“Not till 1700, which is when you should be going home daily.” Noah passed him a set of papers out of the messenger bag. “I’m going to supervise the rest of this training. You’re going to work on the shift schedule for Battalion 2.”
“You giving me make-work for the battalion?” he asked, scanning the paperwork.
“It’s not make-work. I’ve been doing the paperwork for Battalion 2 on top of my actual job. This is exactly where your strengths lie—organization and utilization of personnel. Consider this a promotion. I’ll cover your captain spot tonight.”
Williams returned his attention to the papers, unwilling to meet his boss’s eyes.
It was time to address the elephant in the room. “I know starting over here has brought up some painful memories. You aren’t the only one with pain. Clarke tried to save a teenager after watching her parent’s fall to their deaths in August. Think about it. Get to know your team.” Baker shifted back into his command voice. “And don’t ever let me receive a report where you knowingly expose your team to toxic gas to prove a point again.”
Noah left the office, slumped under the weight of his own regrets and Jacen’s suffering.
Five years ago, Alexandria Williams had been shot and killed during a bank robbery. The protocols they were working on today could have saved her life. But unless a time machine was invented, they would never know if the presence of ballistic armor would have changed Battalion Chief Noah Baker’s refusal to allow Cleveland FD to enter the unsecured hot zone without ballistic protection.
Noah deliberately slowed his respirations. He could not allow Williams’s problems to become his own.
“Ready for the next scenario?” he asked the combined teams who were finishing slices of cake.
“Where is Captain Williams?” Rodriguez glanced at the closed door.
“He’s lending a hand with Battalion 2 paperwork. With McClunis out, I got behind. I need to run these drills anyway because I’ll be supervising the next sets of training sessions.” He took out another legal pad. “Note to self, keep hallways wide enough. Knocking down walls induces spontaneous Monty Python quotes.”
“Sorry, sir,” Kormos offered. “I may have been too relaxed.”
Baker was fairly certain that Kormos and Rodriguez had been the ringleaders, but he wouldn’t put it past the rest of the Firehouse 15 crew to extract some blood from Williams. Kormos was no friend of Williams once he purposely allowed Rodriguez to wander through Freon to learn a lesson on protocol. However, Noah would not undermine his officer further in front of his new team.
“It’s a freebie today, but now I’m in charge of picking the scenarios.” Noah took the cards from Kormos. He pointed to Jones, his burliest firefighter. “You’re a victim this time. You are a little old lady with a bad hip. We transport you out into the warm zone. Cracks about his weight are fine, but not about his sexual orientation. But see how professional you can make it sound.”
That was the key—give them enough leash to keep them happily participating without having them fight their way out of a chokehold.
* * *
The rest of the afternoon went well.
With Williams gone, the antics had decreased somewhat. Interestingly, much of it had been coming from Rodriguez’s boyfriend, Elias Kormos. He was simply far more subtle about it than the Soto-Rodriguez gene pool. Well, perhaps less subtle since one of the scenarios featured a Freon leak with an active shooter. Baker was happy the personal problems between Clarke and Rodriguez seemed to be dissipating.
Rodriguez certainly did have her champions.
The person who didn’t need a champion was Hudgens. She did the most facilitating of peace between the two services via snappy comebacks softened by wry grins. An occasional wink or snicker from her always broke the strain. The men of the police force took notice. A few tried their luck, and she turned them down in a firm yet friendly way, leaving their egos intact.
Noah could feel their pain. He’d been playing with fire to return her note to her. The damn thing had been living in his jacket for weeks, a freaking Telltale Heart. Giving it back was supposed to be his exorcism and his tacit approval of their relaxed atmosphere.
After Williams crept out, Noah decided to spend the night at the firehouse. He wasn’t on call this weekend, and Friday nights typically picked up due to ‘Cars plus Bars.’ Because he heard Williams did the same, he ate his leftover Thai downstairs, away from the others. It wasn’t wrong to minimize his contact with Hudgens, either. Her team couldn’t see him salivating over her.
Then he heard the strains ofPour Some Sugar on Meand was drawn down the hallway to the windows of the gym. “What are they doing?”
Jones stood behind him, legal pad in hand. “They’re working out.”
Technically, the women in their FD issued tank tops were lifting weights and… gyrating. They completely abandoned the weights the second the light strains of Madonna’sVoguesounded through the speakers. Their bodies wove back and forth in a synchronized dance rhythm.
“Oh, it’s a Vogue moment!” Jefferson piped up, hurrying to watch.
“They didn’t do this when I was here,” he muttered. He couldn’t rip his eyes away from Hudgens. She was twirling freely, unencumbered by worry, and it showed; her boundless energy shone through her skin.
Noah had his attention split between enjoying the show and imagining her moving the same way beneath him.
“They don’t always do it,” Jones said. “They weren’t going to do it around you—thought it looked too . . .”
“Fun? Sexual?” Jefferson suggested. “Sorry, Chief. Until today, it didn’t seem like you were interested in seeing us screw around. Or see the sexy dances they use to shut down bars.”
