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Sam was tempted to laugh until he saw the look of sheer panic on Tyler’s face. “Oh. Yeah. No,” the guy stammered. “No, I didn’t, uh. I’m not…I mean, Chloe is—”
“Ah, leave the poor man be,” Hawkins said, putting Tyler out of his misery. “The right person seems to find you when you need ’em. You’ve just got to make sure you’re payin’ attention, is all. And speaking of payin’ attention, we’re going to have a busy shift. Let’s start getting breakfast together so we can start this day right.”
“It’s good to have you back, Faurier,” Tyler said as they all moved farther into the kitchen, and Sam was helpless against his grin.
“I’m right where I belong.”
* * *
Lucy’s pulsepressed rapidly against her throat as she stood outside Station Seventeen’s locker room and listened to the chatter of her engine-mates. She wasn’t nervous, although she knew Shae, Kellan, and Gamble would all probably give her a not-small amount of crap for keeping her relationship with Sam under wraps. No, Lucy’s heart was smacking away at her breastbone because she was happy, and she headed into the locker room.
Which promptly exploded.
“Luuuuuucccccccyyyyyyy!” Shae hooted, prompting Gamble and Kellan, who were standing in front of their respective lockers, to both grin and call out in greeting. Lucy realized that Quinn and Luke were both in the locker room, adding to the cheers, too, and okay, maybe she was just ateensybit nervous.
“Hey, you guys,” she said, letting Shae and Quinn tackle-hug her before waving to the rest of the group.
“It’s really good to have you back,” Kellan said, his smile genuine and warm, and Gamble lifted his stubbled chin in a nod.
“The place wasn’t the same without you, kid.”
Gamble’s nickname for her had always made her laugh. Gamble wasn’tthatmuch older than her. But between his years as an active-duty combat Marine and his time in the RFD, he’d seen far more than most people. Plus, she was still the newest member on engine, even if she did have three years under her belt now.
Lucy took a deep breath, because she’d never been a beat-around-the-bush kind of woman, and said, “So, before we go on shift, I’ve got news.”
“They caught this guy who’s been setting fires?” Luke asked.
“You did such an amazing job on the case that you’re getting a commendation?” Quinn tried.
“You won the lottery and you’re taking us all to Fiji?” Shae asked, prompting everyone in the room to turn and stare at her. “What? It could happen.”
“No to all of those. Sorry about Fiji,” Lucy said, although she was grateful for the tension buster. “I just wanted to let you know that Sam…Faurier and I are in a relationship. Together.”
A beat of total silence passed before Shae and Quinn both broke it by yelling, “I knew it!”, Luke held up his hands in concession, Gamble’s face creased in older-brotherly concern, and Kellan gave up an audible sigh of relief.
“You already knew,” Lucy said to Kellan, who nodded sheepishly.
“Isabella said she’d explode if she didn’t tell someone, and apparently, Faurier’s been a little, uh, protective of you on the case. That plus the hand-holding thing you two were doing the other day at the Thirty-Third kind of gave it away.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Shae said, her hands finding her hips as she speared Kellan with a stare. “Let me get this straight. You knew about this and didn’tsayanything?”
“You just said you knew, too!” Kellan argued.
“Okay, but I justsuspectedbecause of them staying together—which was even more fishy than the whole forearm-holding thing,” Shae said. “Either way, suspecting is a totally different form of knowing. Youknewknew!”
“I know I’ll probably regret asking this,” Lucy said, raising her brows as she looked at Shae. “But what is a ‘forearm-holding thing’, exactly?”
“If your answer isn’t PG-13, I don’t want to be here for it,” Gamble told Shae pre-emptively, and she snorted.
“Relax. I’m referring to the way our girl, Lucy, here, hung on to Faurier’s forearm like it was a life raft while her SUV was on fire. It looked suspiciously more-than-friends-ish, but then neither one of them gave up so much as a peep about it, so I thought maybe I was reading too much into it. Ugh, I should have known that ‘staying together for safety purposes’ really meant ‘having loads of great sex’.” Swinging toward Lucy, she said, “I cannotbelieveyou didn’t say anything! We’ve traded dozens of texts over the past few weeks.”
Lucy’s gut twanged, but she didn’t shy away from the truth. “I know. You’re my best friends, and me and Sam being in a relationship is a big deal. But there’s a reason I held back.”
She gave them a semi-sanitized version (since Gamble was already in older-brother mode and Shae’s mention of s-e-x hadn’t helped) of the events that had gone down between her and Brandon at the academy. Things got a little hairy when she got to the part where she’d found out about the bet and the way Brandon had tried to take credit for her knowledge and hard work, but by the time she delivered the happy ending, her engine-mates were assuaged.
Mostly.
“I say we kick Barlow’s ass,” Gamble said, Luke and Kellan nodding in fervent agreement.
