Page 15 of Xavier

“True…” Though hopefully, it wasn’t as bad as Xavier was predicting.

Apparently, Dexter had told him bits and pieces about getting dragged to church and put through intense religious indoctrination his entire life. And while I absolutely believed him, I hoped it also had no lasting effects.

Fuck knew that kid had been through enough already.

“I’m excited to see you,” Xavier said, breaking me out of my thoughts.

I smiled and pressed the phone tighter to my ear. “I miss you. I hope we can see each other soon. I’m slowly dying over here.”

“For my cock?”

Oh, that cheeky bastard. “More for that tongue of yours.”

“Shit,” he whispered.

“You at work?” I was already reaching for my crotch. My dick was already beginning to stiffen.

“Yes, so don’t you dare start anything.”

“Hey, I can’t promise that Iwon’tbe sending you a dick pic after we end this phone call.”

He swore again under his breath. “Gage. Behave.”

“I’d love for you to make me.”

“Oh I will. The next time I get my hands on you.”

Fuck, I loved the sound of that. “You got yourself a deal, Cruz.”

CHAPTER 7

Gage

Apparently,planning a Christmas party with a fire station full of rowdy adults was like trying to wrangle a bunch of goldfish into a net at the county fair—nearly fucking impossible.

As funny as it was to watch poor Ellie running around while trying to make sure everyone was signed up for at leastoneduty for the party, I also kind of felt bad for her. As our resident mother hen, she was probably the only one keeping us all from showing up with five raw turkeys, two side dishes and a hodge-podge of weirdly cut paper snowflakes tossed around.

“Wait, so who’s in charge of the decorations now?” Jase rested his hands on his hips while he squinted at the bulletin board that was freshly tacked with the new list. “It can’t just be me. There’s no way I’m putting all that shit up by myself.”

With Quinn snickering behind him and catching a stray slug to the arm, Jase turned to look over his shoulder at our party planner extraordinaire with his brow raised high.

“You’ve got Mark helping you out, too.” Ellie had her usual clipboard in her hand, a pen tucked behind her ear to hold back a few stray pieces of hair while another one was in her hand ticking off something on the sheet in front of her. “I can throw Cyrus in there if you really need the extra manpower.”

“Woah, woah.” Hawke slapped his thighs while hiking himself up to his feet from where he’d been lounging against the steel bumper of one of the fire trucks. “We got dibs on the Scot. McWhiney over there can have someone else.”

“You’ve got plenty of people on set up duty, dude,” Jase argued.

“Dibs,” Hawke repeated, a sly grin forming on his face.

Oh, if only Xavier were here to see all of this go down.

He’d be doubled over by now, laughing his ass off while ribbing me for having coworkers that loved to argue over a damn Christmas party. Having him here among the chaos would’ve been a nice change of pace, even if he’d have no fucking clue what was going on half the time.

I’d had plenty of good times with his coworkers off in Cali when I’d gone over for aerial training. Too bad he wouldn’t get the same opportunity with mine.

“Station Twenty-One,”a voice over the intercom sounded off. “Engine fifty-seven, respond to a multiple motor vehicle accident on Fifteen and Broad.”

“Let’s move!” Captain Clarke’s voice boomed. “On-call, gear up! Standby, keep your walkies live!”

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