I sighed in relief as I pulled the heavy coat off. Though night had fallen some time ago, it remained brutally hot even inside the usually cool garage, and wearing 45 pounds of turnout gear did not improve the situation. I took pains to arrange my gear precisely as I removed each element, knowing that a few extra seconds spent equipping myself might literally cost someone's life. Every piece of equipment had a specific location and position, and I was still new enough at this to need the focus.
Around me, the other guys on my crew were doing the same, just in a more relaxed manner; experienced hands all, they hardly needed to look to put their gear precisely where it needed to go. They'd all done this same routine hundreds of times more than I had, of course, but I was still jealous of their easy confidence.
"Five calls since noon," Mick grumbled. He was a big, swarthy man around thirty, over six feet tall and built like a bull, with massive shoulders and little neck. "It's like people don't realize fireworks involve combustion."
"God bless America, but fuck the Fourth of July," laughed Charlie.
"Is it always like this?" I asked.
"Oh, yeah, this is your first Fourth with us, isn't it?" asked Charlie, turning to me. "I'd forgotten." Charlie was a lean twentysomething, all whipcord and wire beneath mixed-race cafe au lait skin. "And no, this is worse than average. Not as bad as some years, but it's usually better. Rough way to pop your cherry, Nicky," he added with a smirk. I'd learned early on that Charlie was a smirky sort of guy.
I scowled. "Don't call me that." I hate it when people call me Nicky.
Charlie put on a look of mock hurt, clutching his chest as though wounded. "It's a term of endearment!"
Jake, on the far end of the line from me, snorted derisively. "No, it's a term of annoy-ment. You don't use it because you like him, you use it because it irks him." Jake was big and broad-shouldered, like Mick, but better proportioned, all long limbs and lean muscle. Combine that body with striking gray eyes and killer cheekbones...well. Let's just say that if somebody wanted to include guys from our station in one of those sexy fireman calendars, he'd be my first suggestion.
Okay, fine, maybe my second suggestion. I worked here too.
Charlie was still playing offended. "It's called being friendly. I know that's an unfamiliar concept for you, but sometimes guys give each other silly nicknames. Also," he added righteously, "'annoyment' isn't a word."
"Enough," said Sam, his voice quiet but firm. Charlie, wonder of wonders, actually shut up. None of us have figured out how Sam does that. "Finish putting your gear away. We might get called again at any moment." We...obeyed. Sam has this compelling presence about him that's hard to define. It's not that he goes around barking orders at us or anything--he doesn't even technically outrank us, or at least not the others--but on the rare occasions when he speaks, everybody listens, even Chief Carson, and that old bastard doesn't take shit from anyone.
As if the thought had summoned him, the chief himself came around the side of our engine. "Hit the showers, boys, you're done," he barked, giving me weird flashback vibes of my high school swim coach. "Crew 3 will cover the rest of the night as primary. You're on standby if something really goes bad, but you're off for now." Chief Carson was a gnarled stump of a man, short and wide, the type of tough old guy who could still totally kick your ass despite being three times your age. "I'll be in my office filling out the paperwork for that last shitshow if anybody needs me." He glared around at all of us for a moment to make it clear how acceptable it would be for anyone to need him. His eyes fell on me, at the end of the line, and softened a bit. A very tiny bit. "Happy Fourth, probie," he said as he clomped away. "I guess you'll live after all."
Charlie waited for the chief to get out of earshot, then turned to me with wide eyes. "Wow," he said, "that might be the nicest thing I've ever heard him say."
"That's because he's never said anything that nice to you," said Jake.
"Harsh, but true."
I tuned out the friendly (ish) bickering and focused on getting my gear squared away. By the time I had it all cleaned and ready for the next call, the rest of Crew 2 was already in the showers. When I arrived, Mick and Charlie were actually drying off and getting dressed again. I quickly undressed, gladly tossing the sweat-soaked set of station wear I'd had under my turnout gear into the laundry pile before heading to the shower block. Ours was an old-fashioned station, with fully open communal showers instead of stalls or anything. Two pillars ringed with showerheads stood in a large tiled space with drains set in the floor, and a sort of half-wall divided the space from the locker room proper.
Sam was just stepping out as I went in, and I couldn't help but notice the interplay of muscles in his lean frame as he gracefully slipped around me. For one heartbeat, we were nose to nose, naked and inches apart as steam swirled around and between us. Then he was past me, and I mentally shook myself. Don't go there, Nick, that way lies madness. Not like I'd ever make a move on Sam anyway; he had something like fifteen years on me, and I didn't even know if he was into men. Didn't know much of anything about his personal life, in fact.
Pushing thoughts of naked, damp Sam out of my head--at least until I could be alone, anyway--I stepped into the showers and was immediately struck by the tableau of Jake standing beneath the spray. Water coursed down the chiseled musculature of his torso, sliding between his abs to cascade off the end of his heavy cock or running down his broad shoulders to fall along the taut curve of his ass. His face was lifted into the stream, an expression of simple pleasure on his usually dour face.
Down, boy.
I stepped up to a showerhead and tried to refocus myself on the minutiae of actually washing. I was a sweaty, smoky mess, and entertaining those sorts of thoughts about my coworkers wasn't going to do anyone any good. No matter how mouthwateringly attractive some of them were. I'd chosen a shower that put my back to the rest of the locker room, just in case of any inappropriate physical responses, but I still had a good view of Jake rubbing body wash all over himself from the corner of my eye. The way his hands slipped over taut, flawless skin, slowly growing flushed from the heat...dammit Nick, you're better than this. Behave.
I set about washing myself with possibly excessive vigor, trying to think about anything but the way the water was beading in the fine hairs on Jake's body. Or how the steam seemed to curl around his limbs in an ethereal caress. Or whether his cock was looking any larger now than it had when I'd first come in (mine certainly was.) I stuck my head straight into the stream, trying to simultaneously scrub the smoke from my hair and the images from my brain. Which is probably why I didn't notice him approaching until he spoke, low and sultry and shockingly close.
"You know, we have a little tradition here for probies who pass their first Fourth of July." I jerked in surprise, clearing the water from my eyes to discover Jake suddenly standing in the shower right next to mine, rather than the one on the other pillar he'd been using before. His hands still glided sensually across his body, though there didn't seem to be any soap involved.
