Shift’s End

by A. R. Barley

The firehouse had a full gym downstairs that anyone could use at any time, so the free weights had to be the captain’s personal property. Maybe he was worried about staying in shape? Diesel’s gaze shifted from the room to the man. Jack didn’t need to worry. His shoulders were wide enough to hold up the sky. His belly might be a little softer than when he was in his twenties, but he still had a solid foundation of muscle underneath.

  Diesel certainly wouldn’t kick him out of bed for eating crackers.

  If he was gay.

  If he wasn’t Diesel’s boss.

  That was a lot of ifs, but Diesel couldn’t bring himself to look away from the captain’s body. Biceps bulged as he yanked open the top drawer and pulled out a small first aid kit. Next stop was one of the gym bags by the door. He bent and rooted around. Trapezius muscles rippled in his back. His ass was taut and sculpted.

  A pair of clean towels landed on top of the first aid kit. Jack looked Diesel straight on, his mouth half open, his eyes dark and unreadable. He nodded slowly, then made another detour back past the desk. This time he went for the bottom drawer. He didn’t need to search to find a half-empty bottle of amber-colored alcohol.

  “I thought you weren’t a drinker.”

  “I’m not, especially if I’m out with the team. Someone needs to keep an eye on the younger guys. They start making real money for the first time in their lives, sometimes they can be a little excessive.” With all his supplies gathered, he walked back over and placed them carefully on the seat of the chair he’d been using a few minutes earlier. “I might have been a little excessive myself when I was younger, after my first divorce.” Jack’s hands moved quickly and efficiently, opening the bottle of whiskey and dipping some out onto one of the clean towels. “We got married too young. She was my best friend. I thought that would be enough.”

  “It wasn’t? I always thought—” Diesel could feel his shoulders bowing in. He felt so damn small and insignificant. “My ex wasn’t my best friend,” he finished up lamely. “He was smart and funny. He liked me. We got along. Maybe if we’d been best friends things would have ended up different.” Maybe he would have realized what Chase was doing faster.

  “Trust me, I’ve seen enough relationships end, you don’t want to spend too much time thinking about what you could have done different. You’ll drive yourself crazy. Sometimes people just don’t work out.”

  “Is that what happened with wife number two?”

  “Probably not what you want to ask the guy about to pull a chunk of debris out of your back,” Jack said, his bossy tone enough to make Diesel squirm, turning around to display his back even though it made him uncomfortable.

  His shirt was pulled up. The towel was held firmly against his skin, right where the pain was the sharpest.

  “Count down from ten,” Jack ordered. “You get to one, I pull the metal. We hope for the best. You start bleeding out and I’m going to be pissed.” There was a hitch in his breath. He wasn’t quite as steady as he was pretending. “You sure you want me to do this?”

  “Ten. Nine,” Diesel forced the words out between clenched teeth. “Eight. Seven. Six.” Rough cotton branded his skin like a hot poker as Jack tightened his grip. His breath caught in his throat. The numbers slowed down as his body tensed, waiting for a fresh burst of discomfort. “Five.” He closed his eyes tight enough to see stars reflected back against his lids. “Four. Three—”

  Fire and fury. Hell on earth. The taste of blood filled his mouth like new pennies. He must have bit his lip, but he couldn’t pick out the sting. Not when a tsunami of pain was moving across his body.

  Good God almighty. He fumbled for a barely remembered prayer from his childhood. Then gave up and swore instead.

  Jack chuckled. “You talk dirty for a firefighter.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “I know that’s the pain talking, but don’t let any of the other guys hear it.” The towel moved up another few inches on his back, covering the open wound. “I’d hate to have to discipline your ass for not respecting the chain of command.”

  “Fuck you, boss,” Diesel corrected as he opened his eyes. He had all kinds of respect for the chain of command.

  “That’s what I like to hear,” Jack said with an edge to his voice that wasn’t at all professional.

  Damn, Diesel’s breath caught in his throat. Dating his boss was out of the question, a bad move in a long history of bad moves. It could ruin Jack’s retirement and get Diesel transferred to some small town in the ass crack of America, but that didn’t stop him from wanting to hear Jack’s sultry voice one more time.

  Out the window he could see movement down on the fire engine floor. A pair of guys shooting the shit while they double-checked their equipment. Diesel knew Lee, but it took him a minute to remember the second man’s name: Julian Paris. They both stuck to their own lockers, making sure their boots were clean and their turnout gear was ready to go.

  He waited to see if they did anything else.

  They didn’t.

  Good. The pain in his back was beginning to numb, but bolting down the stairs and chasing a bad guy might be out of his ability at the moment. The towel on his back shifted.

  “You’re a lucky bastard,” Jack said. “It didn’t get too deep. I don’t even think it’ll leave a scar.”

  “Good. I’ve already got too many of those.” Diesel held himself perfectly still while Jack finished patching up his back. He used an old-fashioned wide white gauze bandage secured with tape. When he finished, wrappers were scattered on the ground at their feet and his hands were splayed out flat across Diesel’s back.

  Something impossibly soft flickered across Diesel’s back.

  If Diesel hadn’t been paying attention he would have missed it.

  Like butterfly wings.

  Like a kiss.

  Chapter Ten

  Sitting in a high school hallway waiting for a teacher to call his name, suddenly Jack felt like he was a teenager all over again. Nothing had changed since he was in school. It even smelled the same, like sour feet and paper. He fidgeted nervously in his seat.

  “Worried she’s going to keep us late for detention?” Mona nudged him with a pointy elbow. “I can’t stay!” Her bouncing auburn curls were streaked with gray, but she still had a youthful glow. “I told Mrs. Teller I’d be home in time to walk her dog.”

  Mona wasn’t the only one feeling awkward. Jack kept tensing every time someone came around the corner, expecting his parents to come stomping toward him with angry looks on their faces. Now he was the parent. It was bizarre. That didn’t mean he was going to take up community theater. “You planning to grow up anytime soon?”

  “Eric asked me the same thing last night when I was ordering dinner.”

  “What’d you get?”

  “Deep dish pizza, extra cheese, extra sausage.” Mona snickered. “According to him, I’m going to have a heart attack before I’m fifty.”

  “Eating like a kid will do that for you.” He’d be more worried about Mona’s health if she didn’t wake up early every day to swim laps. “What did you say after Eric called you on your nonsense?”

  “I challenged him to an arm wrestling match.” Mona’s laughter was as bright and cheerful as the rest of her. After they’d gotten over their unfortunate marriage and the heartbreak of their divorce, their relationship had evolved. These days their dynamic was more like siblings than jilted lovers. “You should have seen the delivery guy.”

  “He was cute?”

  “Absolutely freaking adorable, but not my type. Too young.” She wasn’t laughing anymore. Her voice dropped slightly so no one would be able to eavesdrop, “Of course, according to Eric that’s what you’re into these days.”

  “I should have strangled him at birth.” He’d caught up with his son outside of Lupita’s, but Eric hadn’t stuck around long enough to have a r
eal conversation. Forget filicide, he should have texted him to make sure he wasn’t going to tell Mona. “Whatever Eric thought he saw, he was confused. Diesel’s a great guy, but we weren’t on a date.”

  “No need to get your panties in a twist. Eric was just pissed you were getting burritos with someone not him. He didn’t think it was a date.” Mona slouched back a little farther in her seat. They hadn’t gone to high school together—they’d met in college—but for a moment he could almost see what she might have looked like. Cute. Sullen. Like she was about to kneecap the captain of the cheerleading squad. “How’d the two of you meet?”

  “He works at the firehouse.” Jack needed to shut this conversation down quickly before Mona asked a question he couldn’t answer. “We’re not dating.”

  “Do you want to be?”

  “He’s too young for me, and even if he wasn’t... I’m his boss.”

  “You saying you wouldn’t have slept with your captain when you started on the job?”

  “He had six grandkids and a wife.”

  “He had a mustache like Magnum. It was damn sexy.”

  She had a point, but that didn’t stop any of the doubts tearing at his insides. Maybe he’d matured. He placed his feet flat on the ground and concentrated on the peach-painted cinder-block wall in front of him. The cracks were so old they had dust in them. “You sure we couldn’t get Eric into a better school?”

  “This is the best school on Staten Island.”

  “It smells like ass.”

  “That’s disgusting.” Mona’s face scrunched up. She adjusted her sweater, an olive cardigan with mustard-yellow detailing. She must not have come straight from work because her jeans were old. The knees were threadbare and mud was splashed around the hem. Her feet were squeezed into a pair of dirty canvas tennis shoes.

  “You’ve been gardening?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Not at my house.” The only response was the squeak-squeak of a pockmarked freshman in an ugly blue athletic jacket. Crud. He’d spent a lot of time on his garden. He’d planted bulbs out front and herbs in the back. They might be a little wild, but they were also green and lush and alive. “If you killed my basil, I’ll never forgive you. You don’t have a green thumb. It’s black. You have a black thumb. Remember the dahlias?”

  “That was a drainage problem. It had nothing to do with me.” A bell rang in the background. They both jumped. Nothing happened. “Tell me about Diesel.”

  “He’s beautiful.” Absolutely freaking breathtaking from the tips of his toes to his absurdly sized ears. That small—okay, enormous—imperfection should have distracted from his otherwise symmetrical features, but if anything his ears made him seem more real. More accessible.

  “Uh-huh, beautiful and young. You already said.” Mona rolled her eyes. “What else? Is he smart, funny, good enough for you?”

  “He’s funny.” Diesel didn’t tell jokes, but there was a nice sense of humor behind those pretty dark eyes. “And smart. He’s always talking himself down, but he’s got a good eye for detail when it counts. I’m still not dating him.”

  When Jack looked over, Mona was chewing on her bottom lip. Her brow was furrowed. She was thinking. If she was a computer, she’d be right in the middle of overheating. Never a good thing. “Why not? You’ve dated men before. What was the last one’s name?” She snapped her fingers. “Ryan, the barista with a heart of gold. He lasted a whole six months before he decided to clean some other guy’s espresso wand.”

  “Ryan was different. Diesel works for me. I like my job. I like being able to pay for Eric’s new tennis shoes and, fuck, he’s got college coming up.”

  There were so many things he wanted. They were all logical. Sensible. So why the hell had he kissed Diesel? Impulse. One second he was slapping the bandage on Diesel’s back and the next he’d been bending down to feather his lips against a trio of dark freckles.

  Damn. He was lucky not to have a broken nose and a sexual harassment lawsuit hounding his ass.

  He cleared his throat. “I like being able to respect myself at the end of the day.”

  “Damn straight. Firefighters are bad news.” Mona nudged him with her shoulder. “You’re a good guy. You’re smart. You’ve got a job. Get a haircut, throw on some clothes from the last decade, and you can pull a young hottie who doesn’t work for you.”

  If he had less self-control, he would have stuck out his tongue. “Why’d we get divorced again?”

  “You eat chocolate chip cookie dough and I’m a double fudge brownie kind of girl?” She shrugged. “Lack of communication, not enough time together, but I still want you to be happy. I want you to have someone you could talk to.”

  Diesel was easy to talk to. Hell, he’d spilled more to him during their brief time together than to his second wife during their entire marriage.

  Marriage. Maybe that was where he’d gone wrong with his previous relationships. Did everything have to be all or nothing all the time? He liked Diesel. They had a good time together. That didn’t mean they were going to pledge their troths in front of a judge anytime soon. Maybe they could just hang out without any expectations.

  Yeah, how many people had he told that to over the years? It was the same line he’d used to pick up both of his ex-wives and Ryan, the barista who spent his mornings auditioning for Broadway shows and his evenings dancing at every gay bar in the city.

  He didn’t do casual.

  And, for the most part, he didn’t do alone. He’d spent his entire adult life jumping from serious relationship to serious relationship. After his last divorce he’d sworn that was over. If he couldn’t make good on ’til death do them part then he wasn’t going to get involved in anything serious. At least not until he retired.

  In the past five years he’d gone out for the occasional dinner in the city and had a few one-night stands, but he hadn’t spent any real time with those people. Not like the time he’d already spent with Diesel.

  He wasn’t about to start dating now.

  The thing at Woolf & Raven didn’t count.

  They’d been buying books, not flirting.

  And the dinner at Lupita’s had been a planning session.

  They hadn’t been dates. Jack repeated those words to himself as the door to the classroom opened and a petite redhead waved them inside. Diesel was his subordinate. He could list a metric ton of regulations that laid out exactly why the two of them couldn’t be involved. If he went against the system, he’d be risking his career and his pension. They couldn’t have been dates, no matter how much he’d enjoyed them.

  * * *

  Jack and Troy had gone over the paperwork at least a dozen times. They were both convinced that the sabotage was only happening on one shift. If they were right it wasn’t necessary to watch the equipment lockers twenty-four hours a day, and there was no reason to think that they were wrong. That didn’t stop Diesel from grabbing a cup of leftover chili from the kitchen and setting up camp in the captain’s office for a few extra hours’ watch.

  Better safe than sorry.

  Besides, what else was he going to do? Go home and hide in his room with his computer? He didn’t feel like interacting with his roommates, and he didn’t know anyone else in the city. If he went out to a bar he could get a beer and a burger, he might even be able to meet someone, but just thinking about the crowds gave him the heebie-jeebies.

  From six o’clock until eleven thirty, no one approached the first shift equipment lockers. They were too busy doing their own jobs. There were two major callouts and half a dozen smaller emergencies. The crew worked together like a well-oiled machine.

  At eleven forty, Diesel finally gave up and went home for the night. The subway was running slow and his back was still aching. By the time he got to his apartment, it was almost one in the morning and he was exhausted.

  “Hey, fireman!”
One of his roommates—or one of his roommate’s boyfriends, he couldn’t remember—was drinking vodka and listening to music in the middle of the living room. Two other men were sprawled on the couch on either side of him, half asleep, clutching liquor bottles. Diesel didn’t recognize either of them. “We’re doing shots. You want a shot, fireman?”

  “My name’s Diesel.”

  “Fucking hilarious.” The guy snorted. “Diesel’s what you use to start a fire. It doesn’t put anything out.” He held his bottle up like a flag. “Want a shot?”

  “No, thanks.” The music was so freaking loud it felt like Diesel’s head was vibrating inside his skull. He went into his bedroom and closed the door. It wasn’t much better.

  He waited a couple of minutes then walked back out. “Hey, uh—” What was the guy’s name? Alan? Albert? “Al, can you turn the music down?”

  Al didn’t say anything. He was too busy dancing around the living room with his hands raised up high. His head was thrown back in drunken ecstasy. His bare feet stomped against the ground.

  Diesel shoved his hands in his pockets. “Al.” He raised his voice. “I’ve got to go to work tomorrow. Please, turn the music down.”

  Nothing.

  One of the guys on the couch stood up halfway, then slumped back down. He shoved his hand through thick dark hair. “You really a firefighter?”

  “Yeah.”

  “My uncle’s a firefighter over in Connecticut. It’s a hard fucking job. Al.” His voice was sharp and firm. It made Diesel’s maybe roommate turn around. “Turn the music down.”

  Al flipped him off, but the music got turned down.

  “Thanks.” Diesel went back into his bedroom and closed the door. The music was still audible, but this time he didn’t feel like he was coming apart at the seams. He kicked off his shoes, dropped his pants on the ground, and climbed into bed. He tugged his blanket up as high as it would go. When he could still hear the pounding bass, he pulled his pillow over his head.

  It must have worked because eventually he went to sleep.

  * * *