Joel
Eyes narrowed, I stalk around the firehouse table on a bright afternoon, sunlight flooding the room through the open shutter doors.
“No walking around shirtless. No dirty jokes. And I especially don’t want to see any of you flirting with Rose.
Best. Behavior. Only. This is too important for any of you to fuck up. ”
Four men look from me to the fire chief. My older brother, Noah, is holding the clipboard and called this meeting to discuss the annual firehouse breakfast coming up to raise money for new equipment. Right before I hijacked it, that is.
He raises a dark-blond brow at me. “That everything?” His voice is dry, and his dark-green eyes, identical to mine, are expressionless, but there are definitely going to be questions after this meeting.
I consider whether I covered everything, then I point to the man on my left. “Dylan, you have the smallest head out of all of us. I need your helmet.”
“What the fuck, man?” Dylan glares, running a hand over his shaved head as if to reassure himself it can’t be that small.
The rest of the guys chuckle, and even Noah cracks a smile.
Alas, I am not talking shit.
His wife, Lauren, was the one pushing him to get a haircut.
And not the same one that made him look like a '90s boy band reject. Maybe he thought going short would get her off his back for a good long while. Nevertheless, he shaved it all off, and his head’s looked like a kiwi ever since.
No one’s said it to his face, but we’re all thinking it.
My older brother Noah is the fire chief, while Dylan, Callum, and I, all full-time, rotate as shift supervisors to keep our skills sharp.
Callum is the most experienced in medical emergencies.
Oscar and Silas, the two other men here today, are volunteers and slightly older.
They usually work evenings and weekends because both have full-time jobs.
The one thing that unites all of us, full-time and volunteers, is that we all signed up to help whoever needs it.
“The helmet is for Ben,” I explain once the laughter has died down. “I’ll give it right back to you after.” We have yellow plastic ones that we give to the kids to take home after a visit to the firehouse, but I want to make this extra special for Ben.
“Fine,” Dylan says reluctantly. “But I want it back clean. Kids are cool, and all that, but their hands are always sticky, and I’m not running into a fire wearing a sticky helmet if we have an emergency.”
“I’ll clean it right after,” I promise. “Thanks, man. Appreciate it.”
I’d known he’d say yes. Any of us would have. We remember our first visit to the firehouse as wide-eyed kids with dreams of being firefighters one day.
“That’s it,” Noah says after glancing at his clipboard. “You know your tasks.”
My brother’s favorite slogan is: “If you have time to lean, you have time to clean.”
We know to stay busy, or there’s usually hell to pay. I might be his younger brother, but I’m not immune to punishment for slacking. No one is.
The men get to their feet and head toward the two fire trucks we have parked in their assigned bays in front of the open metal shutters, ready to load up and ship out when the alarm sounds.
We have a few minutes before Rose brings Ben down around two, which I confirmed with Noah when I came to the firehouse on Saturday before Harry’s birthday party.
Rose’s morning sickness isn’t as bad as it was when she first came to Rios, and we’ve all learned that her nausea isn’t as severe in the early afternoon as it is in the morning.
Between fighting fires, we check equipment, train, and have a long-ass list of tasks to keep every hour of the shift locked up tight.
We’re a small fire station made up of a mix of full-time and volunteer firefighters, though we’re currently down a full-time member after Sean, who’d been with us for over ten years, left Rios with his wife to be closer to her family in Colorado.
I don’t have a task right now since I’m leading Ben’s firehouse visit, but if I hang around this table any longer with the way my brother is studying me, he’ll find me a job to do, and it’ll be one I won’t like.
I start walking away as if I have somewhere important to be.
“Not you.” Noah points at an empty chair. “Sit.”
Noah hasn’t just been the fire chief here since our old boss retired three years ago; he’s a more dominant alpha than I am. Orders to work are one thing. I’m not a dog to sit at his command.
I stare at him, and I don’t do a goddamn thing.
He snorts and shakes his head, a flicker of amusement in his gaze. “We’ve had kids visit the firehouse before. We all know the deal. What the hell was this micromanaging about?”
He’s right.
We haven’t just had the odd kid visit the station; we’ve had the local elementary school bring down small classes to learn about fire safety. None of this is new to us. But his visit is different.
I glance at the large clock.
1:50.
Rose is gonna be here in ten minutes. Ten.
She smiled at me and said she was looking forward to it this morning over breakfast. Ben was like a firework primed to go off.
He could not stay in his chair for more than a minute before he bounced up again.
I felt a little sorry for Rose, trying to bottle all that excitement.
Why the hell am I this nervous?
Was it because of how much fun we all had over the weekend?
Why does it feel like I’m sweating through my shirt?
“I gotta freshen up,” I say, smoothing my sweaty palms on the front of my pants.
My brother’s brows shoot up. “Freshen up? Now I’m definitely interested. Kindly sit your ass down and tell me what this is about. It’s not like you to care so much about a kid coming to sit on a fire truck enough to take over my meeting.”
This is less of an order and more my brother wanting to know what’s up, so I glance at the men. After confirming they’re all too busy with their tasks to eavesdrop, I slink over to Noah, dropping into the chair next to him. I keep my voice low. “This visit is kind of a big deal.”
“Because of the kid or the mom?” he asks, a knowing look in his eyes.
I glare. “I don’t want any suggestive eyebrow waggling during this conversation. One twitch and I’m gone.”
He snorts. “When have I ever waggled my eyebrows, suggestively or otherwise?”
“Fair enough.”
Noah was born an old soul. Serious. Responsible.
Always. In high school, while the other kids were getting drunk in parking lots or feeling up girls in the back of their cars, Noah was volunteering at the firehouse and the sheriff’s office.
There’s a reason no one was surprised when he became the youngest fire chief Rios has ever had.
“I like her, okay,” I admit.
“And who is her?”
“Rose Hayes. Murph’s scent match.”
Noah sits back in his seat and crosses his arms. His face is a blank slate, suggesting a whole lot of thinking is going on beneath the surface.
“I didn’t know you liked to live that dangerously, little brother.
It takes a certain type of person willing to run into a burning building, but I feel the need to warn you that some things are more dangerous than fire.
Coming between an alpha and his scent match is one of those things. ”
“Murph doesn’t mind.”
He uncrosses his arms long enough to massage his temple. If we were teenagers, he’d have smacked the back of my head the way he did whenever he caught me doing something stupid. That slightly pinched, compressed-lip look is hard to forget. The back of my head aches every time I see it.
“And have you slept with her yet?” he asks mildly.
“Because you piss me off at times, but I do love you, and I have no interest in seeing Murph tear you apart when you test that theory. I’d avenge you, but I’d just as much rather you were alive and breathing than going on a revenge mission.
” His voice is dry, and his tone threaded with dark humor.
I roll my eyes at a level of drama I don’t usually hear from my older brother. “I appreciate your concern, but he’s cool with it. Really. Win likes her, too. They kissed, and Win has survived to see another day.”
He purses his lips. “That’s different. Win is a beta. Alphas aren’t as threatened by betas.”
He has a point, but he’s wrong. At least about this.
I wasn’t this confident before, even after Murph gave his blessing for Win and me to act on our feelings.
Maybe it’s how we’ve spent the last few days together that’s boosted my confidence from shaky to absolute.
“Living together has given all of us balance.”
He tilts his head, and I see the first hint in the loosening of his shoulders that he knows where I’m going with this. Noah has always been sharp. Always good at reading situations and gauging the mood of a room. It’s why he’s such a good fire chief. “Keep going.”
Packs almost always form young. What happened to us rarely happens to people in their thirties, and in Win’s case, his early forties.
“I don’t think any of us were even aware of it, but I’m more settled than I have been in years.
Win is more confident, and he finally asked Nico for extra hours at the diner and more input on the menu.
And Murph isn’t hanging out in his room like a hermit.
Living together has made us all grow, not just separately but together.
I think we became a pack, and we want to stay together. ”
He nods, unsurprised. “I thought you were selling the house.”
“We are.” Even though the farmhouse feels more like a home than a house flip should.
So why did none of us work on renovating the house this past weekend? Why were we talking over dinner last night about what we wanted to do next weekend, plans that did not include working on the house?
We got the rundown foreclosed home for a good price, but the mortgage was a stretch then and still is, even after Win and I put our life savings down as a big down payment, and Murph started helping out.
We have to sell this year. A firefighter, a cook, and a construction worker just don’t earn enough to afford a six-bedroom house within walking distance to downtown Rios.
Once we sell, we’ll get back all the money we put into the house and then some.
Enough to get a smaller place further out of town.
Sure, it won’t be as nice, won’t have the backyard the farmhouse has, or have the warm feeling I get when I walk in through the front door, and we’re all hanging out in the kitchen, chatting about our day.
But it’s just a house, right? And all houses are the same.
“You look troubled, little brother,” Noah says quietly.
I force a smile onto my lips. “I’m good. Just thinking about the house.”
“Anything I can do to help?”
He earns more than I do as a fire chief, but he has his own place he’s renting, and he’s not made of money. None of us are.
I shake my head. “We’ll figure something out.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I spot Rose wandering in through the farthest entrance, beautiful in a pair of white cotton pants, a pale pink t-shirt, and brown sandals.
Is she wearing those lace panties I got an eyeful of when I opened her suitcase?
Before my mind can wander any further in that direction, I order myself to stop thinking such dangerous thoughts in public. I’m going to have to stand up from this table at some point, and show an excited little boy around. I cannot do that with a hard-on.
“You’re not listening to a word I’m saying, are you?” Noah’s amused voice punctures my focus.
I stop staring at Rose to glare at him. He’s looking smug, and I have no clue what the fuck he said while I had my eyes on Rose, but I hope it wasn’t important. Still, I’m thankful for his distraction.
My attention swings back to Rose.
Her hair is in a braid hanging over one shoulder.
Her curious chocolate-brown gaze sweeps the inside of the fire station, and her grip on Ben’s hand is tight.
For good reason, he looks like he’s bursting at the seams with excitement, speaking so fast that I can’t imagine Rose understands what he’s saying.
This smile as I push myself to my feet is genuine. Happy. At least about this. “Let me introduce you to Rose and Ben.”