Remi was more than used to his shift pattern by now. He worked twenty-four hours on, then forty-eight hours off. The day after a shift was always a bit weird, depending how much sleep he had been able to get. After a shift like the one on Friday, where he didn’t get any shut -eye at all, it meant the first day off was a write-off as he tried to reset his body clock and feel more human again.

But by the time he woke up on Sunday morning, he was still feeling out of sorts and he wasn’t sure why. It was like he couldn’t shake off his last shift, even after a run and a shower. It wasn’t like there had been any loss of life. Those were by far the worst days to get over. They’d had a great shift. Leon had texted Remi to let him know Kris was doing fine after his narrow escape.

So what was it? Remi half wondered if it was his interrupted jerk-off session. It got him thinking how much better it would be to come home to someone. Or even just date somebody. Remi had been with a few girls during and since high school, but for one reason or another, all his relationships had fizzled out.

He got himself dressed and decided his best bet was distraction. This worked out quite well, as his mom had texted the day before inviting him over for a Sunday afternoon barbecue. She was hopeless at remembering his shift rotation, so she just tended to text him the day before any plans were happening and hoped for the best.

Sometimes it irked Remi because it highlighted the fact that he never really had plans these days unless it was a firehouse event. As much as he was thrilled that Leon had met such a wonderful girl as Ava, there were times when Remi felt the loss of his and Leon’s close relationship.

He just needed to find himself a nice lady, too. It always seemed like an insurmountable task, though. Remi was on a couple of dating apps, but Hidden Creek was a pretty small town. There were times when he and Leon or one of their other old high school buddies took a trip into Houston on a Friday or Saturday night. But with his shift rotation, Remi always felt like he was held back from making any real commitment, even if he did hook up with someone cute.

Ah, who was he kidding? He could probably find a way to make the stars align for the right girl. Lots of people worked shifts, after all. But there was always something holding Remi back from trying that hundred percent, he knew.

He did some chores to fill the couple of hours before heading to his folks’ place and tried not to muse over his single status too much. He finally took the clean laundry that had been piling up in his spare room and put it away, opened a few bills he’d been meaning to look at and emptied the trash. He knew he wasn’t the most house-proud person, but it did feel good to sort a couple of things out in between shifts.

Just before he was ready to head out the door, a swish of a tail caught his eye in the backyard. He hadn’t mowed the lawn in a while, but he was still able to see a familiar black furry face with green eyes moving through the grass.

Remi smiled. Even after the incident on Friday evening, he was still glad to see this little kitty again. She had been popping in and out of his yard for a few weeks now, and he’d taken to leaving some water and sliced turkey out for her when she came around. He knew he probably shouldn’t, but she was skinny with no collar and it made him feel better to give her a little something.

“Good, kitty,” he murmured, stroking her as she bound over to greet him and the bowls he placed on the patio. He guessed she was probably only about six months old. Hopefully, she had a home to go home to at night.

Time was creeping forward, so Remi left the skinny cat to her lunch and began his journey to his own food. He locked his door and swung his keys in his hand as he crossed his boiling-hot drive to open up his car. Even with a visor up to shield it from the sun, it would take the A/C a minute to cool the interior down.

As he waited, he thought about the snippet of conversation he’d caught in the early hours of Saturday morning between Kris and his boss, a guy called PJ. They’d said something about Bottom’s Up being the only real gay club in the area, and how much it was going to affect the LGBT community.

Remi swung his keys around in a loop on his index finger. Here he was complaining how hard it was to meet a lady he connected with. It must be ten times harder for gay guys to meet other guys in a small town like Hidden Creek.

How did you meet dudes when you weren’t in a place that told other dudes you were gay? Or bi? It wasn’t like you could always look at a guy walking down the aisle in JJ’s Fresh Goods and tell he was into men. Well, some people could, couldn’t they? That was what they called gaydar, or at least they had back in the nineties.

But what if you were wrong? How could you know for sure?

Remi had often wondered.

He shook his head. A few years ago he’d come to accept the fact that, yeah, from time to time he ran into another guy that made his stomach flip and heart pick up the way it did when he met a gorgeous girl. He thought of the porn he’d found the other night and rolled his eyes. Yeah, there was a good chance he…wasn’t quite straight. But he’d never felt strongly enough to go somewhere like Bottom’s Up and test the theory. Not when he absolutely liked women as well. That was just the easier option, wasn’t it?

Well, it wasn’t like he was about to get the opportunity to test that anytime soon with the town’s premier gay bar out of commission. But now that option was gone, at least for the time being, Remi couldn’t help but wonder if he’d missed out. You only lived once, right? And it was the twenty-first century, for crying out loud. Maybe the next time he saw a guy that made his heart rate increase, he shouldn’t be so afraid and go with it.

If seeing life-threatening situations on a daily basis had taught him anything at all, it was that people’s time on this earth was too damned short. If he was lucky enough to be attracted to a wider range of people, surely he owed it to himself to think outside the box and go for it.

He grunted and pulled the now cool car out of his driveway. Yeah, right. What would people say? That he was going through a phase, probably. And that was if they were being nice or polite. He heard the words the guys at work used to insult each other and they almost always implied queerness in a derogatory way. Even though they were just joshing around, it made Remi uncomfortable. There was no getting away from the fact that people associated being gay as weak and effeminate and therefore bad.

It pissed Remi the fuck off. Although he’d obviously never come out – what would be the point? – he still felt the sting when people spouted homophobia. It was probably one of the reasons he loved Leon so much. Even before his little brother had come out, Leon had always been a more decent kind of guy compared to a lot of the dicks they went to school with. Remi had no time for people who were racist or homophobic or any of those other prejudices that were still sadly a little too common in a small town like Hidden Creek.

Remi’s mind naturally wandered to thoughts of Kris. Leon had come to his rescue after the fire, so Remi had texted him yesterday to ask how he was doing. Although Leon’s younger brother had grown up significantly over the past couple of years, Kris had still looked small and shaken to his core as he’d sat on the end of the firetruck, shivering under a blanket.

Blazes of that magnitude were unusual in Hidden Creek. Ordinarily, Remi was called out to grease fires in kitchens or barbecues gone awry. To see a whole building go up in flames was unusual, to say the least. Even after a couple of showers, Remi still caught the odd whiff of the smoke in his hair.

Thank goodness Kris had gotten out unscathed. But he was bound to be reeling from it still, despite Leon assuring Remi he was fine. Even if his things hadn’t been burned, they were bound to be damaged and waterlogged. It was anybody’s guess how long it would take before he could get access back into his apartment to inspect the situation. Thanks to the town’s experience with Hurricane Harvey, at least they knew how to get industrial fans in there quickly to dry it out and stop the mold growing. But still, Kris had probably lost everything.

Remi knew there wasn’t anything more he could have done to help. He still had a lingering sensation of guilt, however. The idea of Leon’s brother being in a bad way niggled at him. Like a muscle ache that wouldn’t go away.

Remi made up his mind to text Leon again once he’d gotten to his folks’ house and said his hellos. Remi knew he and Kris weren’t close, not by a long shot. But Remi cared about Leon, so Leon would understand that meant Remi cared about his little – or not so little – brother too.

Except when he parked the car and rang the doorbell at his parents’ house, he realized he didn’t need to text Leon.

Because Leon opened the door.

“Buddy,” Leon cried with a sigh and a big grin. “Your mom was threatening to send out a search party.” He laughed as the two of them naturally leaned in for a hug.

Leon wasn’t much like his brother in appearance. If Kris was a flower, Leon was a tree trunk, much like Remi. Tall and solid with muscle. But they both had the same bright, welcoming smile Remi had noticed over the years.

“I’m not that late, am I?” Remi said. “Besides, what are you doing here? Not that it isn’t great to see you.”

“Come through before you let all the hot air in,” Leon said, ushering Remi inside. He had stayed over at the house hundreds of times, so he was just as comfortable here as Remi and his sisters were. “Your mom just likes to fuss over things. You know that.”

Remi certainly did. There was no business too small that Bettina Washington wouldn’t stick her nose in, Remi thought fondly. His mom liked to know all so she could fix all because she always had an opinion on everything.

“No search party needed,” Remi assured his best friend as they stepped into the hallway covered in family photos from over the years. “I just lost track of time a little. You here for the barbecue?”

Leon nodded as Remi followed him down the hall toward the kitchen. He picked up a half-finished beer from the counter, presumably where he’d left it, then fetched one out of the fridge for Remi without asking. “After the couple of days we’ve had, your mom insisted on dishing out a little TLC.” Leon smiled affectionately at Remi, then stepped out into the backyard.

Remi could hear numerous voices before he stepped back into the sunshine. His dad had the grill going by the swimming pool and his mom had all the folding chairs out. Every one was occupied and the chatter over the music playing immediately became a chorus of cheers as the guests realized Remi had arrived.

“You made it!” Darcy, Remi’s younger sister cried as she bounded over to throw her arms around him. Having finished college over the summer, she was now living in Houston and came home frequently. Although thanks to his shift pattern, Remi hadn’t seen much of her lately. He smiled as he wrapped his arms around her small frame.

“Y’all are acting like I dropped off the grid,” he said with a chuckle.

His mom tutted as she came over for a hug after Darcy. She was a large Black woman with natural hair and a big smile, her lips always painted ruby red. His sisters took more after her with their darker skin, whereas Remi was a little lighter thanks to his dad’s fair complexion.

Remi clung to her and patted her back. “You should text if you’re going to be late, Remington,” she admonished. “I thought there might have been a car accident or something.”

Remi resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Instead he waved over to his older sister, Jamila. She and her husband, Thom, were fussing over their eighteen-month-old daughter, Kendra, who was squirming around, getting more food on her dress than she was in her mouth. Ava, Leon’s heavily pregnant girlfriend, was also sitting with them, tiredly rubbing her belly and sipping an iced tea.

“The man of the hour,” Remi’s dad announced happily, poking at the sausages he was currently grilling. In contrast to Remi’s mom, his dad was tall, slender and blond, his hair cropped close ever since his days in the military way back when. “How you doing, son?”

“Great,” Remi said with a nod. He noted his dad had placed the propane tank too close to the barbecue again, so Remi would have to stealthily move it in a minute.

That would have to wait a moment, however. “Oh, Remi,” a tearful voice came from his right. He turned back toward the house to find himself immediately enveloped by another pair of arms. Stefania Novak let out a sob as she clung to Remi and buried her face in his neck.

It wasn’t unusual to see Stef hanging out with his mom. But as Remi looked over her shoulder while they hugged, he saw someone that he wasn’t sure had ever come to his parents’ house before.

Kris.