Chapter Three Hale
Apparently, I’ve stumbled into a version of reality where a fairy princess now resides in my firehouse.
A fairy princess with a mane of blonde hair and bright green eyes. Freckles, too. Charming little constellations across the bridge of her nose and, as I noticed when she pushed up the sleeves of her blazer, dotted all over her forearms.
I had to admit, however, that the first thing I noticed about her was her legs.
Long, toned legs that made her perfectly professional skirt look just a little bit too short.
Immediately, I realized it had been way too long since I’d allowed myself any kind of release, because all I could think about for the first five minutes of the meeting was what those pretty pale thighs would look like wrapped around my…
Anyway, it doesn’t matter.
It doesn’t matter how gorgeous our new PR representative is.
What matters is that she’s here to make my life as difficult as possible.
She waltzed into Station 47 spewing rainbows and butterflies out of her pouty lips, had Trent and Reyes eating out of the palm of her hand in five seconds flat, and now seems to have her heart set on turning my firehouse into the set of Keeping Up With the Kardashians.
Part of me is relieved when the alarm starts blaring, because maybe it’ll spook her enough that she’ll decide she’d rather stay in her own home. Obviously, I understand why it’s beneficial for her to be here outside of normal business hours, but her presence will undoubtedly be distracting.
For the others, of course. For Trent, certainly, who has the attention span of a goldfish and could be lured into a sinkhole with a mere glimpse of side-boob. For Reyes, too, who has better self-control, but definitely has a thing for blondes.
Even in a nonromantic sense, she’ll be a distraction. Especially once she drags in that camera crew of hers. We have an extremely important job to do, and having a pretty little thing flouncing around with her iPhone shoved in people’s faces is not going to end well.
So, with any luck, the fairy princess will come to her senses and realize she won’t get nearly enough beauty sleep living in a place that’s bursting with activity around the clock, and then she’ll fly away back to her castle.
In the meantime, however, I guess there’s an emergency to tend to.
I’m already halfway to my feet when the lights start flashing, muscle memory kicking in before my brain can fully catch up. I’ve been doing this job for over a decade, and I still get a little kick of adrenaline every time we’re summoned to action.
“Hell’s Kitchen, 48th and 9th Ave,” crackles the voice over the intercom hooked to my belt. “Kitchen fire. Commercial building. Reported contained, but spreading. No confirmed injuries.”
A kitchen fire in Hell’s Kitchen. If I was the kind of man who found humor in irony, I might even crack a smile.
I head out to the bay, where a small group of our current overnight crew is already suiting up.
“Minor call,” I bark out. “Engine Two, Ladder One. Reyes and Trent, Zimmerman and Goring. Everyone else, stand down until we confirm escalation.”
Station 47 moves like a well-oiled machine, treating even a tiny emergency like this as if it’s the most important thing in the world.
I stand to the side, hands on my hips, watching as the designated crew members hop up into the truck and head out into the chilly September evening.
They don’t even bother with the sirens, since it’ll only take a minute or two to curve up the two blocks toward the restaurant.
Chances are that by the time they get there, the fire will be nothing but smoke and disgruntlement. A quick call followed by an efficient return to the station. Just another night on duty.
Of course, there’s always potential for true disaster. It’s New York, after all, and there are people on the crew here who lost relatives on 9/11. We never forget that the worst day of our career can happen at any moment. It’s no laughing matter. Even Trent understands that.
The alarms die out after only a couple of minutes, and when the flurry settles back into the usual routine, I glance up toward the mezzanine.
As if eager to look like a modern-day Rapunzel in Lululemon, Lila is leaning precariously over the railing, her long blonde hair spilling down like a curtain on one side of her head.
She’s smiling to herself, it seems, and has her pink iPhone—from which dangles, for some unknown reason, a string of glittery beads—aimed down at the main floor of the station.
Because of course the alarms didn’t spook her. Of course she’s having the time of her life right now.
And of course she’s stupid enough to be standing barefoot in the middle of a fire station, practically dangling herself precisely twenty-six feet above a solid concrete floor.
What a distraction it would be, honestly, if she fell and broke her leg. Or her arm. Or worse. That would certainly help our reputation. Local Civilian Cracks Open Skull at Careless, Reckless, Idiotic Station 47 in Midtown Manhattan—Details Forthcoming.
I really don’t have time for this.
I take the spiral stairs up to the mezzanine two at a time, my boots clanging on the steel.
Her outfit nearly makes me stumble. It’s all skintight spandex in an admittedly nice shade of burgundy, and even though the full-length leggings and long sleeves cover most of her skin, they leave nothing to the imagination where her slender curves are concerned.
Which is, obviously, irrelevant. Completely not worth noting.
Lila doesn’t so much as flinch when she detects my approach. She simply turns and angles her phone toward me, like she’s been waiting for me to come up here all along.
“Captain Hargrove, would you mind explaining the incredible display of efficiency we just witnessed below?”
I stop short, leaving a few feet of space between us. “Who is ‘we’?”
“TikTok, of course.” She grins, like she’s explaining something terribly obvious. “And Instagram. Twitter, too, once I get the login information from your communications manager and—”
“Put the phone down,” I snap.
Footsteps echo below on the metal stairs — familiar, unhurried.
Trent’s voice drifts up. “Everything cool up there, Cap?”
Lila’s gaze slides past my shoulder, and something bright and pleased flashes in her expression like she knows exactly what she’s doing.
I don’t look away from her.
“Fine,” I call down.
A pause.
“Sure,” Trent says, like he doesn’t believe me for a second.
Her chin tips up—defiant—eyes bright like she’s daring me to make her.
So I reach for it.
My fingers close over the edge of her phone at the same time hers tighten around it, and for a second we’re locked in the same object, the same breath, the same stubborn moment.
Her hand is small and warm. Mine swallows it.
I should let go.
I don’t.
Her pulse jumps under my thumb. I feel it like a confession.
The smile drops right off her face. “Why?”
“This isn’t showtime, Ms. Hart. It’s an emergency response routine that requires my crew to focus.”
Slowly, she lowers her phone, letting her arm drop to her side. “Well, yes. That much is clear. That’s why I’m documenting it from a safe distance. They didn’t even notice me up here.”
“This isn’t the sort of content that—”
“Actually, it is precisely the sort of content that we agreed to in the contract,” she cuts in, standing her ground with the impenetrable resolve of a five-foot-nine brick wall.
“This is literally the point of Save A Hero. The video I just captured will let people see what you do, fall in love with your devotion to helping people, and then hopefully stop calling for your heads.”
“Public opinion isn’t swayed that easily.”
“In fact, it is, sir.” The sarcasm in her tone makes me bristle, and yet there’s a part of my brain that goes a little hazy at her use of that particular title. “Welcome to the twenty-first century.”
I clench my jaw, and search for something else to argue about. I’m not even sure why I bother.
My gaze trails down the length of her body, landing on her bare feet. Toenails painted neon pink. One little freckle on her pinky toe.
“You need to be wearing shoes at all times inside the firehouse.”
“Aye-aye, Captain. Won’t happen again.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Please just call me Hale.”
“Duly noted. And you can call me Lila.”
When I drag my eyes back up to her face again, I swear there’s a light blush on her cheeks. Probably born from frustration. I seem to have that effect on people. Perhaps if people didn’t have that effect on me…
“If it helps,” she adds, “you did look very heroic down there. Very captainly.”
“I’m not sure that’s a word.”
“Well, you know what they say about language.”
I stare at her, waiting for whatever punchline is coming.
She looks like she’s resisting the urge to roll her eyes, clearly annoyed that I won’t play along. “It’s, like, always changing or whatever. New words are made up all the time. I can say ‘captainly’ if I want. Just take the compliment.”
“Is that what it was?”
Inexplicably, a smile dances on her lips. “Of course. I mean, you really know how to deliver a command. It’s very impressive. Maybe you were a noble king in a past life.”
I lost the thread of this conversation almost as soon as it started, and yet I find myself unable to detach and march away. Wasn’t I just thinking that I didn’t have time to deal with this woman?
“A past life?” I repeat.
She leans her hip against the railing again, letting her golden hair tumble down over the edge. “Don’t you ever think about stuff like that?”
“No.”
“Hm. Well, if I were to guess what I was in a past life, I think I’d like to have been a swan.”
“What?”
“A big white bird with—”
“I know what a swan is, Lila.”
She snorts. “I just like how majestic and beautiful they are, but they’re also ferocious when provoked.”
“And you share that quality with swans?”
Why the hell am I even still standing up here with her?