Page 51 of Deck the Fire Halls

But then the siren at work blared, red light flashing. I spun to face it.

Fuck.

“Ihave to go,” I said quickly. “Gonna need a raincheck. I’m sorry.”

He looked over at the fire hall, worried, waved me off. “Don’t be sorry. Go, go.”

I turned and ran into the hall. “Fire alarm at the retirement home,” Chuck said, pulling on his gear. I raced to match him, when Doug came around, fully dressed, and lifted himself into the truck. We hauled ass behind him and were on the road in under ten seconds.

Rob was still standing, right where I’d left him, watching. His hands stuffed into his pockets, his cheeks and nose turning red. I smiled at him, hoping he could see me.

Chuck whacked my arm. “Head in the game.”

Shit.

I straightened up, because dammit, he was right. “What do we know?”

It wasn’ta fire at the nursing home, just the fire alarm. But the alarm required a full evacuation, and when dealing with the elderly, it was never easy, or fast.

Everyone was fine though, thankfully.

We needed to check the fire alarm and why it tripped. Doug deemed it was an electrical fault and then that became a whole other issue.

Colson was there helping the police, talking to the residents and making sure they were okay and looked after. There was no emergency, safety or medical, so hewas mostly being cheeky and making them smile, which was all part of the job.

He came over when he had a minute. “How’s it looking?”

“Circuit’s fried,” Chuck said.

“Lucky it didn’t start an actual fire,” Colson noted.

I nodded. “Doug’s called the electrician. But we have a long list of procedures to check off.”

Chuck rolled his eyes. “He’s just pissed because he’s supposed to be getting lucky.”

I gave him a shove. “Supposed to be on a date.” Then I looked at Colson. “A date.”

“Ah,” he said with a smile. “And how is the good doctor?”

“He’s . . .” Where to start?

“Oh, please don’t,” Chuck said. “Please don’t get him going. He hasn’t shut up about him since Rob asked him to you-know-what and Soren here had a brain fart and said no. Then there was the meltdown?—”

Colson looked at me. “Wait, what? You said no?”

“It wasn’t like that,” I began. “I was trying to treat him properly, if you know what I mean.”

Colson stared at me as if I’d spoken in tongues. “Just so you know, treating him properly might meantreating him properly, if you know what I mean.”

Chuck laughed. “He learned this lesson, yes. And we all had to suffer.”

I sighed and ignored their bullshit. “Anyway, we talked and discussed all the things, and we got past that.”

Chuck huffed. “Short version is they’redating—” He used air quotes. “And tonight was supposed to be thenight. But now he’s here, and we’re suffering because of this. Again.”

Colson clearly found this funny but he raised an eyebrow at me. “Dating, huh? Sounds official.”

“It is,” I replied.

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