Page 69 of Reckless
“Thank God for bunker pants,” she said, her body tingling at the sight of the turnout gear slung over his frame before she tamped it down for the sake of propriety. “Actually, I came out here to bring everyone dinner. I figured no one would turn down a home-cooked meal.” She tipped her head toward the doors leading back to the firehouse, and Alex raked her with a slow gaze before hauling her close for one last kiss.
“When you come in here wearing those jeansandbearing food, you make it really freaking hard for me to keep my hands off you. We need to tell your father what’s going on, otherwise I’m liable to lose the cool for which I’m so popularly known around here.”
Zoe wanted to roll her eyes, but her laugh tumbled out instead. “I know, but we need to tell him in private, and between your shifts and my schedule at Hope House, this week was kind of crazy.”
“We’re all here right now,” Alex said, and oh, hell, he was serious.
“Alex, think about it. You’re on shift with my dad for the next fourteen hours. Telling him now would be insane.” Not that she didn’t want to come clean. But she also didn’t want her highly overprotective father to smother her boyfriend in his sleep.
The realization seemed to hit Alex after another minute. He tugged a hand through his hair, hard enough to leave the blond locks tousled. “You’re right. I just hate not saying anything. I feel like I’m lying to him, and that bugs the crap out of me.”
“How about Sunday?” she asked. “It’s only two days from now, and we can meet for breakfast, first thing.”
“Sounds perfect.” He stepped back, shifting his focus. “I take it you haven’t heard anything from the Collingsworth Foundation today.”
Zoe’s gut squeezed. “No.” She shook her head, pulling her screamingly silent cell phone from the back pocket of her jeans as proof. “I know the foundation offices don’t close for another half hour, but it’s looking like we won’t hear anything about the next round of decisions until at least Monday.”
“That might be a good sign.” Alex leaned back against the engine, running a thumb beneath the suspenders keeping his dark gray bunker pants in place.
Zoe hedged, not wanting to jinx her chances with an out-loud admission of what she’d been thinking for the last two hours. No news was good news, and all that. “Maybe,” she allowed. “I’ll be honest, though. I wish they’d just call. The waiting is making me crazy.”
“Let me guess.” He leveled her with a smile so charming, it made his bright blue eyes crinkle at the edges. “You made seven pounds of lasagna today, didn’t you?”
“Mac and cheese,” she admitted, huffing out a laugh. “But I’m nervous as hell. Plus…” She trailed off, but they’d never been anything but honest with each other, so there was no point in holding back. “You’re back on shift, and that scares me.”
Alex’s relaxed demeanor didn’t even budge by a fraction. “I was on shift Tuesday, too. A-okay, as promised.” He gestured to himself with one hand as he reached for her with the other, and she melted into his side with a sigh.
“I know, and I know that your job is as important to you as mine is to me. But the guys were telling me about the fire call you went on just now, and how it could’ve been so much worse, and I guess the worry is just going to take some getting used to for me, that’s all.”
He straightened, kissing the crown of her head before turning to shut the storage compartment on the engine with a metallic bang. “I know something that might make that a little easier. Come on.”
She followed him through the engine bay and back inside the firehouse. But rather than moving toward the happy sounds of pre-dinner chatter coming out of the common room, Alex turned down a different, more secluded hallway, one lined on either side with photograph after photograph.
Nostalgia rippled outward from the center of Zoe’s chest. “The hall of pictures. God, some of these have been here since I was a kid.”
“Yup,” Alex said, his gaze extending down the line of the sunlit hallway. “Pretty much any and every big deal that’s gone down in Station Eight over the last two decades is up here on these walls. You name it, and chances are, we’ve got the photographic evidence.”
“Mmm.” She ran her fingers along the edges of the plain black frames, leaning in closer to scan the images with care. Some depicted firefighters doing drills, others were shots of active fires. Commendation letters were peppered into the mix, along with a healthy handful of photographs of Station Eight’s firefighters in more casual settings like Fairview’s legendary basketball tournament.
Zoe stopped in front of one of the frames about halfway down the wall. “Oh, that’s a great picture of you and Brennan and Cole. Although”—she squinted in confusion before arching a brow at him—“why are your hands bright purple?”
“Because Brennan is a dick,” Alex said with way more affection than ire. “He put Kool-Aid powder in my gloves one shift as a practical joke.”
Her laugh escaped in a quick burst. “I’m sure you were just minding your own business and did nothing to earn that.”
“I’m a saint. Anything he tells you about me waking him up by testing our chain saw ten feet away from his bunk is pure myth.”
“Uh-huh.” Reminding herself to congratulate Brennan on his creativity the next time she saw him, she continued down the row. She took in picture after picture, each one an obvious testament to the paramedics’ and firefighters’ skill and camaraderie.
“I remember this fire,” she said, pausing in front of a series of eight-by-ten photos of a two-story house, engulfed in smoke and flames. “I was home from college on a break when it happened. The house wasn’t too far from where my parents used to live.”
Alex leaned in, tapping the glass with one finger. “I remember it, too. There’s Oz and Andersen, up on the roof.” He traced a line down to the ground level, pointing to two firefighters running water lines into the smoke-filled house. “And that’s me and Cole. Ah, and Brennan’s right there, too.”
“How can you tell who’s who?” she asked. She was lucky she could make out how many figures there were in all the flashing lights and chaos.
“Partly by what we’re doing. We’ve all got really specific things we’re responsible for on a fire call. It keeps us organized, focused.” He moved his gaze from the photo to Zoe’s face, his expression completely pared down in its honesty. “But mostly, I know who’s who in all of these pictures because we always have each other’s backs. I know where my fellow firefighters are, just like they know where I am on any given call, and none of us do the job halfway. We go into every fire as a team, and that’s how we come out.”
Understanding dawned. “Is that why you wanted me to see this? So I’d know how much backup you have?”
