“What if—”
“No ifs.”
“But—”
“No buts.”
I give up and offer her a mocking salute. “You’d make a good drill sergeant.”
“Stop flirting with me.”
A chuckle slips out. Lila narrows her eyes at me in playful warning. I make a big show of snapping to attention, causing several of the guys who are halfway absorbed in their own duties nearby to laugh.
Lila has no idea, but she’s got everyone here wrapped around her finger. Including the womenandthe small handful of gay guys on the crew. It’s not just because she’s beautiful. She’s charm incarnate. She radiates warmth. It’s the same natural sweetheart soul that Reyes has, but Lila is way more extroverted.
“And… action!” She points to me with a girlish flourish.
I spread my arms wide and smile. “Welcome to Station 47, TikTok! We’re right here in the bay… where all the magic happens. Our engines are ready to roll twenty-four-seven, withall of our equipment checked daily, because every individual second counts when we get a call.”
Lila nods behind her phone, gesturing for me to continue toward the doors to the massive gear closet at the back of the space. I walk backwards as gracefully as I can manage, but end up reaching out to smack one of the guys in the back of the head when he attempts to trip me. Lila can edit that out afterwards.
“This is where we keep the gear, always stored out in the open like this so we can get dressed as quickly as possible,” I continue, leading Lila into the room. “In fact, if the alarm went off right now, I’d be suited up and ready to go in less than a minute.”
She nods again, making a gesture as she wants me to say more.
“If you’re lucky, I might even give you a demonstration. Comment down below if you’d like to see something like that.”
Lila beams.
The tour continues. I do my best to keep it professional, but it’s hard when the fact of the matter is that people nowadays have extremely short attention spans.
So, when we hit the kitchen, I decide to inject a little humor into it.
“This is our five-star dining facility.” I open up the fridge to showcase mismatched containers and about six different kindsof electrolyte drinks. “On tonight’s menu we have Tony’s leftover pizza, mystery casserole that Sandra cooked up last night, and an entire shelf dedicated to various brands of hot sauce. My personal favorite is Valentina.”
“Nobody cares,” Lila deadpans.
“Ouch. I’m sure someone cares.”
“Move it along, Dimples.”
“And behind the camera, we have the newest addition to our team—a real-life Barbie doll who tells me what to do more often than the captain himself!”
Lila laughs, dropping the camera setup for a moment. “Seriously?”
“What?”
“You can’t call me Barbie when you literally look like a Ken doll.”
“Well, actually, Ken dolls don’t have dicks. I do.”
“Noted.”
“A really big one, by the way.”
She rolls her eyes. “Yeah, I’m sure.”
“Hard to miss, really.”
