Shift’s End

by A. R. Barley

  Diesel’s grip tightened. His hands moved just right and their erections slid solidly against each other. Jack’s cock jerked as he spilled into his lover’s hands. He wasn’t alone.

  “Fuck.” Diesel panted desperately for air as they finally broke apart. “That’s something worth sticking around for.”

  It took a moment for Jack to decipher the words. His hands clenched tight. Nails dug into the palms of his hands. “You were thinking of leaving?”

  “It’ll be better for you.”

  “Pretty sure that’s my decision, not yours.” Jack didn’t wait for a response. He turned off the water and got out of the shower. “Come on. I’ll find you something to wear.”

  * * *

  His borrowed athletic pants hit Diesel only a few inches south of his knees, even when he wore them low on his hips. Wearing his own pants would be easier, but they were stiff from sweat and smoke. “You got a washing machine?” he asked.

  “If you’re that worried about things fitting, you can ask Eric to borrow a pair of pants.” For a man who’d just gotten off, Jack wasn’t exactly swimming in afterglow. “He’s taller than you. He just doesn’t stand up straight. Plus, Mona’s a big proponent of buying stuff he can grow into.”

  Loud music was playing in the kitchen, bouncy and energetic. Diesel didn’t recognize the singer, but that didn’t stop him from grinning like an idiot when he saw Eric dancing along to the tunes.

  “Bacon’s in the microwave keeping warm.” Eric turned and swiveled his hips. “Eggs will be ready in a minute. You drink coffee?”

  “Black,” Diesel said.

  “Like the old man.” The kid pulled a face. “The two of you deserve each other.”

  It took everything Diesel had not to look at Jack. Shit. He never should have told him he was thinking about calling things quits. After the night they’d spent together—and the morning shower—there was nowhere else he’d rather be, and now things were awkward. Neither of them said a word while Eric got down two oversize mugs from the closest cabinet. Both mugs were put on the counter. He poured the coffee and pushed one over to Diesel. “How old are you anyway?”

  “Old enough.”

  “He’s twenty-six,” Jack said.

  “Hell.” Eric’s eyes crinkled. For a kid who was supposed to be a genius, it was taking him a while to do the math. “Are you—” He cleared his throat. “I mean, what are you doing with my dad? He’s old, and you’re cool.”

  “He’s cool too,” Diesel said.

  Eric snorted. “Seriously?”

  “I’ve dated cool people before,” Jack objected. “Your mom’s cool.”

  Diesel shifted uncomfortably. He really didn’t want to talk about his relationship with Jack’s kid, not when he wasn’t sure if they even had a relationship. He took his coffee over and sat down, tracing invisible patterns with his index finger. The house wasn’t large enough to have a separate dining room, but it had a built-in breakfast nook with a pair of vinyl-covered benches and the kind of table that had been in his grandparents’ kitchen. Only, the table his grandmother had used for Thanksgiving turkey had an aluminum band around the outside and a stark white linoleum top. Jack’s had a bronze trim and a mottled teal top. It was funky as all get-out.

  A minute later Jack joined him. “Thanks for telling my kid I’m cool.”

  “I meant it.”

  The kitchen counters were linoleum too, the same blue-green as the table but in a slightly lighter shade or maybe just sun-bleached from the sunny window over the sink. The cabinets were straight-faced pine. The handle on the drawer next to the sink was hanging awkwardly, but other than that it was in a good shape. Although the refrigerator was new, the stove was so old it had come around the other side, all the way from funky to vintage.

  “Your oven work?” Diesel asked.

  “Probably,” Jack said. “It did the last time we used it.”

  “We were setting the clay for my model volcano,” Eric explained with a laugh. “He really doesn’t cook. Without takeout, I’d starve.”

  Jack waggled his eyebrows. “There’s plenty of food.”

  “And I’m a growing boy.”

  Diesel listened to their easygoing patter while he sipped his coffee. Jack might not be a cook, but he didn’t skimp when it came to his French Roast. It was freaking delicious.

  “You should make cookies,” Diesel said. “You’ve got a great kitchen for making cookies.”

  Eric turned his music down. “You make cookies? Like real cookies? From scratch?”

  “It’s not like I’ve got some secret family formula. I just use the recipe on the back of the bag. Sometimes I add nuts or, like, dried cranberries.”

  Now they were both staring at him with wide eyes. Eric had Mona’s coloring, fair hair and brighter eyes, but he had his father’s cheekbones and full lips. At the moment his mouth was hanging open in disbelief.

  “Mom doesn’t make cookies either. Neither does Phil.” Eric plated up three servings of breakfast and brought them over to the table. “This one,” he told his father. “I like this one. You should keep him.”

  Jack’s lips puckered, but he didn’t smile. “I’m working on it.”

  Four little words, but they kicked Diesel’s heartrate up a notch. He slipped a little farther down in his seat. The breakfast was warm and filling, but he didn’t taste it. He should have left after the shower. Hell, he never should have come back to Staten Island in the first place. None of that stopped him from repeating their words silently to himself until they were burned into his brain and it would take dynamite to get them out. He wasn’t just some pretty decoration to be tucked away for special occasions. Jack wanted him to be part of the family. It was exciting and terrifying at the same time.

  When breakfast was over, Jack rinsed down the dirty dishes one handed while Diesel changed into a pair of Eric’s gym pants. They fit, even if they did have the name of his high school plastered down the leg. “You should keep them,” Eric said when he got back to the living room. “I always have to turn up the cuff. Mom bought me another pair that fit better.” Then he went to get the car keys.

  It really was a miracle the kid could drive. From everything Diesel’d heard over the years, New Yorkers were supposed to be horrible with cars.

  All vehicles really.

  Synapses fired and pulsed as his brain made the connections. Most of the things the asshole fucking with the fire company’s gear had done could be described as pranks. Shitty pranks, but no one had gotten seriously hurt until the truck had broken down. The fire truck was a type of car. Sort of. New Yorkers were bad with cars.

  “I think I’ve got a way to narrow down who’s been messing with the gear,” Diesel called out over his own sharp intake of breath. In the kitchen, the water turned off and dishes clanked. Jack appeared in the doorway. “Excuse me?”

  “I don’t think he meant to break the truck like he did,” Diesel explained. “It’s like I said in the beginning, he’s just fucking with us. Nothing else he did caused permanent damage. He wasn’t trying to hurt anyone—”

  “Switching out the batteries in our radios wasn’t trying to hurt us?”

  “Not really. You’re the captain. You don’t normally go into buildings. You’re supposed to be at the truck.” Diesel continued to put the pieces together. “Seriously, if you’d been at the truck and your radio had gone dead, what would have happened?”

  “I’d replace the batteries,” Jack said. “Or borrow one from somebody else.”

  “Right, and if mine gave out while I was partnered with someone else it’d be a pain but we’d still be in contact. None of that was intended to hurt anyone.”

  “So what went wrong with the truck?”

  “Maybe he just didn’t know that much about engines. Internal combustion’s a tricky thing. If he hasn’t tinkered with a car before
or if he’s not a regular driver—”

  “Like if he’s from the city,” Jack completed the thought for him. “A bunch of guys live in Manhattan, but most of them are transplants like Barnes.” He started counting off on his fingers. “Parsons’s from Long Island, he drives a piece of shit his dad owns. Pretty sure he maintains it too. Not that either of them could be the bad guy.”

  “Tito’s from Atlantic City.”

  “Ronnie Arturo’s from the Dominican Republic, but I’m pretty sure he went to high school in Yonkers.” Jack’s eyes gleamed. “We need to go look at the files in the station house.” He took an excited step forward and his wrist banged into the side of the door. The plastic cast kept his arm locked in position, but it didn’t do anything to protect him. His face paled. His entire body shuddered and buckled.

  “Hospital first?” Diesel asked.

  “Uh-huh. Troy and Reese can pull the necessary records and meet us at the station when we’re done.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Jack gritted his teeth as they did a second round of X-rays. Damn. It hurt. The damage to his arm was worse than they’d originally thought. “Whoever let you check yourself out was an idiot,” the doctor said as he pointed out a break a few inches above his wrist in addition to the original fractures. He wrote Jack a prescription for a heavy-duty painkiller and sent him down the hall to have a technician put on a waterproof plaster cast. Eric helped choose the color. Cornflower blue.

  “It matches your eyes,” Diesel said.

  Eric was too happy to have a day off of school to say anything snippy. He jangled his borrowed car keys and went to bring the car around.

  Forty minutes later Mona’s jankety old sedan was idling in the alley behind the fire station. Jack and Diesel walked inside. They were both moving slow, quiet, walking side by side but with at least three feet of space between them. They didn’t do anything to attract attention, but halfway across the big garage bay someone spotted them.

  Clap. Clap. It started with one individual and then someone else joined in until it was a wave of sound. Diesel took a half step farther away, leaving Jack to deal with the onslaught of attention by himself. “Whoop whoop!” someone shouted. “Go chief!”

  “You mean ‘Go, Diesel!’” It was hard to pick him out from the crowd, but that had to be Tito.

  Jack glared at the gathering crowd. “Very nice. Any of you got something useful to say?”

  “You going to let us sign your cast?” Tito again, there was no mistaking his loud voice and bombastic personality.

  “I’m just here to fill out some paperwork,” Jack said. “You want to deface city property, you can write each other’s phone numbers on the bathroom walls. For a good-time call.” A couple of men laughed. Most of them went back to what they’d been doing. Some things never changed, and no one ever stuck around for more than a few minutes when he started talking about paperwork.

  Scaredy-cats.

  His fingers tingled as he started up the firehouse stairs. Troy and Reese had texted him while he was getting the cast put on. They’d pulled all the files from the relevant shift and were waiting for him in his office.

  Maybe it was Reese’s office now? Jack didn’t know. He’d made a few phone calls from the hospital to people in the department he knew and trusted. They hadn’t been able to tell him much about what was going on. Reese was spearheading the investigation, other than that the higher-ups were keeping things close to the chest. Terry Slade, one of the guys he’d trained with back in the day, figured it was a test although he didn’t know who it was for.

  When he got to the top of the stairs and pushed open his door, he didn’t know what to expect.

  The office was completely torn apart. Every file folder in his cabinets was pulled out and stacked on the desk or the floor.

  “Croissants from the place near my apartment.” Reese gestured toward a pastry box. Troy was wedged into the corner at his right, leaving two more empty spaces around the department-issue desk. “I brought in coffee too. The stuff coming out of your kitchen is disgusting.”

  “And your men make superior coffee?”

  “Fuck no, those boys couldn’t brew their way out of a paper bag. That’s why I know where to buy the best coffee in the city.”

  That sounded like a challenge. Jack walked over and dragged one of his extra chairs up close to the desk. He flopped down. The croissants smelled damn good. “Sweet or savory?”

  “Both. I didn’t know how long we were going to be here.”

  Damn. He flipped the box open. It was chock full of flaky pastry. “I knew there was something I liked about you.”

  Reese didn’t answer. He was too busy looking past Jack to where Diesel was standing in the doorway. “Shit. Really? That’s Diesel Evers?”

  “You’ve got a problem?”

  “No. Maybe.” Reese sighed and dropped his voice down to a hushed whisper. “My granddaughter’s older than him. He’s tall, but you sure he’s legal?”

  “Don’t say that too loud,” Jack snarled. “He already thinks we should break up for my career—”

  “And he’s right.”

  “Fuck off.” Jack turned around...damn. Diesel was standing halfway between the desk and the office’s big windows. The light from the garage bay caught in hair still shiny from the shower they’d shared that morning. In Eric’s bright red sweatpants with his sticking-out ears, he looked even younger than he was.

  “Captain Nico Reese, I’d like you to meet Diesel Evers.” Jack was done hiding. He wasn’t about to let Diesel take off because of their jobs. He raised his voice to make sure that Diesel knew it was impossible to go back. “Diesel’s a transfer from New Jersey. He came very highly recommended by one of our other firefighters. You’ve met Alvarez?”

  “The loudmouth.” Reese leaned back in his seat. “You worked with him before?”

  “We were in the same firehouse down in Atlantic City,” Diesel said softly. “Tito’s good.”

  “He is. I’m just surprised no one’s gagged him.” Reese nodded toward the last chair arranged around the desk. “You like croissants?” He waited until they were both sitting down and picking a pastry before clearing his throat. “You said you had some thoughts about the sabotage?”

  “It was Diesel’s idea.” Credit where credit was due. Jack leaned forward and explained. He started at the beginning, the little problems that were more annoying than dangerous, the radio problem that should have been fixable in a matter of minutes, and then the truck. When he got to the part where the saboteur had likely screwed up his own plan—causing damage that was out of proportion with the pattern because he was unfamiliar with the equipment—Reese and Troy were nodding along.

  “This was your idea?” Reese asked Diesel. “It’s smart. Good work.”

  “Jack would have figured it out eventually.”

  “Don’t be modest. You’re smart, from what everybody else says you’re a damn good firefighter too. You ever want to jump ship on Tracey, I’ll find you a place up in Midtown.”

  Diesel didn’t say anything. He did push a piece of croissant into his mouth.

  Reese nodded. “So we’re looking for guys who didn’t transfer in.”

  “Guys from the city. Born and raised,” Jack said. “Not someone who moved here to go to college. Not someone who lives in one of the suburbs.”

  “Right.” Reese shoved over a stack of folders. Working together, they rifled through the paperwork in record time until they had two stacks. The one on the right was large. It included Tito and Troy and Diesel. The one on the left was a hell of a lot smaller, but it wasn’t small enough. Reese tapped the smaller pile. “What else do we know about this guy?”

  “I saw him run,” Diesel finally piped up. “He’s shorter than me—”

  “Not hard.”

  “But he’s fast. He’s in good s
hape. Young. Dark hair, I think.”

  “Young we can do.” Reese split the stack up and handed some to Diesel. “Pull out everyone under thirty.”

  “You can leave Wilkes in,” Troy said. “Remember he ran that marathon last year?”

  “Good. Good information.” Reese handed Troy some of the folders. “What else do you know?”

  They came up with two other names of guys who were over thirty but could definitely keep up with the kids. When they were done the stack of folders was cut in half then whittled down to eight names.

  “He was white,” Diesel said. “I think.”

  That got the stack down to six.

  “It’s not Alex. He’s a blond.” That came from Troy, but Jack would have said it first if he’d realized Alex Tate was still in the stack. “Plus, we’re getting married next month,” he explained when Reese sent him a questioning look. “I’d notice if he’d turned into some dumbass with a knack for fucking up equipment.”

  Five names left.

  Diesel and Reese had winnowed the list down as far as they could, but investigation by committee could only get them so far.

  Now, they needed to hand their short list over to the cops.

  Or, Jack could think.

  This was his house and someone had attacked it from the inside. Who had something against the other men? Something against him? Every act was an annoyance to the men it was perpetrated against, but Jack had made it even worse by punishing them afterward for mistakes they hadn’t made. It had undermined his authority.

  He shuffled the folders around until he found one name that made sense. “Theo Wilkes. He wanted to be lieutenant when the opening came up. I promoted Barnes instead.” He shoved the envelope across the table. “He’s a decent firefighter, good history in the department, puts too much heat in his chili, but I didn’t think he’d be good at maintaining discipline. I told him to reapply next time.”

  Reese flipped the folder open. He read the first few pages before sighing. “It’s a good theory, but I’m not calling the cops on someone in the department until I know for sure.” He nodded at Troy. “Is Wilkes here today?”