Sparks Will Fly: Park City Firefighter Romance: Station 2

by Daniel Banner

  “Like a piglet loves a sty,” said Lucy with a wink.

  “That might be taking it a little far,” he said. There was a different feel to the banter than there had been when their college allegiances had first come out. After a month to let it sink in, he’d realized he might like this woman more than he hated the University of New Mexico. “Wait, you said there was more, but you weren’t talking about my family.”

  “No, I didn’t know about them. It was my family I was talking about. I doubt you’ve spent much time on the UNM campus. As in the Rhoades Biological Complex. And R. L. Rhoades Physical Sciences Building.”

  It meant nothing to Blue. “But your last name is Avila.”

  “My mom's maiden name was Rhoades.”

  Blue understood. Her family went even deeper with UNM than his did with New Mexico State. "Oh.”

  “Yeah.”

  For a few seconds they stared at each other. Blue wondered if it really changed anything between them. She was still incredibly attractive, fun to be around, and in general he couldn't help but think of her all the time when they were apart.

  “Well it worked for Romeo and Juliet, right?”

  She chuckled, but when he just looked at her with a blank face, she leaned back as far as the seat would let her and raised one eyebrow. "Are you being serious? Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy.”

  “Oh yeah, that's right. Literature isn't really my thing.”

  “I guess that's what I would expect from a New Mexico State graduate.”

  Blue groaned. "I walked right into that one. So does that change anything?”

  Lucy leaned into him. “That I bleed Silver and Cherry Red and you bleed white and regular red?”

  “Crimson,” he corrected. “My family might not welcome you for Thanksgiving dinner, but it sounds like your family might shoot me before I even got to the front door.”

  “It almost worked for Romeo and Juliet,” she said. "We just have to make sure neither of us drinks poison or stabs ourselves.”

  Blue nodded. “Those are two things I generally tend to avoid, so it shouldn't be a big deal.”

  He took Lucy's hand, loving the way her long athletic fingers felt intertwined with his. She squeezed his hand and settled into her seat in a way that brought her even closer and in more contact with him. In the aisle of the airplane a stewardess had begun to make final checks and close all of the overhead compartments.

  "It looks like everybody’s seated,” said Blue. “I'm fine with you sitting where you're at, but if you want more space it looks like that seat by the window is going to be open.” He hoped she didn’t move.

  Lucy looked over at the seat then looked at Blue. "I'm good right here where I can get to know you better. To be honest, I've never really gotten to know an Aggie.”

  “A Lobo is new for me too,” he said.

  “I didn't expect you to be able to communicate in sentences. I thought it would be mostly grunts and rude hand gestures.” Lucy was trying to hide her smile but he saw the smirk at one corner of her mouth.

  So she wanted to play that game? “I didn't expect a Lobo to smell so good. I always associated unwashed jock strap with that particular institution.”

  Lucy elbowed him again. “Maybe that's because the only Lobos you've ever seen are football players. Everybody knows football players are only one step up from Neanderthals. To them, taking a shower is akin to witchcraft.”

  “Oh, I bet you smell like perfume and roses coming out of your furry wolf costume at the end of a football game on a hot day.”

  Lucy winced. “You have no idea. Looking back, I think I ended up with heat exhaustion pretty much every game. I know for a fact I had heatstroke once. Totally disoriented, my skin was purple, and I wasn't sweating at all. The football players had coaches and trainers and their teammates to watch out for them and they were actually a bunch of sissies when it came to any type of injury or illness. They showed the first signs of heat exhaustion and it became national news.”

  “You didn't have anyone keeping an eye on you? To make sure you stayed safe?” Up until now the mascots had always been kind of a non-person, a huge stuffed animal to Blue. And while he knew Lucy was as tough as they came, thinking of her running up and down stairs and along the sidelines in a big wolf costume in hot weather, made him gain a whole new respect for her.

  “Nope. Just Lobo Louie. We have a little tunnel in the corner of the stadium where we can go to take off our head and get a drink, but no coach or medical staff or anything like that. We had, I should say. That’s behind me now. We were technically part of the cheer squad, but when it came to game time, we did our own thing, went wherever we wanted, and suffered the consequences if we weren't smart enough to come in out of the sun often enough or stay hydrated.”

  “So what did you do? That time you got heatstroke?”

  “Louie couldn't make any sense of what I was saying between the third and fourth quarters. He wanted to call 911 or go get the trainers or the cheer coach, but I was with it enough to know that if we handled it wrong, my identity might be compromised. And that would have been worse than dying. So he helped me walk, more like a stumble, over to student health. They cooled me off, started an IV, and made me rest for a while. Oh, and we both got a stern lecture from the doctor and then later the cheer coach, and after that the Athletic Director himself on being smarter and taking better care of ourselves.”

  Blue was thinking about how tough he’d always thought he was and how much he had bled and sweated for his school, but he'd never sweated out completely for the Crimson and White.

  Lucy said, “We lost that game. It was close and came down to the fourth quarter. If we would have won that, we would have gone to a bowl game that year.”

  “And it's all your fault. I, as an Aggie, have you to thank that my rival didn’t go bowling that year.” He said it in a joking tone which made Lucy get all serious.

  “It could have been my fault. I might have made a difference, you don’t know. One or two plays could have changed the outcome of the game. I took pride in doing an awesome job as a mascot and while there's no way to compare, I think I was one of the best ever at UNM.”

  “No, you're right. I'm sorry, I just couldn't resist the chance to tease you. I know as well as anyone how much the crowd can change the outcome of a game.”

  Her face relaxed and she nodded. “For a second there I thought I was going to have to take you down right here.”

  As much as he liked the idea of a wrestling match with Lucy, Blue didn't love the idea of being on the opposite side of her in any fight. “So you're willing to give an Aggie a chance?”

  “The right Aggie. As long as you’re willing to give a Lobo a chance.”

  “The right Lobo.”

  They grinned, having found the right balance of playfulness. It might take some work but they could learn to keep the claws from coming out every time one of them made a comment about the other’s school.

  “Let's talk about something else,” said Lucy, resting her head on his shoulder. “Tell me more about yourself.” She knew the basics from their phone calls, but you could only get so close from so far away.

  A voice came from between the headrests, high-pitched and mocking. “I like long walks on the beach and saving kittens from trees.”

  “Oh good,” said Blue. “The peanut gallery is still with us.”

  “That's okay,” said Lucy. She pulled him down and they settled into a sort of slumped position with their heads close together. Quietly, and so close to his ear that it made a run of tingles go down his spine, she said, “We'll just have to whisper.”

  Their arms had become intertwined and her leg was draped over his knee. “This is way more fun than fighting,” he said back, talking into her ear.

  Oh yes, he was going to enjoy the next eight hours and eighteen minutes.

  8

  After what felt like about an hour, the plane made its descent. Lucy was tempted to go ask the pilot to circle aro
und for another eight hours. Not only had she figured out how to actually like an Aggie, she’d found her favorite Aggie of all time.

  Over the course of the flight, they’d rearranged seating arrangements a few times, moving closer to the window, leaning back into his arms—his rock-hard, anaconda arms—and gone back to side by side just as they’d started, but neither of them wanted any space. It wasn’t anything improper, just a comfortable closeness as they got to know each other. Even after eight hours and eighteen minutes—if the guy with the library in his carry-on knew what he was talking about—she felt like she’d only scratched the surface.

  Lucy wanted more. Much more. Yeah, her parents and her paternal grandparents would freak when she introduced them to one of the icons of their rival university, but they’d have to learn to deal with it.

  The purpose of the trip was to spend time with the side of her family that she hadn’t grown up with, and for the most part had never met. But in all honesty, Lucy didn’t want to leave Blue’s side. She could invite him to ditch his buddies and forego all the high-adventure activities they’d come to South America for, and right now she felt like he would come along, but that would be doing him a disservice. This relationship was still very new and they had plenty of time to get to know each other. If he spent his international adventure sitting around Abuelita’s tiny house eating common food rather than riding ATVs and hanging out in a Skylodge, Lucy would never forgive herself.

  “The city’s bigger than I expected,” said Blue, startling Lucy back to the present. The sun had just barely set, and still painted the city and the surrounding mountains pink.

  “It’s one of the biggest cities in the world over 10,000 feet elevation.” Using the sun, Lucy got her bearings for a second. “If we were on the other side of the plane I bet we could see the Sacsayhuaman Ruins.”

  Blue took his eyes from the view to give Lucy an impressed look. “I don’t even need a tour guide with you around.”

  That made Lucy smile, feeling a connection with her abuelita.

  An overhead announcement explained in English and Spanish that they were making their final descent. Blue leaned over to check up and down the aisle, then whispered, “I don’t think we’re in Peru. This is some sort of trick. We’re probably in Mexico or Guatemala.”

  Lucy checked the view again. The dark green, high-peaked mountains surrounding a city of close packed homes was exactly what she’d been expecting to see. “Why do you say that?”

  “There’s no way we’ve been on this plane for eight hours and eighteen minutes. So either the pilot is putting us down in a different country or map makers have been lying to us our whole lives.”

  Lucy grinned, so happy he felt the same way about the trip. “Crafty cartographers and pilots pulling a fast one?”

  “Yep. That makes more sense than the weird time shift we just went through.”

  From the seat behind them, someone said, “We must have gotten the extra time back here. Feels like about sixteen hours since we left L.A.”

  It sounded like good-spirited banter, and Lucy hoped the guys didn’t resent her for taking their captain away from them. Within the hour they’d have him back.

  As the plane approached the blacktop, Lucy grabbed Blue’s hand and did her own little countdown. “3-2-1…”

  The tires softly made contact, back tires first then front tires.

  “I can’t believe I made it,” said Lucy. “Thank you so much for making this happen.” Before she knew it, she’d turned all the way around, grabbed his surprised face, and laid a kiss on him. It sent a pleasing jolt through her body even though it was mild compared to the one he’d laid on her out of the blue at Questival.

  He recovered and said, “As quick as you made the time pass, think of all the places I’ll take you now—the DMV, the lines at Disneyland, and of course any international travel.”

  “Deal,” said Lucy. “And I’m going to hold you to that. Hey, you never told me what the deal was with you and Jeremy. Why he owed you one.”

  “You mean why he thought he owed me one.” Blue checked over his shoulder to see if anyone was listening in. “No time to tell you now. Maybe on the flight back home.”

  Lucy was getting curious about it? Was it something embarrassing? Something immoral? That didn’t seem right. Maybe he was just being humble.

  Being near the back of the plane, they had some time to wait after the plane taxied up to the gate so Lucy knelt on her seat and faced Blue’s crew. All three of them looked like the stereotypical young, hot fireman. Not as buff as Blue, but handsome and fit.

  “So, Stone, Nikola, and Max, right?”

  “Dax,” said the guy by the window.

  “Dang it. Sorry.”

  “It’s okay, Luby.” Dax smiled up at her.

  “He gets that all the time,” said Nikola in his hard to place accent.

  Lucy asked, “Any of you been to Peru before?”

  “Nope,” they answered in unison. Dax asked, “You neither, right? Even though you have family here?”

  “Yes,” said Lucy almost in a squeal. “My cousin is picking me up at the hotel and I’m going to spend most of my days with them. I wouldn’t even take up a hotel room, but my uncle just lost his job so he moved his family in with Abuelita last month. They have people sleeping on foam pads on the floor.”

  “You’re not taking up a room,” said Nikola.

  “Yeah,” said Dax with a sly grin. “Only half a room.”

  Nikola turned to Dax and continued the conversation between them. “Funny how that worked out for our captain, huh?”

  “Funny like a fish that’s been dead for a week.”

  Stone was looking out the window, avoiding the topic and judging by his red neck and ears, he appeared to be avoiding the conversation on purpose.

  Were they saying …? Did Blue expect …? Had she given him any reason to think they’d be shacking up for the week? Had she given any reason to think they wouldn’t? Oh no. Now that they were a million miles from home what would he do when he found out she was not looking for a South American tryst? Just because they were south of the equator, didn’t mean there would be anything happening in each other’s southern hemispheres.

  “You two settle down back there,” said Blue coming up beside her. He didn’t fit very well into the space between the top of the seat and the overhead compartments, but he was trying. He told Lucy, “Those three are going to share a room for sure. I’ll move in with them if you are uncomfortable sharing a room with two beds.”

  Uncomfortable? That might not be the right word. She’d love to have a reason to be close to him, but she really didn’t know any of these guys enough to know for sure that nothing intimate would be expected.

  Blue was being sincere, right? Two beds and no fraternizing? Or had he brought her all this way so that she would owe him one just like Jeremy did?

  She did owe this trip to these guys, and while that wasn’t enough for her to lower her morals, she couldn’t force them to cram into a single room while she had a whole room to herself.

  “Can I trust you?” she asked, looking into his deep blue eyes. Shoot, could she trust herself?

  “You can,” said Blue.

  She nudged him with her elbow. “Of course you’d say that.” She turned back to the guys and picked the quiet one. “Stone? Can I trust him to be a complete gentleman?”

  Stone nodded. “He’ll be such a gentleman you’ll think you have cooties.”

  “Good,” said Lucy with a laugh, “because if my abuelita got wind of any sort of hanky-panky, she’d make you forget how teeny and old she is, no matter how big and tough you think you are.”

  “I’ll behave,” said Blue. “Abuelita and you have nothing to worry about from me.”

  Lucy wondered if that was really true, because she was worried for herself around this guy. Not that he was lying, but they’d been pretty friendly on a crowded plane, what would happen behind the closed doors of a hotel room?


  Nothing. Nothing would happen. Lucy would make sure.

  The line out of the plane started moving so Blue grabbed his carry-on as well as hers then stepped into the aisle just behind their row to allow Lucy to go first. The carry-on she’d packed was pushing the weight limit, but he handled it like it was empty. His shirt wasn’t skin-tight, but when he lifted the bags to fit in the aisle the fabric went tight over bulging, cut muscles. Forget getting out of the plane, she just wanted to stay put and admire his physique.

  From behind, someone whispered, “Take your time. Enjoy the view.”

  It jolted Lucy and she turned to see Nikola laughing.

  Lucy put her face down and moved toward the front of the plane. The airport hadn’t been updated for a couple of decades and it was small but serviceable. It didn’t take long to claim their luggage and claim the rental car included with the guys’ winning prize pack. The car was clean but wasn’t brand new like the rentals she’d used in the US. It was also compact.

  All of the guys were big, but since Blue was the biggest, he rode shotgun. Nikola was the one who normally drove the fire engine, so by default he was the driver. Lucy ended up wedged in between Stone and Dax, who both had to hold luggage on their lap. Without traffic on the streets, it only took about 15 minutes to get to the hotel. The little that Lucy could see from her obstructed view was mostly houses and tightly packed, non-descript buildings. There was a sense of the old world and Lucy was anxious to get out the next day to really see the city.

  At the hotel, they dumped their luggage in their rooms—Lucy by her bed and Blue on the other side of the room by his.

  He said, “We’re going to check out the night life. You in?”

  “As much as I’d love to see if those big muscles of yours are any good for a salsa or samba,” Lucy didn’t actually know what kinds of dance were prevalent here, “Abuelita is waiting for me to call. She’s going to send my cousin to pick me up.”