Burn

by Shey Stahl

  “She hasn’t blown me yet.” He blinks his long curly black eyelashes as if he has no idea what sticking a finger up his ass has to do with it. He probably doesn’t. “And I don’t know why you jerk offs call it blowing.”

  “It’s a figure of speech,” Corbin notes, making his way into the lounge. “She doesn’t blow on your dick, man. We’re all well aware of it. She sucks it. At least the ones who know what the fuck they’re doing, right, Caleb?”

  And Corbin looks right at me and winks.

  Briefly, I wonder how much trouble I’ll get into with Cap if I take that pan of grease and throw it on his face.

  I smile. “Yeah, from what I remember about your mom, she sucked pretty good.”

  “Have you had sex with her yet?” Owen asks, his feet moving from the floor to the table blocking the distance between Corbin and me.

  Finn looks at Owen’s boots on the table, rolls his eyes, and tries to ignore us by finding the container of peanuts interesting. Him ignoring the question is code for no, he hasn’t fucked her.

  Owen looks up from the magazine he’s holding. “What’s that chick’s name from the Kardashian family with the big lips?” Owen’s great at diverting a conversation just to piss people off. It’s like sport to him. That, and making bets on just about everything.

  I stare at him. Trying to think of which one he’s talking about. I only recall the one with the big ass. “I have no idea. I don’t know any of their names.” I turn to Finn. “So, this chick you’re dating, do you know anything about her?” I ask, still smiling at Owen as he tries to Google his Kardashian question on his phone. He hates not having the answer.

  “No.” Finn looks at me funny, thrown off by my question. “Should I?”

  Evan walks into the lounge, pulling on his SFD hoodie. “He’s never even heard of Michael Jackson. Don’t confuse the kid.”

  Finn chews his peanuts in his mouth, then swallows and stares at me, as if he has to explain. “I know who Michael Jackson is.”

  I smile. “Uh-huh. Sure you do.”

  Evan knocks his hand into the can of peanuts Finn has, sending them sliding across the table into Owen’s magazine and then levels Finn a serious look. “If you don’t know anything about the chick, don’t take her home to your mom. Or get in a relationship with her. Ask Caleb about that.”

  What the fuck is this, pick on Caleb day?

  Just as I’m about ready to lay my brother out on the floor for his snide comment, Owen leans over to whisper in my ear. “Her name is Kylie Jenner. In case you care. She’s the one with the big lips. I bet she can blow the kid.”

  I laugh again, shaking my head.

  Most of the time our days start like this, with teasing, ribbing, joking, anything to get a rise out of each other.

  Finn’s our guy most of the time, being the probie and everything, but we pick on others too. Clearly my sex life makes me prone to ribbing.

  “Hey.” Owen nudges my ribs with his elbow. “Come help me with something.”

  He grabs both Finn and me, and we walk out to the parking lot where our cars are parked. He points to Corbin’s car. You know my feelings surrounding Corbin but did you know he put whip cream in my heater vent last week. My truck still smells like rotten milk.

  “A little payback?” Owen shakes a vial of gold and turquoise glitter. He turns to Finn. “I got this from Neighbours.”

  Finn shakes his head, knowing that’s a dig at him. He met Ken there.

  “I remember when you guys did this to me,” Finn notes changing the subject and laughing so hard he can barely get the glitter down the vent without getting it all over the place.

  “You should. It was last week.” Owen wipes the excess off with a napkin. “Dude, his car is black. Take it easy, Sparkles.” He brushes a few more bits of glitter away.

  Only problem is, he brushes them in my direction, and I sneeze before I can cover my face.

  The shit goes everywhere. And I do mean everywhere. In my eyes, up my nose, in my hair, and even my ears. Ever tried to get glitter off yourself?

  It ain’t easy. That shit’s like glue.

  Evan notices my hair when I walk inside. “Why are you all sparkly?”

  Corbin, who’s standing beside him with a clipboard in hand, going over checklists, snaps his head in my direction.

  I smile. “I met Finn’s girl.”

  As with most firefighters, we play jokes daily. When you’re with each other as much as we are, it’s like a game to see who you can piss off the most. We’ve all been the brunt of them on more than one occasion, and we fuck with anything we can, from their bed to their lockers and even their cars.

  The only thing that’s off limits?

  Gear, for safety reasons. We all have different ways of organizing our gear, sizing it, setting it up for quickly donning it for a call. So don’t fuck with it. That’s the general rule for us.

  Beds?

  Oh, yeah. Fuck with that. Salt or sugar, or sand for Finn’s. He’s OCD, and the dude spends so much time washing himself he’s an easy target for sure.

  “Come on, boys, time to get to work,” Cap says, taking a walk through the apparatus bay. We’re standing next to the engine and truck parked in our six-bay station.

  As the day starts around nine, we’d usually move on to doing our daily checks of the trucks. We make sure they’re ready to go and full of water, that all the radios are working and the apparatus all have their equipment.

  Today we’re cleaning the windows on the firehouse. You’d think we’d have maintenance people for this. We do. They’re called firefighters.

  Beside me cleaning a window is Owen, in scuba gear. He’d do anything for a laugh, and the way people look at him wearing scuba gear to clean a window gets a laugh out of the city.

  He’s been known to wear complete turnout gear and a mask when he cleans the bathroom.

  “Hey,” Owen hollers, grabbing my attention. “Did you get that chicks phone number yet?”

  Owen’s relentlessly lately. “I don’t want her number. I just want to fuck her.”

  Leaning to the side, he tosses a towel at my face. “Bullshit. How long did it take before you gave Gemma your number?”

  I shrug. “I didn’t. She stole it when I told the cashier at Safeway my number so I could get condoms on sale.”

  Owen throws his head back, laughing. I’m not amused and go back to cleaning my window.

  No sooner have I finished washing my window, I hear the laughter from beside me as Evan asks, “You need some water?”

  And there went my clean window.

  He’s such an asshole. I have no idea what Jacey sees in him. But then again, as a brother, if I ever want someone to have my back, it’s him. And despite what’s going on between us, in a fire, he’s got mine and I’ve got his. Never any doubt about that.

  Sometimes I hate we’re assigned to the same house. Mostly because he’s always giving me shit. He thinks I need an attitude adjustment, and I think he’s a hypocritical hard-ass.

  Thankfully, I wasn’t a probie at this house, or I probably wouldn’t have made it out alive. Another guy I went through the academy with did his probation with Evan, and he’s a janitor now. Tells you how easily Evan can get inside your head.

  Beep Beep. Two tones.

  The alarms go off throughout the building and the apparatus bay where most of us are standing. “Ladder 10, Engine 25 . . . 764 Denny Way . . . structural fire. Battalion 2. Aide 25.”

  We all stop what we’re doing and head for the truck. Everyone except Finn who’s eating a cupcake. A fucking cupcake.

  “What the hell, kid!” Evan rouses Finn by throwing his helmet at his feet. “Come on!”

  “Where?” He takes another bite of his cupcake.

  “It’s a fire, Sparkles.” Owen slaps the back of his head, excitement and anticipation in his tone. He loves this. “We’re all invited.”

  Within thirty seconds, our ladder and engine pull out onto Pine Street.

&
nbsp; “Are you scared?” Owen asks Finn when we reach the apartment complex, command giving orders to Cap as he relays them to us. They let us know there are six floors in the apartment complex and most have been evacuated, except for a woman on the third floor.

  Finn’s nervous. I can see it in the dilation to his eyes and the way he taps his foot the entire way here. “Yeah. I mean, maybe a little bit but I’m totally ready for this.”

  Probie hasn’t seen his first real fire yet. He’s about to have his cherry popped.

  After masking up, Owen hands me my irons, halligan in his hand. “Ready, man?”

  “Always, brother.”

  Us guys on the ladder, we go in when everyone else goes out. We’re all crazy motherfuckers for sure. You have to be to go into a burning building.

  Owen smiles back at me when we hear the roar of the flames and continues up the stairs.

  Finn stops midstep and I run into the back of him. Turning, he points to his mask. “I forgot to fill my tank after the last job.”

  “You’re such a douchebag,” I say. “How the fuck have you made it this far in life, let alone graduated from the academy?”

  He looks confused.

  “Go back to the truck and get the spare one.” He does as I tell him, barreling down two flights and then returning just as quickly.

  Most know firefighting is inherently dangerous, along with operating some of our tools of the trade. To me, and most of the other guys, the waiting around seems to be the most stressful part . . . when all our work is done for the day and you’re sitting around, waiting to see when you’d be called to duty. This shit, I live for it.

  Once we’re on a job, we do what we’re trained to do without thinking.

  “I’m getting too old for this shit,” Jay notes from behind Owen and in front of me.

  Never fails. Owen’s usually first in and last out. It’s just the type of guy he is, full of dedication, valor, and commitment most people can never understand.

  I look up to Owen in many ways, both professionally and personally. Aside from him being a dirty fuck.

  Around us, black smoke billows through broken windows, letting us know we don’t have long. The smoke, a vapor so dense it’s like tar clinging to me and my lungs.

  The path a fire will take is hard to calculate, and being on the pipe with a hose in hand is essentially a lot safer than search and rescue. There’s nothing between you and the flames when you’re on rescue.

  Fully charged with black smoke, the second and third floors are completely engulfed.

  Command radios in just as we make it to the third floor letting us know the woman is in fact on the third floor.

  Once we find the apartment, we can hear moaning but can’t see anything, the heat so intense it’s blinding.

  To my left, Owen gets out the thermal imaging camera and searches, crawling on all fours.

  I’m behind him, below the heat, searching, calling out, “Seattle Fire Department . . . anybody here?”

  Straight ahead seems to be the kitchen, a dirty orange glow consuming it.

  That’s where we find her, unresponsive and not breathing.

  “Ladder 10 to command,” I radio in. “We got her and are bringing her down now.”

  “10-4, another resident said there’s a male victim trapped on two.”

  Owen motions for me to go and he continues searching.

  I pull the woman from the home, lay her in the grass and check for a pulse. Nothing. I begin CPR until the paramedics take over and continue compressions.

  Then I go back inside with Evan this time to help the guys with the male victim.

  Calls like this, they remind me that you could be doing anything, like making dinner, and shit happens. Fire happens.

  The second time I go back in, the smoke is thicker. There are times when the smoke is so thick and the heat is so intense you can’t hear, let alone see anything. All you hear is the roaring of the flames and it sounds like a freight train coming at you.

  Most firefighters know the risk versus reward scenario of our jobs. If we can save a life, we put ourselves at risk. I never think of it in terms of what I would be willing to do to save someone’s life. It’s more like, if that person has a chance to live, then I’m going to make an effort to save them.

  Now, if it’s too dangerous, let’s say a well-involved building that might be 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit, well, then, no one could survive that. There’s no sense in going in.

  If the upper floor of a home has smoke so thick and brown, and we had to get through that to save them, they wouldn’t be alive.

  Most people don’t realize that smoke will kill you just as quickly as flames can.

  Back inside, Owen’s got the male victim and is taking him down the stairs when command comes through. “Where’s Finn?”

  “Fuck if I know,” I tell them, pissed he hasn’t stayed with us.

  And just as I radio that in, a portion of the stairs gives way to the fire and collapses.

  I find Finn as I floor surf second floor to the first. Turns out he was underneath me.

  Fire is a living, breathing thing. The sooner you realize that, the better off you’ll be. Fire has this funny way of making you think you’re in control, and then suddenly, and usually without warning, it comes back to bite you.

  “You guys all right?” Cap asks.

  I reach across my body, moaning in pain into my radio. “Never better.”

  Once I have my head around my dive to the lower floor, I can hear the whistle of Finn’s PASS device and the hiss of his breathing apparatus. “Where the fuck are you, probie?”

  “In the basement,” he says, words punctuated by the shaking in his voice.

  Must have been the first time he’s floor surfed. Not mine.

  Flopping over onto my stomach, I look over the edge of the floor where it’s collapsed. “Hey, you. Need some help?”

  He smiles as if he can’t wait to get out of here and never come back.

  We’ve just gotten back outside to the staging area when I see the woman I brought out first being transported, but she appears to be breathing now.

  I smile. I saved one today.

  “What’s that smell?” Owen takes a towel and wipes sweat from his face and glances over at Finn.

  “Nothing.” Finn won’t lift his eyes from the pavement. “I don’t smell anything.”

  “Bullshit. It’s you.” Owen gags and puts his mask back on. “My nose is full of soot, and it’s not even making a difference here. You stink.”

  “Take it back.” Finn shoves him, and the two of them collide into me, pinning me to the side of the truck. I nearly throw up because the motion of Finn shoving Owen causes whatever has died in his pants to stir, and the smell gets stronger.

  “Probie shit his pants when he fell through the floor,” Owen says, shaking his head with a smile.

  It smells horrible. Reaching down, I put my own mask back on.

  Owen smacks me on the chest. “You owe me twenty bucks.”

  “I never bet you shit, asshole.”

  “Yes, you did. Last week we said when Probie got his first fire, he’d shit himself.” He holds out his hand, as if I have money in my turnout gear.

  “I’m vulnerable.” I shove Owen away and into Finn. “I just fell through two floors. Don’t be a dick.”

  Evan walks up to us, smacking my shoulder. “Stop fucking around, assholes, and begin ventilation.”

  There goes our fun for the afternoon.

  Voids

  Enclosed portions of a building where fire can spread undetected.

  I’m not going to ask Caleb where this is going.

  I won’t do that because for once in my life, I’m okay with it going where it’s going. It’s pleasure between my legs is what it is. No definition. No way of a letdown because it’s a whatever.

  But then there’s part of me that’s giddy and smiling like a fool as I walk into the hotel.

  These unicorn tummy tickles he
gives me is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. It’s new, it’s whatever but then again, it’s so much more. Like I think of his touch, and my knees weaken and I get all flushed. Let’s just say it’s bad.

  “Are you wearing the same thing you wore yesterday?” Scarlet asks when I’m heading up to my office that morning. She’s in the hallway with her cart full of towels and shampoo, two things I probably need this morning. Maybe I’ll sneak into a room and shower real quick.

  “Yes . . . no.” My shoulders slump. “Maybe.”

  She grins and ties her hair up in a high ponytail. “I think I’m proud.”

  Just as I’m about to tell her what happened with Caleb last night, my phone beeps and I see it’s Willa. I totally forgot about Shade checking out last night.

  Willa: Shade’s sorry about the room. Charge him for whatever the damage is and I’ll call you later. He’ll be back in March for a freestyle event at Safeco. He’d like to stay at your hotel, if you guys will allow him back.

  He’s sorry?

  My heart races in my chest, a heavy beat thumping wildly against my ribs. I don’t even want to know.

  There are strict orders that no one goes up to the penthouse suite. Guess who can ignore those orders?

  My father.

  The last person I want to find out about the damage is him because he’d fire me for allowing Shade to get away with this shit. What kind of hotel manager would put up with this? I don’t even know why I do, aside from the fact that he pays for it without complaining.

  In the twenty years my father’s owned this hotel, I’m sure he’s had guests like this, but he’d never tell me. If everything’s running smoothly, why tell him?

  Tucking my phone in my back pocket, I grab Scarlet by the arm. “We need to go check out the penthouse suite before my dad sees it.”

  I want Scarlet with me because I fear having a heart attack and if I do, you can be your ass I will have her call my hot firefighter fuck buddy for some resuscitation in hopes he knows how to do that.

  “Your dad isn’t here today.” I’m not surprised Scarlet knows this. She knows everything that goes on in this hotel before anyone else. And then her eyes widen a bit, and she’s trying to fix her hair as she shoves her cart in my office out of the way. “Is Shade up there?”