve got two brothers and a sister whose life’s mission is to give me a hard time. You can borrow them anytime.” He snagged one of the wooden chairs from in front of his desk and hauled it over to the window. Then he flopped down next to Diesel. Coffee sloshed in his cup.

  They both drank some coffee while they watched for anything unusual out the window. Nothing unusual happened. Maybe the saboteur was busy doing something else.

  Maybe he had the day off.

  Diesel rolled his neck. His shoulders felt tight, but for once it wasn’t nerves. He stretched out his right arm, passed his coffee across to his right hand, then stretched out his left arm. The tension in his muscles didn’t get any better. He leaned back against the wooden slats of his chair and—

  “Goddamn it.” Pain radiated out across his shoulders. He almost dropped the half-full coffee cup.

  “Something I need to know about?”

  “Banged up my shoulder at the car crash.”

  “Want me to get Alex to take a look at it?”

  “The blond paramedic? The one who’s fucking the lieutenant?”

  “Don’t mock. I’m pretty sure they’re the real deal.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ll be fine.” Alex and Troy were so damn happy together, just looking at them was enough to give him a cavity.

  It was just a little bit of discomfort.

  The chair squeaked as he scooted forward, keeping his back away from the slats. He drank some coffee, wincing when he raised the cup to his mouth. He needed to change the subject. “You go to your kid’s teacher conference?”

  “It’s tonight,” Jack said. “Mona passed along an email from his English teacher. She thinks he’s not living up to his full potential.”

  “Story of my fucking life,” they both said at the exact same time.

  “Jinx.” Jack elbowed him in the side. “You owe me a Coke.”

  Damn. Pain radiated out from where the captain’s elbow connected with his rib cage. The laughter didn’t help.

  The pain wasn’t just a brief flare now. It was hard and intense, wild like a fire that was preparing to leap between buildings. The cup dropped from Diesel’s hand and tumbled to the ground with a thunk. Hot liquid splashed out against his old gray sweatpants. That was going to leave a stain.

  “I’m getting Alex,” Jack said.

  “Please don’t.”

  “Let me look.” Jack placed his mug carefully on the floor. When he wrapped a hand around Diesel’s arms to steady him, his fingers were still hot from the coffee. He stood up and tugged Diesel out of his seat. No orders. No polite requests. All he needed was a hard look and a couple of strategic touches to direct Diesel to turn around.

  The touches made the hair stand up on the back of Diesel’s neck. His new position was vulnerable. If Jack decided to attack him, it would be over in a matter of minutes. Diesel would be down on the ground and no one would be able to hear him scream.

  Jack tugged the hem of Diesel’s shirt up to expose his back. He was so damn focused. It was something Diesel had seen before when Jack was looking at a fire, working the angles, but it was different when all that crazy bossy energy was directed in his direction.

  He sucked in a breath. “Damn.”

  Oh, hell. What if he saw something? The beating he’d gotten back in AC had left scars, but most of them were internal. Had there been any on his back? He couldn’t remember. It wasn’t a place he normally looked. “Still pretty?”

  Callused fingertips scraped against Diesel’s back. “Something must have hit you when the car exploded. There’s a piece of metal in your back.”

  There was anot
her gentle touch. Jack let out a breath. Hot air created a tingle on Diesel’s skin. The pain was beginning to go down, or maybe it was just that Diesel had something else to focus on. Damn. If Jack leaned forward one more inch, his lips would be ghosting across Diesel’s spine.

  So freaking intimate, just like when they’d been holding hands in the Mexican restaurant.

  “You want to head over to the emergency room?” Jack asked. “You can flirt with the nurses while the doctor takes this out of you.”

  “I’m gay.”

  “There are male nurses,” Jack said. “I can get Alex to come up here. You can even flirt with him to keep your mind off things, if you’re not worried about pissing Troy off.”

  “I don’t want to flirt with Alex.” Diesel took a half step forward, buying himself a little personal space. If Jack wasn’t touching him, maybe he’d be able to think rationally. “Can you do it?”

  “It’s not exactly my area of expertise.”

  “Please, I really—” He swallowed hard. “I don’t like to be touched.” Jack’s hand disappeared from his back. The rough cotton of his T-shirt dropped back into place. “I had a bad experience not too long ago. I really don’t want to see a doctor.”

  “Or Alex.” The floor creaked under Jack’s steps as he moved away. “It’s going to hurt, a lot.”

  Diesel didn’t bother sitting back down. Instead, he concentrated on keeping his breathing even. He needed something else to focus on. The captain’s office was big and comfortable. The furniture was sparse, but all that space didn’t mean it wasn’t cluttered. The desk was covered in computer equipment and paperwork. A bookshelf in the corner was packed haphazardly with textbooks and knickknacks.

  Even the floor wasn’t immune from the captain’s particular form of horizontal storage. Two gym bags were stacked near the door, a pile of training manuals that was doubling as a foot stool behind the desk, and a stack of free weights against the wall.