Play With Fire

Chapter 1

"Howard!" I heard my Lieutenant yell at me from the bay. I quickly stopped my workout and music before answering him.

"Yeah boss?" I yelled back right as the tones dropped for a house fire.

"Let's rock and roll" he yelled at me as I ran past him towards my bunker gear.

I quickly suited up and hopped in the back of the fire engine as we raced to the address that our dispatch had given us. I kept my SCBA mask off until we would arrive on scene to see if this was a fire I would be making entry on or not. But I had my air pack on and ready just incase.

Pulling up to the address we were given we all found that the house definitely was on fire and had flames coming from the windows.

"Howard, Anderson, pull a line and make entry. Search for anyone left inside and start knocking the fire down," the Lieutenant yelled to me and my best friend Tony.

I looked at Tony, who had already started pulling a hose line off the truck, and ran over to help him drag it to the front door.

As we walked up the lawn and headed to the front door I caught sight of a few guys standing there watching the house. One guy imparticular seemed to be pretty upset about the house. The only bit that I could catch from his heated conversation with one of the other guys was something about his guitars and laptops getting ruined by the fire.
I pushed the guy from my mind and quickly focused back on the task at hand. I put on my SCBA mask at the front door and hooked up to air while Tony signaled for our truck driver to charge the hose line with water. I quickly tested that the hose would maintain water pressure, then Tony and I made entry into the burning building.

2 hours later.....

"Hey Tony, I'm gonna check this room real quick for some stuff and see if there's anything that I can take out to those guys." Tony just nodded and stayed in the room he was in checking for any hot spots we'd need to put out.

When I entered the room across the hall there wasn't much to it. A bed, a gaming desk with computers, some guitars, and a couple picture frames on the walls. Luckily the person that stayed in this room has closed the door so not much was damaged by the fire mostly just smoke damage. I carefully walked across the room and grabbed a laptop that I found sitting on the desk and one of the guitars that was in the corner of the room. I carefully grabbed the guitar and carried it down the stairs to find the guys I had seen earlier.

As I walked up to the group of guys, the one that I had heard earlier that was worried about his guitars and laptop had his back turned to me.

"Hey guys," I said as I approached them, "I found these upstairs in one of the rooms and wanted to bring them out so they wouldn't get damaged or anything." The guy that I had heard earlier quickly turned around to look at the items that I had. He was quite a bit taller than I was and was covered in tattoos. As soon as he saw the guitar and laptop his mouth immediately dropped open in shock.

"Holy shit," he said still just standing there as I held the stuff out to him. His friend quickly stepped up for him and grabbed the stuff from me.

Before I could turn away he grabbed my shoulder and leaned to hug me. But when he grabbed my shoulder the sweat that accumulated inside my fire gear immediately gave me steam burns from being exposed to the heat of the fire for so long. I cried out in pain and pushed his hand off of my shoulder quickly.

"Fuck!" I yelped and dropped to one knee just as Tony ran out with the other guitars from the room.

"Lex! Shit what happened?" Tony asked me after handing the guys the other guitars.

"Steam burns," I gritted out through the pain.

"Shit. I'm so so sorry. I didn't mean to. I'm really sorry," the tall, tattooed guy kept saying as Tony helped me up and led me to the medic.

When we got to the medic Tony helped me strip off my fire gear and my station shirt leaving me in only a sports bra. The medic assessed the nice burn outline of the guys hand print that was left on my shoulder.

"Well it looks like he got you pretty good. I'd say they are second degree burns. It looks like they are starting to blister pretty good. I'll clean it off and wrap you up but you'll probably want to go get it checked out at the hospital," the medic explained to me.

I stood at the back of the medic hanging on to the door for dear life as the medic cleaned and wrapped my shoulder.

"Hey I just wanted to.... shit!" I quickly looked up and watched as the tall, tattooed guy that gave me the steam burns turned away at seeing me in just my sports bra. "I'm really sorry again," he said sheepishly still turned away from me, "I wanted to apologize for giving you that burn, but now I gotta apologize for being a creeper and running over here while you were getting patched up."

I chuckled quietly as the medic finished bandaging me and slowly began buttoning my station shirt back up.

"You can turn around now. I'm bandaged and decent," I told the guy. He slowly turned around but kept his eyes cast anywhere but on me.

"I'm really sorry," he said again finally looking me in the eyes. I smiled slightly at him.

"It's okay. You had no idea that would happen. I'm just glad I could save some of your stuff."

That caused him to smile and cheer up a little.

"My whole life's work is on that laptop you saved. You have no idea how much it means to me that you were able to give it to me. I'm Noah by the way," he said cautiously reaching his hand out to shake mine.

As I went to shake his hand I forgot about my burns which were on my right shoulder. When I flexed my arm the pain quickly shot through and made me grit my teeth.

"Shit," I said dropping my arm, " oh, I'm Alex, but everyone mostly calls me Lex."

He had a worried expression on his face after seeing me in pain but slightly smiled again at learning my name.
"Well it was really nice to meet you Lex. I hope I didn't hurt you too bad. Again I'm really sorry I hurt you," Noah said before turning to walk away.

"It was nice to meet you too, Noah. Don't be too hard on yourself. And if you guys need anything stop by the fire station and we'll see what we can do for you."

Noah just nodded and waved as he walked away heading back to his roommates.

And that left me to go to the hospital to get my burn checked.