Chase pays the cashier while I bag the groceries and then we head back to station one-fifteen, which is located in Los Angeles near UCLA. We’re one shift away from having three days off, and once we’re off, I plan to spend at least one of those days in my bed asleep.
We get back to the station and the guys are all hanging out in the workout room. Chase and I work shift B with four other guys. This shift consists of two twenty-four-hour shifts every other day and then four days off. Chase has been a firefighter for ten years and was recently promoted to Battalion Chief—he’s in charge of the guys on our shift. He took the place of a guy who was promoted to Fire Chief when ours retired. I’ve been working as a firefighter-slash-paramedic for the last five years at this same station and was promoted last year to Lieutenant. The other guys on our shift are Luke and Thomas, who are both firefighters-slash-paramedics like me, Carter, who is the Driver Engineer—he drives the fire truck and manages the equipment—and Scott, who just recently finished the academy and is still working on his EMT license.
“What’s for dinner?” Carter yells from the treadmill.
“Burgers,” I yell back, throwing the bags onto the counter while Chase lights the grill.
I’ve just finished putting everything away and am in the middle of prepping the burger patties when the tone goes off throughout the station. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been working as a firefighter, when the ridiculously loud ringing hits your ears, you cringe. Then you jump into action. Because all of our bunker gear is kept on the truck, all we have to do is jump on once Chase comes out with the information from the dispatcher to let us know where the fire is.
“Westwood Village condos,” Chase calls out, looking straight at me. “Alec’s address,” he adds with a smirk. The guys all groan. Dammit, Lexi. Even though the fire probably isn’t anything to be too concerned about, we still treat it how we would treat any fire that’s called in.
We arrive at my complex in less than two minutes and head up to the second floor. The door is already open and you can smell the smoke leaking from inside. The smoke alarm is blaring throughout the house, and is Lex in the kitchen trying to put the fire out? Nope, her ass is standing on a chair with a broomstick in her hand, jabbing at the smoke alarm to shut it off. Chase and a couple of the other guys head into the kitchen to make sure the oven fire is under control while I go straight for Lexi.
Grabbing her by her waist, I pull her off the chair. She shrieks in shock, until she sees it’s me, then her eyes go wide. I lower her to the ground before I reach up and press the button to silence the alarm. When the room goes quiet, Lexi sighs, and I can see it in her face that she’s trying not to laugh.
“Lex,” I groan, about to lay into her, but then her deep blue eyes meet mine and I shake my head. It’s damn near impossible to be mad at her. “This is the third time this month. Maybe you could…I don’t know…practice cooking at your parents’ place.” At least then it would fall on another station.
“I wasn’t cooking.” She shakes her head emphatically, and several strands of her blond hair fall from her loose ponytail. I give her a pointed look and she grins wildly, reminding me of a rose: beautiful to look at from afar, but filled with thorns, making her impossible to touch. And if you do attempt it—thinking you can somehow get around them, so you can experience her beauty up close—there’s no doubt she’ll prick you, leaving you bleeding and in pain.
“Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday…” The guys begin singing, and I turn around to see a charcoaled cake in Chase’s hands, a huge smirk splayed across his face. The guys are all shaking with laughter as he sets down what I’m assuming was Lexi’s attempt at baking me a cake for my birthday. They finish singing and start clapping, thinking they’re fucking hilarious.
“See? I wasn’t cooking. I was baking.” Lexi shrugs innocently. “It’s your favorite…white cake.”
Her eyes go to the black cake that could pass for burnt brownies, then back to mine, her top teeth biting down on her bottom lip. “Sorry about Ms. Holden calling nine-one-one.” She rolls her eyes. “She could’ve just come over and asked if everything was okay. She doesn’t have to be so dramatic all the time.”
I throw my arm across the back of Lexi’s shoulders and pull her into a side hug. “Lex, you know I love you, right?”