Just add ice, p.3
Just Add Ice, page 3
Rayne’s nerve endings thrummed as he approached the door, a mere couple of feet between him and Lieutenant Seavers. He swallowed as he picked up the tools.
“What are you going to do first?” Lieutenant Seavers asked in his soft-spoken, silky-smooth voice, which only served in ratcheting up Rayne’s awareness of his nearness.
“Sound the door for access gaps,” Rayne rasped.
“Sound for locks, but close enough.” Seavers stepped back, giving Rayne room, and a waft of fresh citrus and spicy leaves drifted in the space between them.
Rayne nodded as he took a deep, calming breath to center himself. He wasn’t here to get all hot for teacher. He was here to carve out a career beyond hockey, something that, hopefully, he’d enjoy just as much as the game.
Seavers watched as he practiced opening the door, but actually getting it open was a hell of a lot harder than he’d expected. After a few tries, and corrections from Seavers, he got the hang of it.
“I did it,” he hooted when he’d finally gotten through, immediately seeking Seavers for approval.
Seavers held his gaze for an extended second and then nodded—one quick bob of his head.
“Now practice with a partner,” he said before moving away to observe Brownlow and Thatcher working on the other door as a team.
“You hit first,” Kelly said, taking the Halligan from him. “Ten bucks says I get this open faster than you did.”
Rayne laughed as he readied the axe to hammer the adze end of the Halligan bar with. “You’re on, girlfriend.”
Four hours later and ten dollars lighter, the sweat was running down the middle of his back like a river, and his firefighting gear felt fifty times heavier than it had when he’d first donned it. Thankfully, Captain Poverly called for a much-needed lunch break when a food truck pulled into the parking lot beside the administration building at noon sharp.
The instructors grouped up and headed toward the main building while Rayne and the trainees ate their lunches—that they’d brought from home or ordered from the food truck—at tree-shaded picnic tables in a small park-like area beside the admin building.
He shared a table with Kelly, Morin, Thatcher, and Garcia, who hadn’t been in their five-person team, but who Rayne had met earlier. After a stretch of silence as they wolfed down their sandwiches, Rayne and his new friends fell into easy conversation about their backgrounds, reasons for wanting to join the service, and about their first day of training so far. And of course, there were plenty of questions peppered at Rayne about hockey.
“I’m just glad to be out of all that gear,” Morin said with what sounded like a pout in his voice. “That shit felt like at least three hundred pounds. How are we supposed to run up and down stairs, and climb ladders wearing all of that?”
Rayne raised his eyebrows. Morin was the biggest guy out of all the trainees. He had at least three inches on Rayne and his muscles had muscles. But muscle didn’t always equate to aerobic fitness, and it took that and more to be a firefighter. Morin had been hesitant and almost timid on the skills stations and had struggled with finding the ladder’s balance point until Seavers had taken him aside for a quiet conversation. Rayne had watched their interaction from the corner of his eye, pursing his lips when Seavers had placed a hand on Morin’s massive shoulder. He’d wanted that weight of that hand on his shoulder. Whatever Seavers had said to Morin worked, because he’d come back to the ladder with a little more confidence.
“It’s only seventy pounds,” Kelly said, like that wasn’t almost half her body weight.
“And you need all that gear to stay alive,” Rayne added, taking a swig of his water. “Where do you live?”
“Lyons,” Morin said with a hesitant note in his voice at Rayne’s lack of segue. “Why?”
“Perfect.” Rayne smiled. “Leave an hour earlier in the mornings and run with me before training.”
Surprise flashed over Morin’s face. “Before training? We’ll be wiped out before we even start.”
“Nah. Not at all.” Rayne wanted to help his teammate out, and inviting him along on his morning runs seemed like the easiest way to avoid potentially offending him. “A little aerobic exercise will wake you up and help with carrying all that gear.”
Morin didn’t seem convinced, but he nodded. “I’ll think about it.”
Rayne had put the offer out there. The rest was up to Morin and how much he wanted to be a firefighter, but Rayne wasn’t going to hold his breath. If Morin truly wanted to be a firefighter, he’d have arrived at training in the best physical condition he could be.
Movement caught his attention as Brownlow sat down beside him. Rayne braced himself.
“Look,” Brownlow said, his voice low so as not to carry. “I take this training seriously. Being not just a firefighter, but the best firefighter I can be, is the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do.”
Rayne didn’t know how to reply to that, other than to say, “Okay . . .”
“I’m sure I speak for everyone here when I say we don’t need any distractions.”
Kelly, who must have had the hearing of a cat, leaned over and pointedly said, “Nobody speaks for me.”
Rayne bit back a grin as he addressed Brownlow. “What exactly are you implying here?”
“Well, for one, there’s no place for class clowns here,” Brownlow began, his tone patronizing. “Some of us are actually trying to listen to the instructors.”
“Are you serious right now?” Rayne leaned back to get a better bead on Brownlow’s expression, and yes, the man appeared dead serious.
“And for another, I don’t even know why you’re here at all. You have a career.” Brownlow continued digging his hole, either in complete ignorance or complete arrogance. “Don’t think you can skate through fire training just because you’re a famous professional hockey player. It’s not fair to the rest of us to have you trading on your fame to get special attention from the instructors.”
Rayne rocked back, staring at Brownlow in utter disbelief. He ground his back molars together at the nerve of the pretentious asshole.
“Wow.” Kelly whistled through her teeth on his other side.
“Famous?” Rayne did his level best to keep his voice even and friendly, but he couldn’t hold back the sharp edge to his words. “Only die-hard hockey fans, locals, and puck bunnies know who I am.” He paused, letting his gaze roam the length of Brownlow’s body. He lowered his voice and said, “Which one are you?”
Kelly snickered beside him.
Red bloomed over Brownlow’s cheeks. His jaw worked like a goldfish out of water, gasping. He got up quickly and walked away without another word. Rayne watched him go through narrowed eyes and hoped the instructors mixed up their teams after this week so he wouldn’t have to work with Brownlow. The guy was a total dick.
“Dayum,” Kelly muttered under her breath.
“Right.” Rayne chuckled, but it felt forced. People had said some shitty things to him over the years, though mostly it had been homophobic slurs. This was the first time someone had attacked him simply for playing a sport he loved.
“You are kind of famous, though,” Kelly said with a teasing note in her voice. “Can I have your autograph?”
“Shut up,” he said without heat and bumped his shoulder into hers.
Later that night, after his first day of fire training was over, a long hot shower to soothe muscles he didn’t know he had, and a huge dinner, he dropped into bed early. Shit, he’d thought hockey training camp was tough, but firefighting training put that to shame. And they hadn’t even gotten to the live fire sessions yet.
He flicked off his bedside lamp, and the last thing he thought about before he fell asleep was the gorgeous Lieutenant Seavers and his beautiful, but oddly sad golden-green eyes, and his sexy-smooth soft voice that drew Rayne to him like a magnet every time he spoke.
NICK ARRIVED AT WORK LATER THAT WEEK with a strange feeling bubbling in his stomach. A feeling he hadn’t felt in so long, it took him a few minutes to identify what it was: Anticipation. How long had it been since he’d looked forward to going to work? Yes, he loved his job, but the last couple of years he’d been on autopilot, grateful for the escape from his grief. But now . . . it was more than simply looking forward to the job, it was his trainees he was eager to see—one in particular.
He didn’t know how that had happened, or that it even could, but there was something about Rayne Hamilton that kept drawing his attention. Something tangible yet invisible that orbited around Hamilton and had snagged Nick, pulling him closer with each rotation.
“Jesus,” he breathed, scrubbing a hand down his face as he sat in his truck in the parking lot while the cooling engine ticked and pinged.
He watched as the sun crested the horizon and wondered if the colors in the sky had always been that vivid. Candy cane clouds kissed in shades of yellow and orange and peach fanned across deep endless blue. Were the colors brighter because he was coming out of his fugue after losing Geoff?
A thought crossed his mind unbidden, that maybe the reason his fog was lifting had something to do with a certain hockey player. There was a radiance to Hamilton that made him stand out in a way that drew people instinctively to him. And Nick understood why. When Hamilton looked at him with his full attention, Nick felt seen somehow. As though Nick was the only person in the world that mattered.
His heart squeezed at the thought.
He’d mattered to Geoff, but Nick hadn’t realized until just now how much he’d missed that feeling.
He watched the clouds drift as the sky lightened and with it, an unexpected sense of possibility loosened a tightness in his chest that had been a constant companion since losing his husband. Maybe he was ready to move on.
Nick shook his head and got out of the truck. He knew Geoff would have wanted him to find happiness again. Love. Nick would have wanted that for Geoff if their situations had been reversed. But not with one of his trainees, who was also a professional hockey player and spent half the year crisscrossing the US and Canada.
Nick entered the command office with a quiet “good morning” to Captain Poverly, and after dropping his bag in the back, poured himself a cup of coffee.
“Chip Morin is out.” Poverly turned in his chair and pointed at the dry erase board on the wall above the desks. “He left a message late last night.”
“Can’t say I didn’t see that coming,” Nick said as he took a sip of the hot brew.
Too bad he hadn’t put real money on Morin, who had been overly concerned about the risks of fighting fire and struggled with the basic drills. Nick had taken him aside and given him a pep talk, hoping to help him understand he had potential. He just had to want it. Turned out he hadn’t wanted it enough. Nick hated to see new trainees drop out of the program so quickly, but he knew from experience that it was best those who didn’t have what it took to be a firefighter didn’t stick it out. They never knew what they were going to be faced with when called out to an incident, and they had to be one-hundred percent confident in their teammates to have their backs. In their profession, the stakes were literally life and death.
Sabrina arrived and stopped beside him to scan the board.
“Three down already?” She whistled under her breath. “Probably a few more to go yet.”
A whisper in the back of Nick’s mind hoped Hamilton didn’t drop out, too. He wanted to see Hamilton succeed because not only did he have the right head for the job—level and fearless—he learned fast, picking up each new skill like a fish to water. Suddenly, it became imperative to Nick that Hamilton graduate fire training. Hamilton had to do the work, but Nick would give him as much guidance as possible.
After their morning debriefing, they headed out to the training yard. The trainees were already there, but instead of standing around socializing as they had on their first day, they were spread out doing warm-up exercises—with Hamilton leading them through a set of pushups.
Hamilton laughed at something Wash said, and his deep, resonant laughter rumbled over the concrete like thunder, vibrating in Nick’s chest and rippling down his spine. He stopped before the trainees noticed him. Inhaling a slow breath, he counted to five and released it slowly while rubbing his open palms over his thighs.
“You okay?” Sabrina raised an eyebrow at him.
“Yeah, good,” he croaked and smiled a smile he knew was too bright.
She studied him for a second, her mouth tipping into a frown, but she nodded. “Okay.”
She didn’t sound convinced, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to voice the feelings roiling inside of him, feelings he hadn’t felt in so long he wasn’t sure what to do with them. He wasn’t sure he could properly articulate them. Was it a simple attraction to a good-looking man? Lust? Was it a completely physical thing, a desire to sate his body’s needs? Or was it more? That indefinable ‘it’ factor surrounding Hamilton that drew Nick like a bee to honey? No matter the reason, one thing was clear: Nick’s interest was piqued.
“Fall in,” Captain Poverly called out.
The trainees jumped to their feet and organized themselves into their respective groups in front of their instructors. Nick’s gaze met and locked with Hamilton’s, and those impossibly blue eyes seemed to reach deep inside Nick, digging up feelings that had been dormant for nearly two years. Nick cleared his throat and dragged his gaze away from Hamilton.
His now four-person team all stood at attention, waiting for the day’s training orders.
“We’ll start off running through the same drills we’ve been doing all week,” Nick began, pointedly not making eye contact with Hamilton again. “But we’ll be adding more distractions.”
“Like live fire?” Hamilton asked with an eagerness to his voice that had Nick biting back a smile.
He shook his head. “Not until week three.”
The trainees couldn’t wait to get to the live fire stage, but they had to master the basics beforehand. Otherwise, they could put them themselves and everyone around them in unnecessary danger.
Nick observed as his team ran through their drills, each showing marked improvement and proficiency as their new skills began to sharpen and ingrain. Against his better judgement, he continually sought out Hamilton, as though the man had some sort of magnetic pull. And if that hadn’t been bad enough, the times that Hamilton had caught him looking, he’d grinned back at him. Not in an “I caught you” kind of way, but more that Hamilton . . . liked Nick looking at him.
“Hey, Lieutenant,” Hamilton called out when the day’s training had ended.
Nick turned to face Hamilton, now out of his turnout gear and in street clothes. His T-shirt clinging to every defined muscle in a far-too distracting way. Hamilton shifted on his feet and glanced away for a second. Nick’s stomach swooped. Was this larger-than-life, outgoing man nervous? And why the hell did he find that endearing?
“I, uh . . .” Hamilton huffed before shooting a blinding smile at Nick. “Are you going to be at the fire service booth this weekend?”
Nick frowned. His mind drawing a blank. Or more like, that smile completely derailed his mind, scattering words like debris all over the ground.
“At the Boulder Creek Festival?” Hamilton added.
Oh, right.
“Yes,” Nick managed while his brain tried to get back on its tracks. “We’ll all be there taking shifts throughout the weekend.”
If Nick had thought the smile a few seconds ago was brilliant, the smile Hamilton shot at him now could probably be seen from the moon.
“Great!” Hamilton started walking backwards. He tipped his head. “I’m looking forward to seeing you there.”
He turned and walked away with long, confident strides, leaving Nick with a flailing mind and shaky legs.
Nick groaned as he ran a hand through his hair. Seeing Hamilton outside the training center was a bad idea. He was already attracted to the man. Who wouldn’t be? Rayne Hamilton was gorgeous. But what if Nick talked with him and realized he liked him? A part of him hoped that Hamilton either didn’t show up, or if he did, it was when Nick wasn’t manning the booth. But deep down, he knew he was lying to himself.
Nick was restless the remainder of Friday night, thinking about those blue eyes and that dazzling smile and wondering what those rock-solid muscles would feel like under his palms. Even Roo had picked up on his mood and stayed close, keeping a watchful eye on him.
Saturday was no better. He’d spent his entire afternoon shift manning the booth at the festival, watching the crowds for Hamilton. Every time he saw someone who might be him—tall, blond, and muscular—his heart did a little skip. When the person turned out not to be him, an equal mix of disappointment and relief washed through him.
Nick was still feeling that jumpy sense of anticipation on Sunday. Sabrina, Capmany, and a couple other firefighters from different stations were working the booth with him. It was the busiest day of the weekend, the spring afternoon was hot, but he enjoyed the community outreach part of the job. The crowds had been steadily growing as the day marched on and a few trainees wandered by. Capmany “volunteered” them to help by handing them fire safety pamphlets and sending them out into the crowd to mingle and chat with people.
Nick kept scanning the throng, telling himself he was not looking for Hamilton even as his inner voice laughed at him for it.
“What’s up with you?” Sabrina asked.
“Nothing.” Nick busied himself straightening the stacks of flyers and pamphlets, so he didn’t have to make eye contact with her.
“You keep searching the crowd like you’re looking for someone,” she said.
“What, no,” he stumbled over his words and heat bloomed in his cheeks. “Of course not.”
Nick reached under the table for a bottle of water and topped up Roo’s bowl, who was hanging out in the booth with them. She wore a red bandana around her neck, patterned with a standard fire service logo in white.
