Chapter 11 Larkin
ELEVEN
LARKIN
My crew noticed there was something different about me.
It wasn't dramatic. I wasn't whistling through equipment checks or skipping, but the small things were adding up. I'd brought donuts to the station on Monday, which I'd never done. They caught me smiling at my phone during lunch before pocketing it and nearly dropping it in my soup.
“Who is he?" Janice was restocking the medical bags.
“Who is who?”
“The person who's turned our lieutenant warm and gooey.” She counted gauze pads and didn't look up. “Not that you weren't, ummm, a little before, but this week there’s been a transformation. It's unsettling.”
“I’m always like this.”
Janice and Colin exchanged a glance that suggested they disagreed.
“I think it's nice,” Colin offered. "You're less forbidding when you smile.”
“I’m not like that.”
Janice gave me a look, and I retreated to the watch room before anyone else decided to analyze me.
Firefighters lived together for twenty-four-hour stretches. We ate and trained together and slept ten feet apart. There was nowhere to hide. If Janice had picked up on my mood shift after a week, the rest of the crew wasn't far behind.
I needed to be more careful. The donuts had been a mistake.
The ladder climb was Saturday, and I'd spent the week running Colin through his preparation. He was strong and disciplined, and he'd been training hard.
“Don't look down.” This was his final practice. “Focus on the next rung. Let your hands and feet do the work.”
“Easy for you to say. You're on the ground.” But he grinned and started climbing.
I was proud of him, and I told him that. It earned me another round of suspicious looks because apparently complimenting my crew was out of character.
Maybe Percy was right. I didn't let anyone see me rattled, and the flip side of that was not letting them see me pleased either. I'd built a version of myself at this station that was competent and a little distant. The cracks Percy had opened were visible, something my crew had never witnessed.
On Saturday, both stations converged on the training grounds where the aerial ladder was set up. Station 9 was ahead one to nothing, and if they won this event, they'd lead two to one going into the final.
I spotted Percy the moment I arrived, mainly because I had eyes only for him.
He was stretching near Station 9's truck. He rolled his shoulders and bounced on his toes, probably because he wanted to get the event started. He was in full gear, with his helmet tucked under his arm. His focused expression wasn’t his usual, day-to-day face, but this wasn’t a time for joking.
He was at the base of the ladder, tilting his head up to study the top, and fear spiked inside me. A hundred feet was high, and the ladder swayed. And the man I'd mated was about to climb it while I stood on the ground pretending he was just another competitor.
My dragon reassured me he’d be fine. I can always fly up and grab him if something goes wrong.
That’d work out well in front of humans. But if it came to Percy’s safety, I’d say to heck with disrupting the world order.
Colin went first. He found his rhythm, but at seventy feet, the ladder began to sway.
It always did up there. From the ground, the rocking was barely noticeable, but it was anything but gentle when you were on it.
Colin pushed through, and at the top, he slapped the final rung and the timer stopped.
He did well, and I clapped him on the shoulder when he reached the ground.
“Well done.”
“The sway was hard to deal with.” He wiped sweat from his forehead.
“The wind picked up and you adjusted.”
Percy was at the base of the ladder now with his helmet on and gloves. His captain spoke to him, and Percy nodded.
I wasn’t going to watch. I couldn’t, but I also couldn’t avoid looking at him.
He started climbing, and I understood why he was their entry. He moved as if he were part of the ladder. Colin had been methodical, but Percy was instinctive. He understood what was happening and adjusted immediately.
My dragon was riveted, and I told him there was no need to take his scales. I composed my features to give nothing away because I was surrounded by my crew.
At seventy feet, where Colin had paused, Percy powered on through the sway. When he reached the top, the number that flashed on the board was three seconds faster than Colin.
Station 9 cheered as Percy descended. His crew swarmed around him. When he pulled off his helmet and shook out his hair, I gritted my teeth. I wanted to be there, hugging and kissing him.
He grinned and glanced at me, just for a second. It was a glimpse of what we had in the bedroom, eating breakfast and arguing about the coffee maker. And then he was back with his crew accepting congratulations.
I didn’t care about the loss, though that stung. But I so wanted to be the one standing at his side who got the version of Percy that he showed me when we were alone.
Instead, I shook hands in the lineup and told him, “Good climb.” Percy responded, and when our palms touched, I both overheated and shivered. I was surprised no one noticed my expression. If they thought I was warm and gooey about donuts, they’d be shocked into silence now.
My crew was quiet on the ride back. Colin said he was sorry, and I told him there was nothing to apologize for.
“Percy is so fast.” Colin stared out the window. “Have you ever seen anyone climb like that?”
I had, when Percy had climbed on top of me that night we mated. I gulped away an inappropriate response and said he was good.
Back at the station, I sat alone in the quiet bay after everyone had left. I needed to see my mate.
Congratulations.
He messaged me back. Dinner? Same place as last time?
I was hoping he wanted to come over to my place. We’d spent so little time together, and we had to have a discussion about what the future looked like. But I wasn’t going to turn down an opportunity to be with one another where we wouldn’t be discovered.
Percy was already at the restaurant and sitting at the same table as before. He had a beer in front of him and another for me.
“I ordered for you. Well, water for you, beer for me, but I got you a beer too in case you wanted one.”
“I’m not on shift tomorrow.” I slid into the seat and took the beer.
His brows rose, and he teased, “I thought you ran on water and discipline.”
“Most of the time.” I took a sip. “You were incredible up there.”
“I was.” But his smile faded as he studied me. “Hey. It's just one loss.”
"It's not that.” I peeled the label from the bottle, a habit I'd broken years ago. “It's the part where I had to pretend I didn't care that you were a hundred feet in the air. And when my crew is analyzing your climb and I can't say that I know you.” I rolled up the damp shredded label.
Percy reached across the table and covered my hand with his. “I hated that you couldn’t be with me.”
“It’s not the secrecy so much but the lying. There’s a reason why we’re keeping quiet. But pretending you don't matter is what’s getting to me.”
He squeezed my hand. “Not long to go now.”
“And what if they react badly?”
Percy studied his fork. “They'll be angry we lied to them.” He met my gaze. “But I'd rather have that conversation than keep pretending you're nobody to me.”
Awwww, my heart. My dragon was getting emotional and shaking his scales.
I laced my fingers through Percy's. “Two more weeks.”
“And then we burn the secret down and deal with whatever’s left.”
“And we do it together.”
“Well, yes, obviously, because we’re a mated pair.” He flagged the waiter with his free hand. “Now can we order? I'm starving, and emotional conversations make me hungry.”
When I got home, I allowed myself to imagine what our lives would look like when we weren’t sneaking around.
There’d be no more meeting up in a restaurant miles from home just so we wouldn’t get caught.
And I wouldn’t have to pretend the omega who turned my world upside down and inside out was just another firefighter from a rival station.