Chapter 10
Dane
Smiling. It happened a lot now. Even at the most inopportune times. Such as shaving.
The sharp flick of pain on my chin announced a cut, but even as I winced slightly, I couldn’t stop grinning. What was a little pain and blood when your man was on a verbal tear?
“Also, speaking of space, did you know that a teaspoon of material from a neutron star would weigh over a trillion kilograms? That’s about equal to what Mount Everest weighs.
Which is something that—” Chip paused as I wiped at the steamy mirror to see a tiny red dot amid the white shaving cream.
My phone sat propped up against my toothbrush holder, now holding two brushes, during our video call.
Yeah, things had progressed to overnighters.
I hadn’t told anyone about us, which was a gut punch every damn day, but how did I even begin to open that conversation up with my station captain?
So, I hid Chip and me being more than friends.
It sucked. I hated it. And it hurt way more than this little nick. “You’re bleeding. Did you know that?”
“I kind of suspected it, babe,” I replied as I gave my jaw one final pass before calling it good enough.
“That’s amazing.” I dabbed at my chin with the corner of the towel around my waist. I was on duty today, which meant no Chip until late tomorrow night since I’d crash after those twenty-four hours on call.
“Guess I won’t take a serving spoon to the nearest neutron star to scoop up a heaping helping of… what exactly is neutron star material?”
I plucked up the phone to carry him into the bedroom so I could change for a long day at the station.
“It’s ultra-dense neutrons packed tightly by immense gravity after a—”
“Hey, big brother.”
I nearly leaped out of my shower-damp skin at Devon’s chirpy little greeting. There he sat on my bed, wearing a smile that I knew meant he had overheard a lot of chatter.
“Fucker,” I snarled as my heart eased down out of my throat. “I want my fucking key back right now, you shit stain.”
Devon roared. Chip was deadly silent. If not for the soft yip of Sable, I’d have forgotten the phone in my hand as I contemplated ways to stuff my brother’s face into some dirt. Not that there was much dirt to be found in February, but I could wait. Payback would be mine.
“I don’t have your key,” Chip cautiously replied. Devon tossed a jar of pimentos into the air and caught it, his eyebrow raised.
“No, babe, not you. My asshole baby brother snuck into my place to pilfer pimentos. Leave them on the counter when you go, Devon, which is right now.” I waved the phone at the bedroom door. Devon didn’t move from my unmade bed.
“I’ll leave when you let me say hi to your new bae,” Devon said.
Shit. Shit. Shit. This wasn’t on my to-do list for the day. There was no backing out of it now. I’d have to let them meet. Fuck.
“Fine.” I brought the phone up to look at Chip’s confused face. “Chip, this is my little brother, Devon.” I turned the phone so they could glimpse each other.
“Chip. Nice to meet you. I haven’t heard a thing about you,” my brother said. He was so eating dirt come spring. Clods and clods of it, with earthworms still wriggling about inside it. I’d done it before. I could do it again. Might be tougher as he wasn’t seven anymore…
“Hello, Devon. Dane talks about you a lot. He is very proud of your accomplishments with the police department. He said you did well on your testing and were now the youngest detective on the force. Did you know that 50% or more of officers who apply to become detectives fail? That you made it at such a young age with only four years of patrol experience is quite impressive.”
Devon stared at the tiny image of Chip on my phone. “Thanks. Did you look all of that up?”
I couldn’t hide my smile. Chip was just so fucking awesome.
“I did, yes. After Dane told me about your testing. May I speak to Dane, please?”
“Sure, yeah, nice to meet you, Chip.” Devon gave me a wink that cemented the dirt clod in the piehole scenario. I flipped the phone to gaze at Chip.
“Sorry, my brother is a shithead. Did you need to go?” I asked, padding over to the dresser to dig out some clean briefs.
“I do, yes. I have morning skate. We play our final game tonight before the All-Star break. Then I have a week off so we can kiss and hold hands more if you’d like that.”
I refused to look in the mirror at my brother. “I’d like that a lot. We’ll set times later, okay?”
“Okay, that’s good. Goodbye.” And just like that, the call ended. I was growing accustomed to his sometimes-brusque ways. That was just Chip. It made him more endearing to me. I placed the phone onto the tray that held my wallet, keys, and some mint Life Savers.
“So, Chip, huh? When were you going to let me and Mom in on the fact that you have a babe?”
“I wasn’t.” I untied the towel around my waist, turned halfway, and whipped it at his head. It missed. Guess my pitching skills were rusty. “What Chip and I have is complicated.”
“How can that be? You like him. He likes you. Seems simple.”
As I pulled on some underwear, I heaved a sigh so large I felt dizzy. Maybe that feeling was just the weight of a hidden relationship settling down on me. Talk about Mount Everest…
I turned to face Devon. “I met Chip at a fire.”
He placed the jar of pimentos on my nightstand then sat sideways to see me. “Okay, so there’s no rules against dating a fellow firefighter, are there? What station is he assigned to?”
“No, he isn’t a firefighter. I saved him from a fire.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. Oh.” There was a pregnant pause.
“That’s trickier.”
“No shit.” I huffed slightly as my ass came to rest on the dresser.
“What does Sully have to say about it?”
“Nothing. I haven’t told him.” Devon grimaced.
“I know. Trust me, I know. I’m positive that Chip’s feelings for me are not in any way Nightingale syndrome.
” Devon gave me a look. “I mean it. Sure, he’s grateful, but he isn’t showing any signs of transference or hero worship.
He likes me because I’m me, just as I like him because he’s him.
I’m sure it’s not a case of trauma bonding. ”
“Are you? Sure, I mean? If you’re sure, then why don’t you tell Sully about it? We’ve known Sully all our lives. He’ll hear you out and make a good call.”
“What if he tells me to hang up my mask?”
“He won’t. The worst thing that he would do is to ask you to have a cooling-off period where you two don’t see each other just to make sure Chip’s feelings aren’t based on the trauma of the event that brought you two together.”
“Or he could suspend me.” I rubbed at my face, cursing when I scrubbed the cut on my chin.
“Maybe. I guess that’s a chance you have to take.” He stood and walked over to take me by the shoulders. His grip was firm, eyes finding mine. “If your relationship with Chip is strong, taking a couple of months to cool off might be good.”
“Not an option.”
“This is serious then?”
“Oh yeah, it’s serious. I think I could love him.”
“Wow, okay, well then, you should talk to Sully soon. It’s better if he finds out from you rather than via some firehouse gossip.”
Nasty gossip. Tim. Yeah. That was a possibility. “You’re right. I’ll talk to Sully when I go in today. Get the air cleared. He might be cool with it.”
“Yeah, he might be.” He didn’t sound sure of that statement. “For what it’s worth, I’m happy you found someone. I’d like to meet him. Does Mom know?”
“She met him at dinner with Eli about a month ago, but does she know it’s romantic? No, only you know.”
“I’m touched.” He pulled me in for a sound bro hug. “I’m not giving you your key back, though.”
I hugged him closer. “I’ll change the locks.”
He chuckled. “No, you won’t.”
No, I wouldn’t.
Sully was in his office when I showed up at the station. I passed by his open door on my way to stow my personal gear in my locker. Tim was in the men’s locker room, bent over, tying his boots when I entered. He glanced at me and said nothing. Which was suspect.
“Tim,” I said as I stepped around him to get to my locker. Taped to the front was a picture of Chip ‘n’ Dale, those little cartoon chipmunks.
“That’s you and your boyfriend,” he said as he straightened. My brain short-circuited. “Come on. Are you telling me no one has clocked it yet except me? Did you know that chipmunks love nuts?”
I yanked the printout down, wadded it up, and threw it into the trash can in the corner.
“Chip and I aren’t boyfriends.” The lie was as bitter as grapefruit.
Tim looked at the crumpled paper in the trash can. The smirk was still on his face, but something underneath it was off—a fraction too still, like he’d wound up for a follow-through and then thought better of it. He cleared his throat.
“Look, I’m not trying to—” He stopped. Whatever the end of that sentence was, he pulled it back, and the smirk came all the way back up to cover the gap. “You’re just really obvious, is all. About the kid.”
I stared at him. “Was that almost a human moment, Pegg?”
“No.” He picked up a coffee mug. “Forget it.”
I would have pressed him on it, but the rapid tones cut the conversation clean in half.
Station Eight, Ladder Ten, Hazmat Four, all units, respond to a two-vehicle MVA. Intersection of Alexander Street and South Avenue, commercial tanker involved, reported acetone, possible leakage. Time out zero seven fifty-three hours.
Super. I’d not even gotten a cup of coffee yet.
I’d just put the groceries for beef stew for dinner into the fridge.
Tim and I let the chipmunk shit drop. The call would require all of us to be on our toes.
Acetone was highly flammable. This kind of motor vehicle accident always involves multiple units.
We were on the truck in under a minute, belted in, and on our way to the South Wedge neighborhood.
Everyone was in specialized chemical-resistant suits and self-contained breathing apparatuses with air-monitoring equipment.
There was no bullshit or goofing around on the way to the accident. Any kind of call was deadly serious.
When we arrived, two other engines were already set up.
The incident commander, a tall man named Burke with Hazmat, directed us to surround the spill with special absorbent socks, bright yellow for high-vis, to soak up the acetone leaking from the overturned truck.
Another unit was clearing the surrounding neighborhood.
All of us were kitted out with non-sparking gear to avoid any chance of this pool catching fire. Chemical spills were dicey things.
Gathering up the tightly wound coils of polypropylene, Tim and I headed one direction as Morgan and Courtney went the other.
People were standing on rooftops and fire escapes with their phones held high, even as police and fire were instructing them to vacate the area with haste.
Some people made me scratch my head. Was getting a video more important than their own safety?
Tiny bits of sleet started to fall from the slate-gray sky, adding to the dour mood of the situation.
The socks were flexible, making it easy to lay them along the ever-increasing puddle of acetone.
I was glad to see that the car and tanker involved in the accident were empty.
The leak in the tanker was sizable. Other firefighters were hustling to block off manhole covers and street gutters with spill-barrier berms. Several people were standing over us, two men yelling down at Tim, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying over my breathing apparatus.
I glanced up at the two guys hanging out a window, waving what looked like plumbers’ wrenches over their heads.
Tim was tucking his length of sock against the curb when one of the two men in that third-story window shouted something and dropped his wrench.
Steel. Cement. Not good. Not good at all.
“It’s going to light!” I bellowed then dove at Tim, knocking him over the length of sock as the wrench fell through the air.
We rolled over each other and hit a brick wall near a doorway when the wrench struck the sidewalk with a clang.
The steel sparked just once. That was enough.
The acetone flared to life like a demon bursting from the depths of hell.
I moved to jerk Tim into the entrance a moment too late.
The concussive force shoved us face-first into the narrow shelter.
Thank all the gods for polycarbonate visors that could withstand some tremendous force, or we’d have been huffing heat laced with deadly fumes.
The impact stunned me for a moment as I slid down the bricks to my knees, landing beside Tim, who was also badly jarred.
The shouts coming into my helmet sounded like Dothraki to start as my head spun.
When the worst of the vertigo had passed, I nudged Tim.
We flattened ourselves tightly against the bricks to shield ourselves the best that we could.
This had gone from bad to worse in the span of a second, and we were left sheltering in a doorway, our suits scorched, staring at each other in obvious shock.
“You good?” I shouted. Christ, this was a shitstorm of biblical proportions. Swallowing roughly, I managed to keep from vomiting, just.
“Yeah, I’m good,” he answered. I was sure it was a lie. “You?” I nodded and then wished I hadn’t, as that simple movement made me more nauseous. Wobbly as newborn colts, we pushed to our slightly melted boots to face down a fire that was about to kick our asses.
“Thanks, Dane.”
Huh. Dane. He never called me that unless he was being a dick.
“Sure.”
We took a moment to gather our scattered wits then ran back out to face down a fire that was now several tiers of nightmarish. The pot of stew I was going to make for lunch would be extremely late.
I really wished I’d kissed Chip this morning.