Fireproof

Life slowly started returning to normal in the next couple of months after the accident and the loss of Austin. All of the guys of Motley Crue had returned to California to finish recovering and try to get their lives back on track again. I received regular texts from Tommy Lee and an occasional text from Nikki which always made me smile. Criss was convinced that I had feelings for Nikki, but I denied that passionately even though I wasn’t quite convincing myself. Whether I did have feelings for him or not didn’t matter because there was no way in hell I had any kind of chance with him. He was famous and could have any girl he wanted and I was just me, the girl who her fiance cheated on.

Besides returning to work after my arm had healed for the most part, I had also been working extremely hard on getting my flying skills polished up, and I was getting ready for my first airshow this coming weekend. I was pretty excited about it because the team had decided to work with another flight team from a near by town and make things a bit theatrical. We were doing a mock air battle that wasn’t going to be listed in the schedule of events for the crowd to know about. I was super excited about it and we had been busy all week out at the airport making sure everything was set right for the explosives for crashes and that the ‘crashed’ airplanes had somewhere safe to land. It was going to be epic that was for sure.

It had been a slow morning at work so far and I was busy getting the truck ready to take to a local elementary school this afternoon. We did little educational things for kids from time to time and I always found them fun to do. Kids could ask some of the funniest things and I enjoyed watching them play with everything.

“Got the truck ready to go play with your kids later?” Criss asked as he came downstairs into the garage.

“Yeah, I think so. I just have to hunt down a couple of sets of clean turnout gear from somewhere. It’s been forever since we got new sets.”

“Ain’t that the truth. You suffer from smoke inhalation just putting on the ones we have now. Hey, Jep invited some guests to hang out today and kind of tour the house and truck and tag along so he wants you to come say hey.”

“Alright.”

I finished up what I was doing for the second and followed Criss back upstairs to the house. Jep invited people occasionally to come spend the day and see what we did, but most of the time it was political people or high school seniors who were considering fire fighting as a career path. I didn’t mind it too much but sometimes the people could get a little weird.

“Ah, here they come now. This is our Lieutenant, Parker Thompson coming in behind Criss here.” Jep was saying to the guests.

I stepped out from behind Criss to introduce myself and was shocked to find Tommy Lee, Nikki, Vince, and Mick standing there with smiles on their faces. I was absolutely shocked to see them and had to admit as I was pretty excited to see them as well. I guess you never really realized how close you were to some people until they were gone for a little while.

“Wow. Hey guys! I definitely wasn’t expecting that.” I said hugging them all.

“What were you expecting?” Jep asked

“Hell, I don’t know. A politic or something.”

“We came to crash the station for the day and get a different view of things.” Vince said.

“Awesome! Yeah, it can be a little different from this side of it.”

“I’m going to get back to my paperwork now and I’ll let you show them around then.” Jep said.

“Alrighty. They have to look official first though.”

I got them a department t-shirt out of the stack we kept so that they would be official for the day and we set off on a tour of the house. I showed them the ladder truck and the engine and all of the technical aspects of each and I set them each out a pair of turnout gear just in case we got a call while they were with us. That warranted a lesson on how to get into the gear which Criss and I showed them, and then of course, being the guys that they were, the perverted comments and poses started coming out. Tommy had pulled his shirt off leaving the thick yellow pants and boots, and helmets on and had climbed up onto the tanker truck and was laying very provocatively on the fire hoses. It was impossible not to laugh and he quite a crowd now as the rest of the guys had joined us to hang out.

“Come on. Everybody knows women dig the hot guys half naked in their gear.” Tommy said.

“And that men dig the hot chicks in theirs.” Nikki, Vince, and Mick said at almost the same time.

“Hey, I bet Parker didn’t tell you that she was one of our calendar girls did she?” Pete said.

“Really, Pete?” I said rounding on him.

“No, actually she didn’t. You wouldn’t happen to have any of these calendars would you?” Nikki asked.

“We do actually.” Criss smirked.

“Whatever guys. It’s all in good fun and for charity.” I said, trying to hide the fact that my face was blood red at this point. I hated doing the calendars and trying to look sexy in my gear but I didn’t take it nearly as far as some of the girls did.

“What are you turning red for?” Jimmie asked.

“Fuck all of you, okay?” I laughed.

The fun was interrupted by the bells going off throughout the house meaning that we were needed somewhere. I immediately grabbed my gear and started getting ready while listening to what the dispatcher was saying over the intercom. It was a structural fire with a residential address and it was unknown if the building was occupied or not. This sounded like the perfect outing for the guys to tag along for.

“Do we need to stay?” Vince asked

“Nope. I need you guys to get the gear back on and get in the truck. If you’re tagging along, you’re helping. Two of you guys can go in the tanker and two can go with us in the ladder truck.”

“Lieutenant.” Jep called from the upstairs walkway.

“Yeah?”

“I’m pretty behind here. It will be your scene today.” He said.

“Okay. I got it. Let’s roll guys!”

We arrived on the scene of a two story house that was burning pretty good by this point. A nice crowd had gathered which I wasn’t fond of but the police already had them backed off and blocked out of our way. We were met as soon as we got out of the truck by a hysterical lady and teenaged looking girl. There were apparently two infants and a toddler still in the house on the second floor which definitely complicated things a little bit.

“I’m going to go vent some windows before this thing flashes.” Pete said, grabbing an ax off of the truck. He started smashing windows out to release some of the smoke otherwise, things may have gotten too hot and caught on fire at the same time which was a huge risk for anyone who went inside the house.

“Do we know what floor the kids are on?” I asked Criss

“Negative. The mom did say the infants rooms were on these front windows here on the second floor. I’ll go in and you can cover me with a hose.”

“Okay. Let’s get a ladder up to that window and if that’s where they are they can come down the ladder and the toddler will be next.”

“I’ll be waiting at the window on the ladder.” Jimmie said grabbing our long free standing ladder off of the side of the truck.

I turned to the guys to fill them in on what was happening before we got started. Once we got the kids out of the house I had the intentions of letting them work the hose on the outside of the house but that wasn’t the priority at the second.

“Alright guys. Things are a little hectic right now so just hang back for a little bit.”

My eyes caught Nikki’s and for a second I had a feeling in the pit of my stomach like a school girl gets when she sees the boy she is crushing on. I had no idea where that had come from and I definitely couldn’t concentrate on it right now, but something had definitely hit me about Nikki.

“Criss, grab a tank before you go in.” I reminded him. He could be like me sometimes and do things off of pure adrenaline rather than doing what was really best. He had been about to go through the front door of the house his oxygen mask on and with as much smoke that had built up inside before we arrived, oxygen was definitely needed. I unclipped my mask from the front of my jacket and put it on, followed by my helmet. The water hose was thick with water ready to be unleashed and as soon as Criss returned and kicked the door in, we were rolling.

The first floor was mainly smoke with a few small flames from the ceiling falling through. The main fire was on the second floor and as soon as we reached the top of the stairs I started spraying in front of Criss as he fought his way to the door that had the names ‘Colt’ and ‘Levi’ on it. Even over the roar of the flames you could hear the vigorous cries of the infants coming from the room. I continued to spray the flames in the hallway while Criss handed the infants off to Jimmie who was waiting on the ladder. Unfortunately the toddler was no where to be found so we started searching for him and eventually found him lifeless in what appeared to be a play room. Criss grabbed him up and I followed him out quickly. I watched as Criss handed the toddler over to the paramedics and grabbed another hose, returning to help me and the others fight the fire.

As I had said, once the kids were safe I helped Tommy, Nikki, Vince, and Mick as we fought the fire down. After a couple of hours the fire was out, and although the house was a complete loss we had gotten word that all three kids were going to be fine. It turned out that vince had gotten in on the action way beforehand by meeting Jimmie at the end of the ladder to take one of the infants from him as he came back down. They seemed to have enjoyed themselves and I was happy that everything had gone decently.

“Damn, all of that made me hungry.” Tommy said after we had gotten back to the department and gotten everything settled again.

“Well, I’m officially off of the clock now so if you guys wanted to come pile up at the house and cook, that’s where I’m headed.” I offered.

“You’re cooking for everyone here too right?” Michael asked as he re-rolled the fire hoses.

“If I must.”

“That sounds fun.” Nikki said.

“What are you guys in town for anyway?” I asked

“We came to check out the airshow tomorrow of course! And Vince is singing the national anthem.” Tommy said.

“Hey, that’s awesome. I have room for a co-pilot tomorrow if anyone is brave enough.”

“Hell yeah. I’ll go.” Vince said.

“Sweet. Well, let me go clock out and we will hit up the store.”

My eyes caught Nikki’s again and I swear every time I had looked his way today he had been looking at me. Criss had been looking between the two of us a lot today too so there was no telling what kind of ideas he was getting. I’m sure it was just coincidence anyway. I clocked out and threw my stuff in my truck, ready to head home and have an evening of fun with my department family and Motley Crue.