The note next to the thermos of coffee told her everything she needed to know.
Went to CCFD HQ. Have a good shift! Noah.
His name had been underlined three times, and his phone number followed.
Erin shook her head to confirm it wasn’t a dream while she grabbed the cream and sugar. She’d had forty-eight hours of wild, aerobic, ridiculously fulfilling sex with Fire Chief Noah Baker. That man had haunted her for months with his standoffish attitude and icy blue eyes. Not only was he hella hot under the clothes, but he was amazing in the sack.
The coffee she was drinking seemed real enough. The kitchen clock warned her it was 0815. Her shift would start at 0900, and Captain Williams would not let any infraction pass. She was fairly certain her excuse “I’m late because the fire chief banged me hourly for the last two days” would not fly.
It didn’t give her much time for breakfast at home. She and Noah had subsisted on pizza delivery and Unbirthday cake. The cake had been pretty well demolished, and she had a brief flashback of licking off her fork as Noah licked off her clit. He was very good with his tongue… and hands… and everything.
She could meet the team for 830 breakfast before lineup. She checked her reflection in the mirror by the front door. Her naturally curly hair was pulled back in a tight oiled bun. A quick inspection of her neck above her uniform T-shirt revealed no hickeys. Hopefully, no one would notice her tan skin was pinker than usual, a telltale sign of being ‘handled.’
And the Chief would still be handling her if work hadn’t interfered.
Feeling renewed, she snapped a photo of the phone number only, avoiding his name, and picked up the coffee. She left her door with a spring in her step.
Her next-door neighbor was exiting too. A short blonde, Dr. Angela Something-or-Other, who worked at MetroGen, was leaving her apartment dressed in oversized scrubs. They rarely spoke beyond occasional conversations when Angela walked her dog.
Today, however, Angela needed help and didn’t know it. Erin wasn’t alone in getting laid this weekend, because Angela had bite marks—revealed by the unintentionally low cut top. If it was visible to Erin who was six inches taller, it would be visible to everyone else.
Erin never shied away from this type of thing. “Hey, umm, you should put a turtleneck on under your top.”
“A turtleneck?” the doctor sounded slightly suspicious.
“Yeah, sorry… you’ve got marks,” Erin indicated her own chest. Angela’s pale skin turned quite red, and Erin was thankful her skin didn’t do that. “Must have had a nice weekend with him. Or her? Them?”
“Him,” Angela confirmed. She started to go back into her house. “So, umm, thanks.”
“No problem. Better a weird neighbor like me tell you than you end up at work like that.” Erin didn’t want to go full on ‘unwanted advice/nosy neighbor’ and point out that if the doctor wore clothes that fit, it wouldn’t be an issue. The times Erin saw her walking the dog, Angela wore yoga pants and shirts which didn’t conceal her busty figure. The rest of the time she wore awful fitting, baggy mu-mus.
Then again, some guy had gotten a very close look at those curves.
Erin set off, laughing at herself. She was the self-fulfilling sex loop. She had sex and thought more about sex, even for random people. Which made her more energetic and horny again. Chief sex was sex on steroids.
She arrived at Firehouse 15 and went in the back door. Her morning non-sequitur with Angela only gave her less than fifteen minutes to eat before Captain No-fun called them for lineup. She took the back stairs up to the kitchen where her teammates were rolling in.
“Erin, sorry I didn’t call you this weekend,” Theo greeted her. “I totally forgot about your car. You should have called.”
“Why did you forget?” Kevin asked, pulling bagels out of the toaster. Carver was on cream cheese duty.
Theo blushed the same way Angela had. “Drew and I spent some quality time together. A lot of quality time together.”
“Tried every flat surface?” Kevin teased.
“And the ceiling,” Theo said and checked out Erin. “Wait a minute. You didn’t call me either. What were you doing this weekend?”
“Or who?” Kevin asked. “You’re glowing.”
“I met a guy.” Erin set out plates.
“Damn. Lucky. No one at our place was getting laid,” he said pointedly to Aiden.
Aiden had been cutting up fruit with Vanessa. “I didn’t call Charlie.”
“What?” Vanessa asked. “I was going to let one of you call her.”
“I told Aiden to call her,” Kevin said.
“Crap. My firehouse is a bunch of assholes. All three of us got her number, and none of us called her,” Vanessa said.
Luna came in. “What’s going on?”
“Only Theo and Erin got laid this weekend,” Kevin said.
Vanessa started coughing. “Wrong. A friendly police officer had coffee with me this morning after he wore someone else out.”
“Thanks for that.” Luna glanced at Aiden.
“Don’t mention it,” Vanessa smirked.
“Give it a rest. We’re all grownups. I’m a grownup,” Aiden retorted.
“If you repeat the word ‘grownup’ too many times, you’re not a grownup,” Vanessa said.
“Don’t bitch at me about it.,” Aiden responded, crankier than they’d anticipated since this wasn’t exactly new ground.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. I think we’re missing the point here. Luna and Kormos doing the nasty isn’t new. I want to know who Erin was with. Did you ride a police officer home?” Kevin asked with avid interest.
“No,” Erin said quickly, “I did not go home with a police officer.”
Luna said, “I saw four different guys try to chat you up. Elias was sure you’d go for one of them.”
It was time to think fast. In this group, nothing stayed secret for long. While she couldn’t own up to the truth, she needed an explanation. “Nope. I met a guy named Han. We had coffee and hit it off. Boy, did he hit it.”
Most of that was completely true. Fire Chief Noah Baker had agreed to meet her for coffee. Said coffee ended up being inside her rowhouse, and it took about twenty-four hours to remember to have any coffee. They didn’t need to know that part.
She’d have to think about more fake information to fill in later. It was a good time to not get interrogated by her team.
Hard stop.
Carver had said nothing at this point, not even a single reference to MetroGen. Erin asked, “What’s going on with you?”
“Nothing.” He was studiously painting cream cheese on bagels.
Everyone turned to Carver. They waited expectantly, all eyes on him.
He sighed, and his face turned red. “Our IVF failed. We got the results this weekend. Negative again.”
For a few seconds, no one said anything. As the rookie, he put up with a lot of shit from them. He ran in different circles and had never revealed his personal business the same way everyone else did. It was a big moment for him to tell them this.
“I’m sorry, dude,” Kevin said. He reached out and gave Carver a hug.
The team waited to see how Carver responded. His shoulders bent slightly, allowing himself to accept comfort.
“Come on everybody, group hug,” Kevin ordered. Everyone piled on as instructed. Though not everyone could actually reach Carver, the sentiment was there.
Thirty seconds passed, then a minute. No one made a move to stop.
“What is going on, and why are all of you late for lineup?” Captain Williams boomed from the stairway. Their imposing captain halted in confusion when he saw the group hug.
“Team building. Therapeutic supportive technique,” Theo lied.
“Chief Baker approved,” Luna chirped. Erin suspected Luna had rightly guessed that Williams wouldn’t question anything involving Baker.
“Group hugging is in. Very big. Physical human contact is very important for emotional regulation,” Vanessa added.
Erin was more than glad she was on the outside of the hug. They had no idea how much Chief Baker agreed with Vanessa’s last statement.
It was even better naked.
Aiden shrugged his way out of the hug. “Do you want to join us? Get in touch with some of your feelings? Cry it out?”
Williams was having difficulty with a comeback. “Finish your emotional regulation and meet me downstairs for lineup in five minutes.”
Everyone slowly separated. Kevin waited to hear Williams go back down the stairs. “You know who could use some good horizontal time? Vanessa, you’re single.”
“No. I like my sex low on the surly,” Vanessa said. “I don’t fix broken things.”
“He needs more than a group hug,” Luna said.
The team scarfed down bagels and a cup of coffee each before going downstairs. Williams didn’t mention how the team was ten minutes late for lineup. Erin guessed he was smarting from whatever slap-down he’d had last shift with Chief Baker. While they’d been sexing it up, they hadn’t discussed anything related to her captain. It was better that way.
The captain retired to his office and assigned routine equipment maintenance. He didn’t notice Luna let Carver do Ladder alone to give him some space. Instead, she helped Theo check the Medic. Vanessa and Kevin were on Engine, keeping an eye on Carver nearby. Erin and Aiden got assigned to custodial duties at the Cafe.
Erin steadily moved down her side of the room and washed the dishes and the counter. However, Aiden kept cleaning the same window over and over.
Poor Aiden.
He’d been through such a trauma-congo-line since December, Erin could hardly remember the old friendly easy-going version of Aiden. Things had been looking up yesterday until they weren’t. He had plenty of options to choose from. Williams’s outburst. Soto’s subtle disrespect. Luna being favored. Elias supplanting him. The three-way tie for Charlie. Not making captain. The dying teenager. Getting left for dead.
Take your pick.
“Windex doesn’t break through windows,” Erin said. “Want to talk about it?”
“There’s nothing to talk about.” Aiden moved over one window. “You’re awfully chatty on your sex high.”
“It’s sex. Nothing else makes you feel better than a good role in the hay with a hot guy.” Erin checked to confirm their sneaky eavesdropping captain was nowhere nearby.
“It was that good? You’re still walking straight.” Aiden drew a box around her with his hands.
“Han was… good,” Erin wasn’t sure how far she should go to describe the exceptional Chief-sex she’d had. “How about exemplary? It kept me in bed all weekend.”
“Then that’s pretty good.”
Erin tried fishing from a different angle to draw him out, despite his claim of being over it. “How you and Luna were the first time you hooked up? A weekend bang-a-thon?”
She got a genuine reaction; he laughed. “No. I took her out to dinner in Geauga County so no one ran into us. It took us to the third date to finally get to bed. It was twelve hours at a Holiday Inn Express because we were trying to dodge our roommates. They weren’t fooled.”
“You have had sex since the break-up?”
“Sex with another person? Anything I’ve had lately has been solo.” Aiden brightened. “Kevin has enough sex for me and him. Bananas have longer shelf lives than the revolving group of Kevin’s Badge Bunnies.”
“Then why didn’t you go for Charlie? She seemed—”
“Easy?” Aiden threw his paper towels out. “Contrary to common opinion, not all guys want an easy lay, and kinky-weird isn’t my thing. Was she planning on a foursome with all three of us? Or would we end up in some kind of firehouse love quadrangle? Didn’t I fuck that up enough? Where to next?”
“Sweep the conference room on the second floor and clean the catwalk,” Erin said. The offices, front desk, supply rooms and gym took up half the first floor. The bunkrooms, kitchen/cafe, laundry, and conference room were on top of them. The barn was two stories tall for the rigs and the catwalk crossing it.
“Catwalk first,” Aiden suggested. The catwalk had two sets of stairs at either end and a blocked off fire pole. The fire pole was out of use because statistics found more injuries occurred going down the pole than the stairs.
Erin was determined to get somewhere. “I’m worried about you. You’re pulling away from the team, and during the Freon, you froze.”
“I didn’t freeze,” Aiden said shortly.
“Sorry. Is there anything would you want to talk about? The apartment fire and the teenager. She died, right?” Erin went to yet another angle.
“People die in fires all the time. I did my best with her.” Aiden started sweeping the catwalk with more energy than the task demanded.
“I was scared of heights when I started in Seattle. I almost fell off a ladder four stories up. I was carrying a kid; I could have dropped her,” Erin admitted.
“Heights?” Aiden asked. She knew he was likely trying to remember if he’d ever noticed Erin give any hint of her past fear.
“I was worried that every time I got on the ladder, I’d fall. I’d wake up and hope that I was assigned to Engine or Medic. If I got assigned to Ladder, the house had better be burning on the first floor and not the fifth.”
“You don’t seem to have problems now.”
“Now, I’m a superstar. Back then, my team noticed and helped me. I went to therapy once, talked to a counselor. They started me climbing ladders without my gear and then with my gear. Over time, I got more confident, and it faded.” Erin was almost three years away from her fears now.
“It faded?”
“Faded slowly. If I hadn’t been able to tell my team, I don’t know where I would have been. I wouldn’t have been able to keep it quiet forever.”
“Color me not shocked. You never hold anything in.” He knelt down for the dustpan.
“I do hold stuff in,” she disagreed. Obliviously, she couldn’t tell him about her crush on the Chief culminating in the past weekend.
“You don’t. You tell everybody what you’re thinking all the time.”
“Do not.”
“This isn’t a bad thing. You aren’t like Luna who gives everyone the most negative and forceful version of her opinion, which is why the captain hates her. You talk all the time, but it’s pretty positive, fun, and friendly.”
“It’s called extrovert,” Erin protested.
“Or you have no inner monologue because you say it all out loud. It doesn’t mean anything is wrong with me because I don’t. We work for a tyrant who wants to lop off heads of anyone who speaks up.”
Right on cue, the captain entered the barn and yelled, “Team coffee meeting in my office now!”
The klaxon went off, and everyone waited. Hopefully, they would get a chance to avoid the meeting. “Firehouse 15, Medic 15 call for chest pain on West 34th street.”
Luna and Theo ran for their rig and pulled out.
Lucky ducks.
“Everyone into my office,” Williams barked before reconsidering. “I mean, please come to my office.” He escorted the remaining five into his office where he had two large carafes of coffee from Panera with eight pre-poured cups. “Here.”
“Wow. Coffee. Umm, thank you, Captain,” Vanessa stammered. Everyone held their cups nervously, standing back near the door. Even though Williams was seated behind his desk, no one was eager to come closer.
“Yes,” he said, “I might have been hard on people last shift. Perhaps if we shared our feelings and… things?” Williams played with a pen and a piece of paper on his desk.
“Share, sir?” Vanessa took a small step forward.
“Yes. I need to get to know you guys and… ladies… better. I didn’t have a permanent team when I was in FEMA, so I might be rusty.”
“You don’t say,” Kevin deadpanned, joining Vanessa in front of the captain’s desk. “Anything in particular you wanted to ask about?”
“I was going through the personnel files, and it seems that only Carver here is married. Any kids and stuff?”
Carver did not come closer and only turned paler. “No. No kids and stuff.”
“Oh, I figured since you’re older than I am that you would—”
“I like to draw. I did that one,” Kevin announced and pointed to where Soto’s retirement present, the caricature of the whole team, hung on the opposite wall.
“Oh. You’re very talented. Other than drawing, tell me something about yourself. Your parents said they were hoping you’d find someone. Anything on the horizon to banish Unbirthdays?” Williams missed the obvious safe topic and picked the touchier subject from yesterday.
Considering Kevin’s horizon included every woman in Cuyahoga County, he opted not to volunteer any information. “Nope, can’t say I do. How about you, sir?”
“I’m a widower.” William’s answer was clipped.
No one could think of anything else to say. It would be difficult to story-top his sentence without Theo present for a grieving spouse arm-wrestling match. Williams examined the paper on his desk again. “Significant other. Anyone?”
“Everyone here is essentially single by choice,” Vanessa said, specifically referring to the team members present. “Our regular hours and outside hobbies keep us busy enough. It’s difficult to find anyone who wants to date someone long-term who could die in a fire at any time.”
“Yeah, I agree with that one,” Aiden said. It was testament to team loyalty that no one mentioned Luna or Theo. The captain had to suspected Luna and Elias’s relationship based on how the in-service went, but the team wasn’t going to share it.
“What about pets?” Williams tried again gamely. Did he have a list of suggested topics written on his notes?
Erin attempted filling the space. “My neighbor has a dog.”
“I have a plant, which I haven’t killed yet,” Vanessa said. “I water it once a day.”
“Captain, why don’t you tell us something about yourself??” Kevin said as the conversation continued to crash and burn. “Surely you must do something other than live here at the firehouse… and go home all by yourself.”
“I like coffee,” Williams said.
“How revealing,” Vanessa mumbled.
They stood there for a couple more minutes, unable to come up with anything else to say. Williams could not have picked worse topics. Erin wanted to give him a credit for effort, but it was terrible execution.
She hunted for a safe topic and took her first sip of her second cup of coffee.
Gross. Dark-roast black coffee.
“Is there sugar, cream, anything?” Her morning chief-coffee had improved with a splash of cream and some sugar.
“Oh… I usually take mine black.” Williams was crestfallen like he hadn’t considered any other options. “We can go to the Cafe if you need to.”
“Yeah, Erin likes it creamy white.” Erin jabbed her heel into Kevin’s toes, and he quickly corrected, “Her coffee, I mean.”
Vanessa was willing to lend a hand before Kevin’s suggestive comments led Williams to ask Erin more questions. “I can kick a fifty-yard field goal. I did it in exhibition at the NFL Combine,” she offered.
“You were a nationally ranked soccer player.” Williams was visibly relieved to find any topic they could actually talk about.
“Yes, I made it to the U-23 team and World Cup practice squad before I worked pageants full time,” Vanessa said, and Erin was grateful for her interference.
“Yes… beauty contests.” Williams said the term with distaste.
Erin wanted to roll her eyes. The captain was digging himself a big hole now since Vanessa disliked the implication that she was only worthwhile because of her looks. Vanessa shut her mouth and tried to drink the coffee instead.
The silence lengthened until Williams recognized he’d lost his audience.
“Why don’t I review some training protocols with my officers? The rest of you can get back to cleaning.”
Carver, Erin, and Kevin fled immediately. Erin stopped Carver outside the office. “Why don’t you take some alone time? Kevin and I straighten up the conference room.”
“I don’t want you to think I’m shirking.”
“You’ve established you are excellent at laundry and housekeeping. Take a little time for yourself,” Kevin said.
She and Kevin took the brooms to the conference room. The second they closed the door, she whacked him with her broom, “’Erin likes it ‘creamy white?’”
“Dating brings out opinions.”
“I don’t want to hear his opinions about my dating choices,” Erin hissed. “He can stick to coffee.”
“Maybe the next time we see the Chief, we should ask him about Williams?”
“What? Why?” Erin hoped she didn’t sound guilty.
“They obviously know each other. Not sure how well they get along, but I doubt the Chief would hire somebody who he hated. Seems too smart for that.”
If Erin ever got the Chief again alone, Williams wouldn’t enter the conversation. “Next time, leave me out of it. I’d rather be not seen and not heard by him.”
“Doesn’t seem like that’s going to be a problem. He spends a lot of time slapping down our officers.”
“True.” Erin lowered her voice and asked, “Is everything okay with Aiden?”
“Of course, it’s fine.” Kevin’s response was too fast.
“He’s acting weird. He say anything?”
“No.” He added in an undertone, “He’s not sleeping great—paces for hours most nights.”
“I tried to talk to him, and he shut me down. Luna’s not the problem. I think it’s something else.”
“Or nothing else,” Kevin cut her off. “Even if there were a problem, the captain isn’t the forgiving type. Right now, Luna is the one who gives him the most problems. If we can keep the pressure off Aiden, I’m sure he’ll come around to his normal self.”
“You sure? Shouldn’t we—”
“No, we shouldn’t. The captain doesn’t give a shit. We gonna report him to our battalion chief who is currently Fire Chief Baker? ‘Aiden isn’t bonding with our new captain, and he isn’t sleeping well?’ The Chief has bigger fish to fry.”
“But –”
“We want to help, but all we can do is hurt him,” Kevin said. “Give him some time.”
The klaxon went off again, “Ladder 15, Engine 15, possible fire on East 16th and Kenilworth Avenue.”
They dropped everything and ran down the catwalk to suit up.