The radios were plain plastic and metal. They were standard-issue equipment, the exact same kind Diesel had used in Atlantic City. He’d examined them at least a dozen times, fiddling with each button. There was nothing noticeably wrong with them.
But they still didn’t work.
In the end, he’d tucked the pair of radios into his boots for safekeeping, then loitered nervously in the locker room to make sure no one else found them. It had earned him a few weird looks from the other guys, but he didn’t give one good goddamn what anyone else thought. If someone was messing with firefighters—
He could taste bile at the back of his throat. He picked up a glass of water and gulped it down. No one was messing with firefighters. The captain was just paranoid. It was insane. The police might have the occasional PR problem, but everyone liked firefighters. They ran into falling buildings and rescued kittens from trees. They saved lives.
The captain found him during shift change. He’d changed into a pair of dark jeans and a pale blue polo that made his hair look like layered steel. He smiled. “You still got ’em?”
“Yes, boss.” Diesel popped open his locker and bent down. The heavy yellow boots had belonged to at least one other firefighter before him. They smelled like sweat and smoke. It would take a brave man to root around inside. He held his nose as he pulled out the radios, holding them up for Jack to grab.
“Bring them,” Jack said. “You like Mexican food? We’ll get Mexican.”
“I like Mexican food.” More importantly, he liked Jack, probably a little more than he should. The thought made him flush. He jammed the radios into his pockets and followed Jack outside onto the street. The firehouse was surrounded by at least a dozen restaurants, but Jack didn’t head toward any of them. Instead, he waved down a cab and had it take them to a big restaurant up near Times Square.
Neither of them said anything until they were tucked up in a narrow booth with red vinyl upholstery. The place was jam packed, but he didn’t recognize anyone so it wasn’t a firehouse regular.
“Do you come here often?” Did that sound like a line?
“I used to.” Jack sighed. “With my kid. Before he got too big to hang out with his old man, we went to the museums. We’d come here afterward and get burritos. They’ve got a machine in the back that makes fresh tortillas. It makes this noise, pop-pop-pop. He used to love watching it. Sometimes we’d wait half an hour to get a booth nearby. Pop-pop-pop.”
That was actually kind of adorable. Diesel fiddled with the edge of his menu. It had splashy pictures on the front and big friendly text. He could see why a kid would like it, even without the added bonus of the machine in the back.
“Too bad we couldn’t sit there,” he said. “Guess you’ll just have to make that noise some more.”
“Pop-pop-pop.” Jack’s lips puckered around each syllable. “You got any idea what you want to order?”
“The burritos any good?” Diesel shrugged. “I’ll have whatever you’re having.” He put the menu down and picked up the closest radio instead. It was the one Jack had been wearing earlier. It looked perfectly ordinary from the outside. “You really think somebody damaged the radios on purpose?”
Maybe if he took a look at the wiring? Except, he didn’t know about wiring. He hadn’t even been able to fix the dodgy light switch in his old apartment in Atlantic City. “Just ask me to do it,” Chase had told him, and then after he’d tried to fix it himself, “Fucking idiot. If you can’t make a phone call, what makes you think you can fix bad wires?” Then there’d been a smile and a kiss. “It’s a good thing you’re beautiful.”
He was right about some things. As an electrician, Diesel made a better firefighter.
But the guy who’d fucked with the radios was probably a firefighter too. He wouldn’t mess with the wiring, not when there were so many easier ways to screw up electronics. The things were built to last, tough and water resistant, but they’d fritz out in an instant if they were dropped in a tub of water.
“I know it’s hard to believe,” Jack said. “I didn’t believe it when the guys were complaining about their equipment. Maybe if I’d listened to them earlier—”
“Guys in Atlantic City were always complaining about their equipment. I imagine that’s pretty universal.”
“I still could have listened.” He smiled at their waitress, a teenage girl in a bright red shirt and a short black apron. Her earrings were shaped like red peppers. “Two steak burritos, guacamole and sour cream on the side.” He waited until the waitress was gone before stretching his legs out under the table, invading Diesel’s personal space until their feet knocked against each other. “It’s subtle. This guy didn’t want everyone looking for him, so he screwed with things that could go wrong anyway. That’ll make him harder to find.”
“It’s got to be a firefighter,” Diesel said. Maybe they should have waited until after the food to talk because his stomach was churning. He took another sip of his water. “No one else has that kind of access.”
“Shit.” Jack sighed. “After last time the brass is going to come down on us like a ton of bricks.”
“Last time?” Diesel said.
Jack reached up to tug at his salt and pepper hair. “We had some trouble last year,” he explained. “An arsonist. It turned out it was one of the firefighters in our house.”
“Unlucky.”
“Unlucky or bad management.” Jack shrugged. “The brass isn’t going to care either way. They already ran me over the coals once. It happens again? They’re not going to bother with coals. They’ll just ram red-hot pokers up my ass on their way to wrecking my retirement and reorganizing the entire unit.”
Diesel had never been through a reorganization, but he’d heard about them. Firefighters getting split up and redeployed to different houses. Men who’d worked together for years, best friends and buddies, being instructed not to talk to each other. Even then, they didn’t always get the best reception at their new location.
A regular transfer was bad enough. Diesel knew it’d take months before he really fit in with his new crew, but at least his new team had no reason not to trust him.
If he was forcibly moved because the brass thought the firehouse had gone bad, the next place wouldn’t be as welcoming.
They might work with him, but they’d never accept him as one of their own.
He wasn’t the only one who’d lose out either. Tito had stuck his neck out for Diesel, working hard to get his transfer approved.
Diesel forced down the twinge deep in his belly. Jack was a good captain. Everyone in the firehouse liked him. He gave sensible orders and looked after his men, the same way he’d looked after Diesel at the bar. Of course, according to Tito he didn’t usually take the guys out for coffee and cheesy novels afterward.
That made Diesel special.
He didn’t want to be special, but that hadn’t stopped him from gravitating to the captain on more than one occasion since their coffee klatch.
And then they’d walked into that building together. It had felt so damn good working with someone he actually liked again. He’d been part of a team. Jack had smiled at him, trusting him to follow orders without double-checking.
Jack had trusted him with the radios too.
Air filled Diesel’s lungs, allowing his chest to expand. He wasn’t about to let Jack down. Not today. Not while they were both still breathing.
He just needed to think through the problem. He wasn’t an engineer, but neither was anyone else in the firehouse. If he was going to arrange for a pair of radios to crap out in the middle of a fire, what would be his first step?
It took him a full thirty seconds to fumble open the back of the radio, dumping a pair of batteries out into his hand. They were mismatched. Two different colors. Two different brands. That couldn’t be right. His hands were shaking. It took him longer to open the second radio. More batteries. These ones were older with corroded terminals.
It meant something.
“Those aren’t the batteries we use,” Jack said.
“You sure?”
“Our batteries are bought in bulk. I’ve got a whole case of them somewhere at the firehouse. These aren’t them. They must have switched out the good batteries for ones that were already on the fritz.”
“Maybe it’s just a prankster?” Diesel suggested. “I mean, they didn’t permanently damage the radios.”
“If so, he’s got an awful sense of humor.”
A firefighter was only as good as three things: his muscle, his team, and his equipment. At least that’s what Diesel’s father used to say when he’d had a little too much to drink. Without their radios, they could have been stuck at the top of an office building. They could have died.
Jack could have died.
Diesel was suddenly all too aware of how close they were sitting. Their feet were touching. Their knees were rubbing against each other. When the waitress dropped off a platter of chips and salsa, they both reached out at the same time and their fingers touched.
A flash of pale hair caught Diesel’s eye. Chase? He jerked his head to the side, searching the crowd. He could make out one or two blonds, but he didn’t see his mealymouthed ex. “What are you going to do?”
“What do you think I should do?”
“I dunno.” He grabbed a handful of chips and stuffed them in his mouth, buying himself more time to think. “Find the guy.” All the salt made his throat dry and his voice quiet. He swallowed hard and repeated himself. “You need to find the guy. If you find him yourself—without the rest of the department looking over your shoulder—then they won’t be able to blame you for what’s going on. They’ll let you retire easy.”
It still blew his mind that Jack was old enough to be thinking about retirement. He wasn’t normally attracted to older men. Chase had only been thirty, but Jack had a steadiness about him that he found appealing.
“And if I deserve to be blamed?” Jack asked, and it was a serious question like he actually cared about Diesel’s answer. “If I’d caught what was happening earlier, maybe I could have done something.”
It felt good to be consulted, like his opinion actually mattered. “Maybe you should ask someone else—Troy seems pretty smart—but the way I figure it, the only person who deserves the blame is the asshole who switched out our batteries.”
“You haven’t been around long enough to know that.” The food hit the table between them and Jack wrapped his hands around an oversize steak burrito. “Is that the same advice you’d give your old captain?”
“That’s different.”
“How?”
“He wouldn’t ask.” Diesel picked at his food. “He’s my cousin, you know? But, he’s older than me. He’s always treated me like a fuckup kid brother, cleaning up after my messes. If he got in trouble he’d talk to one of my uncles, maybe my cousin Bertie, he wouldn’t bother asking my opinion.”
Jack’s eyes narrowed. “Are you a fuckup?”
“I’ve made my share of mistakes.” Dating Chase was top of the list in bold print. If he asked Peter, his cousin would probably be able to reel off a dozen others.
Diesel turned in his seat and searched the crowd a second time, but he didn’t see anything. No blond hair. No prying eyes. Maybe he was imagining things, but that didn’t stop the hair from standing up on the back of his neck like he was being watched. “I fell for the wrong guy.”
“And?” Jack snorted. “If we’re comparing relationship drama, we’re going to be here all night.”
“No shit?” Diesel couldn’t imagine Jack ever making a mistake. He was just too certain about everything he did.
“I’ve got two ex-wives. That means I’m not in a position to judge anyone.”
Okay, so maybe Jack wasn’t as in control as he seemed. Maybe it was just the veneer of the job rubbing off on him. Diesel smiled. He liked the idea that the captain was as capable of making mistakes as anyone else. “How do you convince two different women to marry you?”
“Fuck if I know.” Jack chuckled. “Maybe I’ve got a magic dick. Maybe I’m just that charming. They liked me well enough when we got together.”
“And when you got divorced?”
“They liked me then too.” He was still friends with both of his ex-wives, even if Mona was the only one he talked to on a daily basis. “Mostly, they didn’t like the job. Being married to a firefighter’s great until it means long shifts and late nights alone.”
“Is that why you’re so damn desperate to retire?”
“Back when I was working the line with the other guys, I always swore I’d die with my boots on. Now...” He shrugged. “The sooner I can stop doing the paperwork, the better.”
“You might be old, but you’re still sexy.” Damn. Why the hell had he said that? Diesel flinched as soon as the words hit the air. Jack might not be a bigot, but he wasn’t gay either. He’d been married twice to two different women. No telling how he’d react to a man telling him he was sexy. Any minute now he’d start yelling. Any minute—
Underneath the table his heel hooked around Diesel’s, bringing them even closer together. It was probably an accident. Diesel looked up straight into piercing blue eyes and a shit-eating grin. Jack’s tongue swiped across his kissable bottom lip. “Good to know I’ve still got it.”
Okay, maybe he wasn’t completely straight.
Diesel flushed as heat bubbled up from low in his belly. Blood half filled his erection, and when was the last time it had done that for anything less than full body contact? He didn’t know what he should say next. Luckily, the food provided a good distraction. It was hot and yummy and filling.
Jack must have picked up on some of his unease because when the food was gone, he was back to business. “The easiest way to find the guy would be to catch him in the act. That means watching the equipment lockers.” He considered their options for a long minute. “My office has a pretty good view.”
It was a decent plan. Sort of. “We’ll need help,” Diesel said. “Unless you think we can cover the office twenty-four seven.”
“It might not be necessary,” Jack said. “All the problems you found were on our shift, right?”
“Yes, boss.”
“Then maybe we just need to keep an eye on our shift.” He straightened. “I mean, covering it twenty-four seven would be hard anyway. I’ll get a couple of video cameras and set them up. I can review them in the morning, see if anything happened overnight, but I want to watch our shift in real time. If we can catch this guy in the act it’ll help work it out, but we’ll still need help. Troy is pretty damn straight edge. I’d trust him to take us through a firefight. I’m pretty sure he can help watch a window. We’ll need at least one other person—”
“Tito.”
“Because the two of you were such good buddies in Atlantic City?” Jack shook his head. “Alvarez is an okay guy, but he was late three times last week. He’s not exactly a rock. What about Theo Wilkes?”
“Tito’s trustworthy where it counts.”
“You think so?”
And there it was again, Jack had asked him a question and now he was waiting for the answer. Like it mattered. Like Diesel mattered. Did he really think Tito was trustworthy? Diesel’s teeth dug into his bottom lip as he considered all the information.
Tito was a good friend. They’d been buddies back in Atlantic City, sort of. He was a better firefighter. He might not always be on time—he definitely cared more about his family than his work—but when the chips were down Diesel couldn’t think of anyone he’d rather have at his back.
“I’d trust him with my life,” Diesel said. “I’d trust him with yours.”
“Then I’ll talk to him and Troy in the morning.”
“You’re really going to trust Tito on my say-so?”
“Pretty much.”
“Why? I mean...” Their waitress dropped off the bill along with a pointed look. She needed to turn the table over. That meant they needed to pay and get out. “What if I’m the one messing with the equipment?”
“Not very smart, giving yourself a busted radio.”
“Maybe I’m not smart.”
“You’re smarter than you think. You don’t miss much—”
“I miss plenty. That cop was right the other night. Back in Atlantic City—”
“Unless there’s a warrant out for your arrest, I don’t care about Atlantic City. You’ve done good work in New York. You got to the firehouse after the equipment problems started.” Jack looked at him for a long moment. “And, I’ve got a good feeling about you.”
“A good feeling?”
“Yeah.” He reached out and threaded their fingers together. “A really good feeling.”
The hand holding was small enough to possibly be mistaken for friendly, but it was freaking intimate. The rough callused edge of his thumb scraped against the tender skin at Diesel’s wrist, and—
Hoo boy.
Anywhere else in the country the table between them would be at least eight inches wider, but this was New York City and space was at a premium. They were so damn close. If Diesel leaned forward, they’d be kissing.
Blond hair flashed in the back of the restaurant. A tall man with platinum hair moving in their direction. Diesel wasn’t imagining things this time. He swallowed hard, retreating down as far as he could go in his seat. Blood rushed past his ears providing a thudding like antique drums.
Oh, God. Oh, God.
Jack frowned. “Is it a panic attack?”
“I’m fine,” Diesel lied. “I just think I see someone I know.”
The blond got closer. The light shifted. Platinum turned into honey. Familiar sharp features rounded out, becoming soft and young. It wasn’t Chase.
“It’s nothing.” He forced himself to take a deep breath.
Chase was still a hundred and twenty-five miles away. The blond glaring in their direction was just a lanky teenager with fair hair, blue eyes, and an ugly tinge to his complexion.
He snorted when he saw their hands locked together. “Seriously?”
Then he walked away.
Diesel frowned as Jack dropped his wrist. Had he missed something? “Who was that?”
“My son.” Jack was up and running a second later, chasing after the teenager, leaving Diesel behind with more questions than answers and an unpaid bill.