Page 80 of Jump

Nixon barks out a laugh and reaches across to slap my shoulder. “Well, I’m happy for Ruiz. Good men deserve good women, and from where I stand, that’s what we’ve got here.” He releases my shoulder and turns away. “Now get to work and quit gossiping, Feeney. This isn’t teatime.”

“But, Chief! I was the last to know,” he whines. “The girls set us both up—which could have been avoided if Ruiz had just been honest.”

“Right, my bad,” I scoff. “I forgot I owe you an explanation of my private life.” I set my hand on the center of his chest and push him across the threshold of my office. “I don’t talk about my feelings, kid. And if I ever get a wild hair and decide to start, chances are it won’t be with you. Now go plan dinner so we have something warm to put in our bellies tonight after twelve hours of working in the freezing weather and wishing we were home.”

“Lieutenant!”

Slowly, tauntingly, I slide my door shut while staring deep into his eyes. “Can’t talk, Feeney. I have paperwork to do.”

“You’d better treat her right!” he snarls. He jams his hand through the gap left between my door and the jamb, only an inch or two, then presses his mouth just above. “Treat her right, or we’ll step away from the firehouse, go where ranks don’t mean shit, and deal with our beef like men.”

“Uh-huh. Okay. Speaking of beef…” I wink. “I wouldn’t mind stew for dinner. It fills a man’s belly, warms him up, and comes with bread and butter on the side. Get it started now in the slow cooker, and it can keep us all company all day long.”

I close my door all the way, so he stands on the other side of the glass, his nose wrinkled in anger and his shoulders bulging with the thirst for a fight. But he’s been put on notice by the chief already. So instead of shouting at me and risking getting his ass kicked by the boss, he lifts both middle fingers and holds his pose for a long beat.

We’re just two men, standing on opposite sides of a sheet of glass, and smiling at each other.

Or, well… I’m smiling. He’s not.

And hell if that’s not a new experience for us both.

“Go to work, Axel.” I turn on my heels and settle in at my tiny desk butted up against the wall. And by desk, I mean a sheet of timber, three feet long and two feet deep, with milk crates for legs, and fire department mugs for pen holders.

I power up my old-as-balls computer and, for the first time ever, snigger when the machine slowly drones to life.

Any other day, the sound it makes as it fights for its life would have me snarling. Its pitiful existence would make me cranky, since its slowness wastes department time and money.

But today, I guess I simply wanna be happy.

And I’ve not felt this way in a very, very long time.

Though, of course, my head snaps up when the alarms ring out, and my smile vanishes in an instant.

“Engine three,” the dispatcher summons, so I shove to my feet and start toward the door. “Ambulance three. Vehicular accident on Lookout Hill. Two vehicles involved. Injuries unknown. Fatalities, unknown.”

“Alright, let’s go!” I dart along the hall and wave my hand in the air to gather my team, but they’re already moving. Already in the garage and pulling their turnouts on.

So I bolt toward the racks and stop beside Axel to kick my boots off and shove my legs into my thicker, heavier pants. “I want you front and center with me, kid. Bet you a dollar, whoever is up there is in your age bracket.”

“It’s not even eight in the morning, Lieutenant.” He slams his feet into his own boots and snatches his coat. “They’re not up there making out.”

“My prediction remains the same.”

I snag my coat and slip back into my boots, then turning away at a run, brushing my fingers across Cootes’ old jacket, I dash to the truck and climb into the back. Sloane’s already in the front, his foot on the brake pedal, and his hands on the wheel. Rizz follows next, then Ivy.

Her cheeks burn red—not from embarrassment, the way Vivian’s so often do, but from exertion. From sprinting across the firehouse and being the last when, to prove herself, she should make sure she’s first.

“Lieutenant. I’m here.”

I nod for her, but I turn in my seat and catch the side of Sloane’s face instead. “Roll out. Let’s go.” Then I grab the radio on my shoulder. “Dispatch, we’re gonna need the tanker to follow us up. Lookout Hill means we won’t have access to town water.”

“Acknowledged. Deploying the tanker.”

I release my radio and study my crew. Sloane, our driver and senior-most member on staff at the ripe old age of forty-two. Rizz, who sits around my thirty-something, and Ivy, who’s still early in her twenties. Axel, even younger yet at twenty-two.

Half the crew are practically babies. So fucking young. But we scream toward scenes everyone else runs away from, and throw ourselves at a fire, when most normal, rational folks do what they can to get away.

“Axel and I are on lead,” I tell them all. “Sloane, you’re securing the truck and getting us as close to the wreck as you can without sending us over the cliff. Rizz, you’re on hoses. The second the tank arrives, hook us up and get the wet stuff on the red stuff.”

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