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“You like fighting fires, Eise?” Yates asks.
I blink in confusion. “Yes, sir. Of course, I do.”
He nods, “So if the state fire chief found out and decided we’re better off as some kind of diversity-program poster child and paid us to speak at high schools instead of fight fires, you’d be upset about that?"
I nod in understanding. “Yes, sir.”
“Great. Now to answer Anthony’s question: When she comes in tomorrow morning, we’re going to give her everything: every report, every manifest, every receipt, every timecard, everything. We’re going to check every box on her list so fast she’ll be fifty miles out of town before she even realizes what happened.”
“You’re not worried that will make her more suspicious?” I ask.
“I don’t give a fuck if she’s suspicious,” Yates replies. “I just want her out of my department.”
There were a few murmurs of agreement and I realized that if I didn’t put a stop to this, then Yates was going to put the company and all of us in precisely the situation we hope to avoid.
“With all due respect, Captain,” I say, “Tabitha isn’t the kind of person to let things go. If she thinks we’re hiding something, she won’t leave and she won’t stop until she figures out what it is. If we’re going to avoid suspicion, we need to act like we would with any other inspector. No extra helpfulness, no making things easier for her. Just the usual tolerance and compliance without making it look like we’re trying to kiss her ass.”
Yates doesn’t answer and after a moment, I realize he and the others are looking at me with suspicion.
Tabitha.
I called her by her first name.
Dammit.
“You keeping your nose clean, Eise?” Yates asks.
“Yes,” I say. “I just want things to stay the way they are.”
“That won’t happen if you get stupid,” Yates says in a tone that is surprisingly far kinder than his words suggest.
“I won’t,” I say. “I promise.”
Of course, that’s a lie because Tabitha and I spend every night the next week getting stupid. Each bout of stupidity is preceded by a fight and after the eighth night in a row of being stupid, I tell her, “Tabitha, we can’t keep doing this. It’s getting to the point where I’m going to want to start a fight with you just to… just to get to what happens after.”
She pulls her skirt back up and glances around the garage to make sure no one caught us, then says, “You mean the part where we fuck each other until we can barely walk?”
I chuckle. “Yes, that part.”
She looks at me and smiles softly. “Yes, I agree. We need to find a better way to—”
To do what exactly I never learn because at that moment, we are interrupted by a loud alarm.
Three alarms. That means all hands on deck, not only here but also from the other local fire companies. I look at Tabitha and say, “To be continued.”
She nods and follows me to the waiting fire engine.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Tabitha
“Why don’t you ride along?” Rory asks. I look at him in shock. He says, “Come on. Like you didn’t fantasize about riding in a firetruck when you were growing up. I know I did. Man, I thought about it a whole lot.”
“Are you sure nobody will mind?”
He grins, “Of course, they’ll mind. Come on.”
I laugh and grab a fireman’s cap so hopefully the fact that my hair is a little messy will be hidden. I give myself a pat on the back for finally deciding it makes more sense for me to wear pants than skirts here. I follow him to a truck. I get a sideways glance from Ricardo and Brett when I get inside but they move over. The glance at each other and again I’m struck by how there sure as hell seems to be some sort of cover-up going on.
