“Youstolethat baby!” Billy said, louder this time. A few of the other guys glanced over. “That baby was surrendered to this station, and you kept him for yourself!”
Derek’s face became a mask of confusion as he looked around the room. “I’ve been discussing adoption with that baby’s biological mother for several weeks. We were taking care of him on a trial basis. He was neversurrenderedhere. What would even give you that idea?”
Billy’s bloodshot eyes widened in surprise. “I… But you… I have proof! I have the birth certificate! And the letter from the mother when she dropped the baby off!”
“That’s impossible,” Derek replied. “I have the birth certificate. And there’s certainly no letter of surrender. Are you feeling well, Manning? Perhaps you’re too sick to work this weekend’s shift?”
Billy panted with rage, then stormed down the hall into one of the bunks. The door slammed closed behind him.
We said our goodbyes to the second-shift and collected our things. On the way out to the cars, Taylor suddenly started chuckling. Jordan took it up next, and then all of us were laughing. It was a laugh of relief and victory.
“So,” Derek said to me. “How would you like to become the baby’s full-time nanny?”
I let my hand drift down to cup Derek’s ass cheek. I gave it a squeeze and said, “I want to be a lot more than just that!”
We laughed even harder as we walked to the car.
38
Clara
It took two weeks for Derek to finalize the transfer to Fresno Fire Station Number Sixteen. It was on the east side of the Fresno city limits, which meant an easy commute from his house in Riverville without ever needing to cross any major city highways.
Jordan came along with the transfer along with Taylor and Derek. In the end, it was an extremely easy decision. “The four of us have something special,” he said after making the decision. “It feels like I’m adopting the baby, too. Or like I’m one of the cool uncles.”
“Cool uncle,” Taylor said, tasting the words for the first time. “I like that. I’ll be the one to buy Anthony his first case of beer.”
Derek gave him a look.
“Um, I’m only joking,” Taylor said. But the look he gave me, and a secret little smile, told me he wasn’t joking at all.
It tookanothertwo weeks to backfill the Riverville fire station. Then the guys had their first shift at work at the new station. Unlike the crazy Riverville shift, this station was larger and adhered to the standard firefighter shift: twenty-four hours on, then forty-eight hours off. That still seemed kind of nuts to me, but all three guys wereveryexcited to move to it.
It also made it easy for me to help take care of the baby. Rather than taking care of him for several days in a row, I only watched him every third day.
Which was a good thing, because I had a new schedule of my own to work around.
Tony’s Pizza wasn’t doing well in Riverville. The town was just too small, andjustfar enough away from Fresno proper to get any of that business. It had been scraping by since before my dad passed away, and things had only gotten worse in the year since then. Within another year, it would be out of business entirely.
It took a lot of convincing, but eventually I talked my mom into closing down the restaurant.
Well, I guesstechnicallywe weren’t closing down. We were moving. Because Derek’s lawyer buddy was married to a commercial real estate agent, who happened to know of a corner location in downtown Fresno. It was just a few blocks from the stadium where the Fresno Grizzlies baseball team played, and at eleven hundred square feet, it was just big enough for a small pizza place.
Mom grumbled and complained about it: the location was too small, they only had six tables instead of twenty, the prep table in the kitchen was half a foot shorter than the old location. But her complaints disappeared after opening night, when we had a line of patrons out the door waiting for pizza.
I hadn’t seen Mom smile so much since before Dad died. I was working in the kitchen on opening night, and I heard her happily greet the patrons.
“Tony was my husband!” she said to every single customer. “Anthony Allessandro Ricci. The sauce recipe was my family’s, but he perfected it over the years…”
I was surprised about the huge crowd until I told my three fireman boyfriends the next day.
“Taylor told all of his college friends,” Jordan explained.
“You have that many friends?” I asked.
Taylor shrugged. “I just walked around telling everyone in my dorm about it. And the girl’s dorm next door.”
“What a surprise,” Derek said dryly. “All the college girls were eager to help the hunky fireman.”