Page 32 of Revived
“Ain’t no way.” He shakes his head with a small tip of his lips. Cocky little fucker.
I glance over at Steel and he nods. He’s fighting damn hard not to break out in a full smile.
“Alright. Hal, you bring Byrne out when he’s dressed. I’ll time. Sadie will spin him, and the kid can choke on his tongue.” Steel tells us. My lips tip as I turn to walk away. “Oh, Lieutenant Byrne?” I turn back to him and raise my eyebrow. “You have two minutes to dress starting now.” It’s the same time I gave them.
“Give me one.” I smirk before taking off to the open bay. Jumping into my gear is like a dance. I’ve been doing it so long that it’s almost like I’m magically dressed in the next sixty seconds. I even have time to toss my phone to Hal and tell him his one job is to tell me if Elle calls or her Dexcom alert goes off. I’m led out to the lot before Sadie takes over and spins me, definitely more than five times, and tells me to drop down. My body acts on instinct alone as my mind wanders to my happy place. I’m focused, my senses are on high alert, but my thoughts are still occupied by Elena. We decided to start dating over a week ago now, and so far so good. I fuck her every night that I’m off shift, and I wake up to her in my arms every morning. She submits to me so beautifully, and that alone makes my chest ache.
Oh, there’s my rescue.I toss him on my back and continue on to the hose.
Our friends haven’t mentioned it much. They definitely smirk or give me a questioning look when we’re hanging out and her ass meets my lap more times than not, but they won’t give us shit. I think they’ve wanted us to get together longer than we’ve wanted to get together. Flynn’s been gone on a string of away games, but he wanted to talk, so he’s coming up here later on tonight after he gets home and settled.
As soon as I get to the studs, I dump the dummy and turn around to head back in. My guys are assholes, so I’d bet my left nut there’s another dummy here somewhere. When I hear Hal’s loud belly laugh, I know I’m right. It doesn’t take but a few swipes of my hand before I grab a limb. As soon as I wrap my hand around it I know it’s a toddler dummy. Grabbing it and tucking it tight into my chest, I push up onto my knees, and with one hand I feel the hose and lead the second dummy and myself through the studs and out to the other side. Standing, I grab the adult dummy while still cradling the kid and dump them as soon as my shins touch the running board.
Low whistles sound around me as I pull off my helmet and mask, turn off my SCBA, and push down my hood. “Time?” I know damn well that was less than five minutes, but I want the kid to hear it.
“Four minutes and thirty-seven seconds, Lieutenant.” Sadie calls out.
I turn to the kid and lift my eyebrow. “I was going to grab my stuff and do the drill if you would have given me a second to finish my sentence. I willnotbe disrespected at all, but especially not in front of my crew. You just bought yourself two weeks of bathroom duty. Once at the beginning of every shift and once at the end. I want them so clean that I’d let my girl walk through them barefoot. The next time you mouth off to me, you get a slip to another crew or firehouse. I respect you, and youdamn surewill respect me. Do I make myself clearprobie.”
I can see his eye twitch, and the tint to his cheeks tells me that he’s embarrassed. He’s also pissed, but at least he’s smart enough to nod and just answer with a simple, “yes, Lieutenant Byrne.”
I nod in acknowledgment and start picking up what we laid out for our drill. My team takes a hint, and they all begin cleaning up too. I can hear the other members grumbling at Williams, but I’m nobody’s parent. He can handle that himself, especially after that shit he pulled.
I get it. He’s barely out of high school and trying to prove himself to us, but he’s not going to do that by pissing everyone off. Once everything is cleaned up, we walk our gear back inside and set it up. We take the tanks out of our SCBA packs and bring them over to where they’ll be picked up and taken to refill later this week.
I’m holding the door open for everyone to walk ahead of me when Ward grabs my shoulder to get my attention.
“Can we meet in my office?” He asks barely above a murmur.
“Yeah, let’s go.” I follow him to his office, which is a mirror version of mine. He sits behind his desk, and I get comfortable in the seat in front of it. “What’s up?” I ask while rubbing my hands down my pants. I’m not nervous or anything. I just hate when I don’t have something to do with my hands.
“I watched how you handled the rook.” He states. I don’t know what he’s waiting for, but if it’s for me to squirm, he’s going to be waiting a long time.
“What about it?” I return his unyielding stare.
“Put the claws away, tiger. I was just going to say I was impressed. I didn’t expect that out of you. You’re so calm and easygoing.”
“I can be calm and easygoing while still demanding respect from my crew. I’m as laid back as they come until someone wants to be a disrespectful punk. I didn’t yell or freak out. He’ll scrub toilets for a while, and even though he’s pissed now, he won’t make that mistake again.” I’m not going to apologize for standing my ground on this. He can take it to the chief if he wants.
“I agree, you handled it way better than I would have. I was actually taking notes. I’m having trouble with my rook too. I swear every damn year they get cockier. No way we were like that.” He shakes his head in frustration.
I smirk at him. “No. No wayIwas like that.You,on the other hand, were one hundred percent like that. You had a chip on your shoulder when I got here, and I clearly remember Cap knocking it clean off my second week here. You’ve been cool ever since. That’s what I’m hoping I just did with Elijah.”
He laughs while thinking back on that time. “Okay, fair. I was an asshole. I may have to pull a ‘Captain’ on him to get him to chill out. He’s reckless, and you know as well as I do that that shit’s dangerous in an emergency.”
He’s right, it is. You can’t be cocky and flighty in the middle of the worst day of someone’s life. It’ll come back to bite you every single time. Before I can respond, I hear my brother’s voice in the hall.
“You’re right it is. I hate to cut this short, but it seems as if my brother just got here. Can we finish this later?”
He nods in understanding, “you get me tickets to next week's game against Toronto, and we can end the conversation right here.”
“Bet.” I give him a mock salute and go looking for Flynn.
Just like I thought, I find him in the common area surrounded by my station buddies.
“F.” I call out, which causes his head to snap up and search until he finds me. I tilt my head towards the office. He nods and politely excuses himself from the room before following me to my office. “How was the flight home?” I ask him as we get situated in our respective seats.
“Fine. That’s not what I’m here to talk about though.”
