Page 9 of Striking the Match (Redwood Bay Fire #3)

Teddy

It’s always a gamble to shower between calls on shift. I guess it’s a gamble to do anything when the tones could go at any second. But you only need the alarm to sound once when you’re buck naked with suds in your eyes to make you wish it never happens again.

After a call like the one we took first thing this morning, everyone’s scrambling to get rinsed off as fast as possible so they’re not left in a sticky situation…

literally. Of all the trucks to jackknife and tip on the interstate, why did it have to be the one hauling crates of maple syrup?

I’ve always been a fan, but now I feel like it’s gotten into every crevice of my turnouts, not to mention my body.

I’m not sure I’ll be able to look at a bottle or stomach the smell for weeks.

“Don’t use up all the hot water!” Lili warns, banging on my door.

There are four cubicles, so we have to take turns, and I intend on being as quick as I possibly can be.

But as the probationary firefighter, I usually get last dibs on everything.

It’s just the way things are. However, today I caught a break and was able to sprint into the locker room and throw my clothes off just a little faster than everyone else.

“If you keep harassing me, I’ll only take longer out of spite!” I fire back, just to yank her chain. I wouldn’t really do that. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned from being the baby of my family and then coming into this firehouse, it’s that you won’t last long if you show weakness.

“Unless you want to find a surprise in your bunk later, Probie, I suggest you?—”

I yank open the door and grin at her. “All yours, Your Majesty.”

She scowls at me and shoves past. “I might not be a girly girl,” she grumbles. “But I sure as shit have way longer hair than any of you guys.”

“Oh, please,” one of the other firefighters, Anton Quick, chimes in. “Like you could possibly have a beauty regime more complicated than Sawyer’s.”

“I heard that!” his best friend yells from one of the other cubicles.

“You were meant to!” Anton shouts back, grinning at me.

It’s times like these, when we’re in it together, that I don’t feel like I’m at the very bottom of the pecking order.

We’re all just running around in towels or nothing at all, desperately trying to de-syrup ourselves, laughing and giving each other a hard time.

Even Lieutenant Flores is in the fray as well as our grumpy, older driver, Gene Haskell.

“No need to make a circus out of it,” he says, towel wrapped around his thick belly, marching through to the lockers with his flip-flops smacking loudly on the tiles.

“You missed a spot,” Rico Flores teases him, earning himself a flip of the bird. Gene tends to stay behind the wheel. Therefore, any maple syrup he managed to get on himself probably came from us, so I get why he’s pissed. Still, I think he got off pretty lightly.

Unlike Lochlan Bell, whose red hair is practically vertical as he waits his turn to get under the water.

“Did you tip a bottle over your head or what, Beast?” I ask, looking at him in the reflection of the mirror I’m using to help me rub some moisturizer and sunscreen on my face.

He whimpers. “It’s sooo sticky,” he says, flicking his fingers like that might get more of it off his skin while he waits.

“Almost done!” our lead paramedic, Zahir Delacroix, assures him from the other side of the door.

“You sure picked a hell of a last shift before you leave for your honeymoon, Del,” Lochlan says to him.

“Maybe it’s a maplemoon!” Sawyer quips as he and Anton swap places in the end cubicle.

Anton shakes his head before he closes the door. “I’m pretty sure they’re all about cherry flavored stuff in Japan, right?”

“I can assure you, the cuisine is just as diverse as the culture,” Del says warmly as he too exits his shower, making way for Lochlan.

Unfortunately, Beast is too slow. Before he can set foot past the threshold, his young Dalmatian dog comes tearing out of nowhere, thundering through the puddles on the floor and straight into the cubicle.

“Rocky, no!” Lochlan cries, but it’s too late.

So…Lili and I might have taught Rocky how to jump up and press the water button on the shower. It’s not so funny when the wet dog then goes and lies on the sofas in the common area. But seeing the horror on Lochlan’s face right now is absolutely hilarious.

The other guys join me in doubling up laughing as the now drenched Rocky slips back past Lochlan as he tries to grab his dog. The Dalmatian zooms around him with ease, though, leaving a still sticky, half-naked Lochlan to chase after him.

“Bets on how long his towel lasts,” Sawyer says.

Our other paramedic, Yara Ortiz, frowns as she brushes her damp hair. “That’s not very kind.”

Sawyer shrugs. “You don’t have to bet.”

“Oh, no,” Yara says with an even deeper frown. “Ten bucks says it’s already off.”

Sawyer meets her for a high five before running after Lochlan and his adolescent dog. “Ten bucks says they make it past the gym!”

Chuckling, I take a moment to focus on throwing fresh clothes on, then carefully bandage my stupid hand up once more. I’m sure we’d all appreciate it if we got a few more minutes before a call comes through, but at least I’m now decent and so are a couple of others.

I’m extremely grateful for the chaos of the house. It was nice to start with a job where no one was really in danger, too, so we could be busy without the stress of potentially losing any lives.

Busy is good right now.

I spent yesterday in a blur of chores so I wouldn’t have to stop and think too hard about what happened at the animal shelter the day before.

I’m sure my mom thought I was possessed as I went hunting for tasks that have needed doing for months but that no one ever seems to have time for.

But I’d rather mend fences and paint skirting boards than dwell too long on…

Well, you know…

That time I met my idol, drooled all over him, and generally made a total idiot of myself.

I cringe even just thinking about it now, hoping none of my teammates notice anything’s off with me during the rest of our shift.

There’s no way I want any of them to ever find out about my disastrous meet cute.

They already tease me enough about the magazine cut outs I’ve got of Cassius Garda in my locker.

If they discover that I made a fool of myself face to face with him, I’ll be hearing about it until my dying day.

My knee-jerk reaction is to take those pictures down. Looking at them first thing this morning made me want to pass out from humiliation and regret. But I think the crew will absolutely notice and realize something’s up if I do, so I think I just have to suffer the constant reminder for now.

Hopefully, the shame will fade soon enough and it’ll all just feel like some weird fever dream.

I just need to make it to tomorrow without anyone calling me on my distracted mood.

By the next shift, surely I’ll have a handle on things again.

I just pray that I can keep myself occupied enough so my wandering mind doesn’t get the better of me.

We’ve got most of the day and all night to go yet, and just because we started out with a bang is no indication of how the rest of the time will pan out.

If I hadn’t just had a shower, I’d be tempted to try and burn off some of this nervous energy with a workout. Maybe later. Right now, I head to the kitchen in the hope of distracting myself with food for a bit.

It still doesn’t seem possible that I actually met Cassius Garda, let alone that he was so nice and friendly toward me.

If things like that happened in real life, they’d happen to someone like Lieutenant Rico Flores.

He’s handsome, in his thirties, accomplished, and can generally talk like an adult. Whereas I’m…well, I’m the probie.

But in the quiet moments yesterday I had to stop and confront the fact that the encounter did happen. To me. Cassius Garda smiled at me, laughed at my silly joke.

Maybe I shouldn’t have run away.

What do I expect would have happened if I’d stayed, though? It would have just gotten awkward. That thing he said about getting my number—he didn’t mean it and it would have been horrendously cringe if I’d actually tried to give it to him.

No, I saved everyone a lot of pain by leaving when I did. And in the moments where I stop beating myself up for long enough about being such a fanboy, I’m able to reflect on the fact that he was a genuinely nice guy, or at least he seemed to be during the brief time we had together.

They say you should never meet your heroes. But mine turned out to be even better in person than he appears on TV.

Should I have stayed longer? Tried to talk with him a little more?

No, that would have been asking too much.

I’m extremely lucky to have met him at all.

He said my name, for crying out loud. I’m sure he’ll forget it quickly enough.

But for a brief, shining moment, Cassius Garda knew who baby Teddy Foster was.

That’s got to count for something.

Lochlan is still running around the main open plan area of the fire house, dashing between the rigs in his attempt to corral Rocky. My sympathies get the better of me, so instead of heading to the kitchen, I jog over to them.

“I’ll get him, Beast. You go rinse the syrup out of your hair before you start attracting wasps.”

He gives me a goofy, grateful smile. “You sure?”

“Yeah,” I tell him sincerely. He doesn’t need to know how desperate I am for any distraction I can find.

“I owe you one,” he calls over his shoulder, already running back toward the shower block.

I chuckle, doubting he means that. It’s the probie’s job to pick up the slack for everyone else. But it’s still a nice thing to hear in the moment. I have a lot to learn and I’m eager to do it. I’d just rather not be taken for granted while I’m earning my place.