Play With Fire (The Men of Fire 1)

I pull into the station parking lot and slid into my usual place, crooked as hell at that. Leaving the keys in the ignition, I jump from my truck, not wanting to waste a single second. My pager didn’t exactly say it was an emergency, but I don’t take any chances. Sometimes, one minute can be the difference between life and death.

I’d never forgive myself if the loss of life was on my hands because I was too worried about a truck or a girl at the hardware store. Don’t get me wrong; I fucking love my truck. I would have loved taking that girl home too, but it’s not worth someone's life.

I haul ass into the station, bypassing the trucks that don’t look like they’re about to head out for a run. There’s no one rushing around, no tones dropped, no fucking chaos, only the sound of the boys laughing like fucking hyenas coming from the break room.

“Sup, fucker?” Ax booms as he sees me walking through the door, looking less than impressed. Today was my first day off in nearly two weeks, and it’s quickly becoming clear they called me in here just to join in on their riveting conversation.

Not my idea of fun.

Don’t get me wrong, I love these guys. I’d take a bullet for each one of them, but after two weeks of double shifts and being on call, I need a fucking break.

Today was that break, and now here I am, staring down the faces of the fuckers who just called my ass in. To give them credit, they didn’t say it was an emergency, but hell, I fucking acted like it was one.

And to think I could have stayed at the fucking hardware store, getting that angel’s digits.

I glare at the three fuckers before me. Ax, Jet, and Chief. My three best friends. Though right now, they’re damn lucky they’re still offered that title.

“Shit, I didn’t think you’d actually come,” Chief says as I drop down on the couch beside him.

“What the fuck did you expect?” I grunt, picking up a half-empty water bottle and tossing it into the back of Jet’s head. “Fucker used the code for ‘get your fucking ass down here.’ ”

“Shit,” Chief says, probably not even realizing what Jet did. Chief is the serious one. The one who’s always first to put his hand up to take a double. He’s the one you go to when you’re up shit creek without a paddle.

As for Jet, the little bastard. He’s the one you’ve got to watch out for, especially now as he rubs the back of his head and looks over his shoulder, giving me the perfect ‘karma’s a bitch’ grin. I have to admit, I paged him last week. It was a complete accident, but one tiny little slip of my finger had him thinking the fucking world was about to implode. In reality, a little old grandma lost her kitty up a tree. He hasn’t exactly forgiven me for that just yet, and rightfully so.

Jet likes to have fun. He’s the guy who’s bound to hit you full force with the hose just to see how far you’d fly. Ax, though, he’s the black sheep. Loyal as hell, but outside of work, no one really knows him.

Me? I’m the guy who takes fucking charge and gets the job done. That’s how I got the name Bull, and since the day it was murmured within our ranks, it stuck.

Chief, he got his simply by being the sensible one. Jet, well … he had an unfortunate incident with jet fuel that we haven’t let him forget, and Ax, let’s just say he’s no stranger to swinging one of those fuckers around. It’s his tool of choice, even when the situation doesn’t call for one.

We’re a fucked-up bunch, but that’s how we like it. Not just anybody could live the life that we do. It's not easy, and sometimes it's a death-defying existence. But then there are times like this when your boys cockblock you from a woman so fucking pure you could kill them.

After ten minutes of the boys’ mindless chatter, I realize that nothing interesting is going down today, and I get up from the couch. “Where are you going?” Ax grunts.

“Yeah,” Jet pipes up. “It’s not like you’ve got anything better going on.”

“Hitting the weight room,” I tell them. Resisting the urge to throw him through the fucking window for disturbing the one time I actually did have something better going on. “Might as well get a workout in while I’m here.”

Chief gets up from the couch, grabbing the half-empty water bottle from beneath Jet’s chair. “Wait up,” he grumbles. “I could use a workout too.”

And just like that, the rest of my day is planned. So much for having a day off.