"Uh oh..."
He looked up to see Lexie looking at him, concerned.
"How did things go at the CCFD headquarters?"
He managed half a smile for her.
There is a forum on the internal website where we sign up for training. I looked at all of the posts in there, but they're all filled. I added my own, but there haven't been many hires since the last updated post. I'm afraid I'm going to have to keep looking."
Lexie's shoulders slumped a little and he felt bad for bringing her down.
"Don't worry about me. You're all ready for the exam, right?"
She brightened, a little impish smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. "Yeah. I'm ready." She scooped up another spoon of ice cream and swiftly ate it off the spoon. "This is where I've always seen myself, you know? Helping people?" He moved the ice cream in her bowl around, sweeping up some of the toppings along with it. "My grandma used to watch General Hospital when I was over at her house. And when the TV was on, we always watched medical dramas." She tilted her head to the side, a thoughtful look on her face. "I wonder if they were low-key trying to condition me to be a doctor."
Kaleo smiled at her thoughts. "Maybe. Did you ever think about becoming a doctor?"
Lexie gave it a moment of thought and then shook her head. "No. I like nursing. I like the people. The patients. The whole... kit and caboodle."
He took another bite. "I can see how excited you are about it. I kind of feel the same way about firefighting. When I was in school, we had a field trip to a fire station near our school. Most of the other kids wanted to sit in the driver's seat of the rig orturn on the siren. I wanted to operate the firehose. Then they showed us the 'jaws of life' and the power saws."
Lexie snorted a laugh and raised a hand to cover her mouth.
"What?" He couldn't help but start to chuckle right along with her. "What's so funny?"
She coughed to clear her throat and leaned in toward him. "I can tell how excited you are about that memory. It definitely made an impression on you."
He nodded. "I still get excited when I get to take out the equipment to clean it. Some of the guys I worked with would groan and gripe about cleaning and maintenance, but anytime I get to put my hands on the equipment? I’m good.”
He saw her mouth tuning up in a smile around her spoon.
“What’s that smile for?”
She nearly choked at the question, but when she freed the spoon and put it back in the cup, she met his gaze with a sparkle in her eye.
“You said when you put your hands on the equipment…”
She smiled again, but looked down, hiding her expression.
“Sorry…”
He shook his head and laughed out loud. “I’ve never thought of it like that, but I can see how that sounds.”
Lexie’s smile brightened but she still didn’t look directly at him.
“I read a lot of romance books, and the equipment jokes abound!”
“I bet.”
He took another bite of his ice cream.
“What kind of romances do you like to read? My whole family is basically my mom, my aunt, my sister and a bunch of cousins, mostly female. They all read romance.”
Her hand slowed where it had almost been whipping her ice cream back into a liquid form.
“Really?”
He chuckled but admitted the truth. “Really. They read all kinds of romance books, but I had to say no to them reading ones about firefighters. It made their visits to the station… interesting.”
