Put some clothes on. No one wants to see this shit.
Of course you snagged the girl. Firefighters get all the hot ones.
Gag me. Or her. This display of updates is stupid. You should talk more about the fires you fight. Fought any good ones lately?
HAH. HAH. You got friend zoned? Pathetic. Start talking about firefighting, Dalton.
The comments go on and on. Sometimes multiple on the same video. Like whoever this is has nothing better to do than comment on my posts. And the dates to all the comments are all over the place, not in order. Not necessarily when the posts were first made.
Nice fighting fire today, Dalton.
My eyes land on the comment, and the world stops around me. I don’t breathe as I stare at it. The date matches the last fire we fought. Fucking hell.
The arsonist. There’s no doubt in my mind it’s him.
Bounding up from the couch, I grab my keys, water, and hat, and head for the door, stuffing my phone into the pocket of my athletic shorts. It’s just before eight in the morning, and I have plans to meet the guys at 10-42 to work on the dance portion of my spot in the auction, recruiting Nate, Liam, and Luke to help. My horseshoe of luck making this the perfect time to find these messages.
It’s not long before I’m knocking on the door at the bar, bouncing back and forth on the balls of my feet, waiting for someone to answer. I know they’re here because Liam’s motorbike is here, and Luke’s jeep is sitting beside it. Nate’s truck isn’t around, but I’d bet he has a spot somewhere in the back.
Anxiety ratchets through me until the door opens, Nate onthe other side, letting me in.
“Hey.”
“Need to talk,” I tell him, blowing past into the bar.
“Okay…”
There are more lights on than when I’ve been here before, and the daylight shines through windows above some of the booths lining the walls. Liam and Luke are near the dance floor, but I screech to a dead halt when I take them in.
“What the fuck are you guys wearing?”
They’ve both got shit-eating grins, an arm slung over each other’s shoulders in an act of solidarity. Both of them wear sleeveless shirts—Santa Rosé Fire t-shirts with the arms cut off—and Liam has a pair of navy-blue sweats on, while Luke opted for a pair of shorts. All normal. What isn’t normal is the layers of tulle wrapped around their waists in the form of tutus.
Liam in pink. Luke in purple.
“A couple years ago the girls went as fairies for Halloween. We may have stolen their skirts,” Liam explains, fluffing out the tulle. “We figured it would help our dance moves.”
Liam was the easy one to recruit. He jumped at the chance to be involved besides hosting the event, since he isn’t auctioning himself off this year. It took the two of us a day to convince Luke to say yes. And me offering to cook the next three shifts when it was his turn.
It took the big guns to convince Nate. Liam and I went straight to Savanna. Liam was confident that would be the only way to get Nate on board, and given they’ve been best friends for years, I wasn’t going to argue. Two weeks after I first accepted a spot in the auction, Savanna managed to persuade Nate to agree. I never want to know how she did it.
“Plus it’ll look great for the camera,” Luke adds, releasingLiam to do a spin for all of us.
Nate steps up beside me. “I tried to tell them they were idiots.”
“Idiots that will get us views on socials,” I agree with both of them.
While we’re all here to work on the routine with the help of my brother, it’s no longer the most pressing thing on my mind.
“I think the arsonist follows me,” I blurt out, pulling my phone out of my pocket.
“What?” Nate turns fully in my direction.
Luke blows out a breath. “Bro…”
“Dude,” Liam says, the two of them walking towards Nate and me.
I took a screenshot of the replies just in case the profile ended up deleted before I got here, but when I get to it, it’s still there. Turning my phone around so they can all see, I point at the screen.
