Page 4 of His Reward
It would be nice to have someone to talk to about the other most important part of my life. And who knew? Maybe Oliver or Mike would get interested in the kink scene. I mean, it wasn’t likely, but I never said never about anything. Even just talking about that other side of my life made me smile, so when I met my father and Marco in the lobby, the way my father tapped his watch didn’t bother me. He could tap all he wanted, I was just a few days from getting my rocks off in spectacular style, and there was even a slight chance I might go into heat for the experience, too. That was better than any gold medal to me.
CHAPTER TWO
Boston
“Bos! We’re out of soda!”
I sighed at the shout from downstairs and rubbed a hand over my face. It was the end of the day and I was halfway through standing from my large, messy desk in the firehouse. I needed to get out of there and head upstairs to my apartment, which was conveniently located on the fifth floor of the building that housed Barrington Engine Fifty-Five . We also housed a Ladder and Rescue company, and lucky me, I managed all three of them and the knuckleheads that volunteered there.
Charming knuckleheads, but knuckleheads all the same.
“There’s another case in the non-essentials storage closet,” I called down from the loft that served as my office, heading for the tight spiral staircase that led down to the open area adjacent to both the garage and the staff lounge. I had to twist my muscular, alpha body to make it around the curves. The entire staircase must have been designed by an omega or a beta. There were days when I thought it would have been easier to slidedown the cliché pole at the other side of my loft space, but I saved that for special occasions.
“No,” Roscoe said as he came around the corner that led to the lounge and kitchen area, where my guys waited for a call or hung out between training sessions. “We’ve already gone through that.”
“You’re kidding,” I said with a frown, picking up my pace once I got to the bottom of the stairs and striding around the corner.
I had mixed feelings at the sight that awaited me. The crew on duty, six young alphas with loads of potential, were seated on the beat-up old sofa Roscoe and Giovanni had picked up at some thrift store a few weeks ago. Two of them, Danny and Dakota, who had struck up a fast friendship after the recruiting event two months ago and now called themselves the “Double Ds” without any sense of irony at all, had their hands wrapped tightly around videogame controllers and were swaying back and forth as digital explosions sounded from the TV. The other newbie, Troy, and the only guy who had been around Engine Fifty-Five longer than me, Ernie, were watching them as they sat on either arm of the couch.
The lounge looked more like a college dorm than a place where alphas who could be called on to rush out and save lives and property at any second waited and prepared.
“Guys,” I said, holding out my arms and nodding to the pile of empty cans on the side table, and the floor, and the empty chip bags and other trash that had been strewn around the space. “This isn’t a zoo.”
A particularly loud crash and a metallic laugh sounded from the TV as the crew glanced up at me.
“Ooh,” Giovanni said. “Someone’s in trouble.”
“He’s got his big, scary alpha face on,” Roscoe added, not without amusement.
I arched one eyebrow to make that scary face even scarier. “I need you to clean all this up right now,” I said. “I’m about to clock off for the night and I’ve got a very important engagement tonight that I need to get to. I’ll be out for the next couple of days, too, and I need to know I can rely on you.”
None of the guys would be able to contact me until at least Tuesday, and they knew it. The omega auction was tonight, and I’d waited ages to be accepted into the event. I wasn’t about to cancel now because I had to babysit a bunch of college kids who should have been drilling rescue procedures or working with some of the virtual reality training equipment that the city government had recently given us instead of increasing our operations budget. If I canceled, that would mean the omega I’d been matched with would be excluded from the event as well, and every member of the Dark Fantasies Club was champing at the bit to be matched up and accepted for an omega auction.
“Sorry, boss,” Troy said, hopping off the arm of the sofa and rushing to clean up the trash.
“Hey, kid, you call him ‘Boston’, not ‘Bos’, until you’ve been here long enough to earn the privilege,” Ernie teased the kid.
“Oh.” Troy said jerking straight. “I thought we were saying ‘boss’, like he’s the boss of us.”
I broke character and laughed. “Iamthe boss of you,” I said, moving over to help pick up soda cans for the recycling bin. “And contrary to what this old man says, I don’t mind if you call me ‘Bos’.”
The younger guys relaxed a little and laughed like they weren’t certain whether they should. They got up, though, and together we all worked on tidying up.
“Whatever your name is,” Roscoe said, moving to the fridge, “we need more drinks.”
“And snacks,” Danny added sheepishly. “We’ve eaten almost all the snacks.”
“Already?” I asked. “Don’t your mamas and papas feed you boys at home?”
The younger ones laughed. The older guys shook their heads.
“It’s time to ask for another funding increase,” Ernie said as he leaned back on the kitchen counter to watch the newbies do most of the cleaning up.
I sighed and rubbed my chin. “I already asked for a funding increase from the mayor’s office last week. I was turned down and told that we need to fill any funding gaps for non-essentials on our own.”
“Snacks are essentials,” Dakota said in a grave voice.
That made me smile. The newbies might have been a handful, but they were sweet.
