The lieutenant had carved out an hour for the lecture, part of the fire department’s public relations and a way to engage the community. Reggie loved the idea of the station getting to know their neighbors, but not if he had to be the one doing the talking.
He gave Mack another look.
The bastard ignored him.
Reggie turned back to the crowd of eager faces and knew he might as well get started. “Hi, everyone. Thanks for coming out on a sunny summer day. I know you’d probably rather be swimming or playing than hearing me talk.”
“Not me,” one little girl said. “I have a lot of questions.”
“Me too,” a young boy agreed.
“Okay. Great.” Reggie cleared his throat, not comfortable with such scrutiny. The little girl had dark eyes that seemed to look through him, not at him. She couldn’t be more than five or six, dressed to look adorable in matching pink shorts and a T-shirt showing off her tan, holding a fuzzy grizzly bear.
But that cuteness packaged a small, intense, and scary kid.
He swallowed and pointed to the screen, now showing a picture of a fire truck and the number “44” emblazoned over it. “I’m Reggie. This is Mack.” Mack nodded. “We’re with Station 44, and we work C shift. Our station has four eight-person shifts—A, B, C, and D. And we have two lieutenants, who are our bosses. We—”
The little girl cut in, “How come you only have two lieutenants but you have four shifts? I know my math, and I think you’re missing two.”
Reggie contained a sigh. “Our lieutenants cover two shifts each.”
“Oh.” The little girl nodded.
“We have pretty much the best job in the world, because we get to help people when we can, and we get to meet new people all the time.”
“But what if they’re burned? That’s not great.” The little girl frowned.
Behind her, a well-dressed man, in slacks and a polo, rolled his eyes.
“That’s a good point,” Reggie agreed. “And maybe this job wouldn’t be good for someone who hates fire or is afraid of blood. But we—”
“Blood?” The girl’s eyes narrowed. “What blood? Do you make people bleed?”
Mack coughed but didn’t quite muffle his laughter.
A few adults grinned.
The girl’s father—uncle?—shushed her. “Emily, let him speak. Sorry.”
“No problem.” Reggie mentally thanked the guy. “Well, we as firefighters in the awesome city of Seattle have to do a lot more than put out fires. As you probably know, there are thirty-four stations in the city, including Harbor View Medical Center. All of them run twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.”
Mack changed the slides, showing the layout.
“We have five battalions, and each battalion has a chief.”
One boy raised his hand. Not the intense Emily, thank goodness.
“Yes?” Reggie said.
“Do you mean battalions like the Army? My dad is in the Army.”
“Are you in the Army?” Emily asked. Without raising her hand.
“Actually, I was in the Navy. Mack was in the Air Force, and two of our crew who aren’t here were in the Marines.”
“Semper Fi,” a woman said from the back of the room.
Semper Fi—always faithful, the Marine Corps motto.
