My Brothers In Blue

Chapter 9

Author's note: First of all, I just wanted to say thank you so much for 1k views! You guys are truly incredible.

Secondly, I'm sorry about the slow updates. I got slight writer's block and college got hectic very quickly, but hopefully I might be able to update more regularly from now on.

Hollie's POV:

Christmas Eve in Australia is polar opposite to Christmas Eve in England. I sat in the tower at Bondi looking around the beach in awe. I could already feel the heat from early morning sun's rays on my skin through the windows. It was going to be a scorcher today. Yes, I was used to the heat by now, I had been here for a couple of months. But somehow the heat around Christmas still surprised me.

"You alright, Hollie?" I heard Dunno's voice behind me as he walked into the tower.

"Yeah, just thinking about how different Christmas back home is to this." I turned around and give him a small smile, which he returned before sitting in the free chair next to me.

"You miss it?" He asked, swivelling the chair so he faced me.

"I mean, obviously I do" I started to say, before trailing off.

"But..." He encouraged and gestured with his hands for me to continue.

"I feel guilty" I said quietly. He raised his eyebrows for me to elaborate. "I feel guilty about the fact that I don't want to go home." I sighed. I hadn't expected a heart-to-heart talk with Dunno at 6:30am.

"There's nothing for you to feel guilty about. You've created an amazing new life here. Why should you feel guilty about that?" He smiled again before scanning the water.

Before I could reply to his surprisingly good advice, Maxi burst through the door.

"I have great news!" He shouted. Dunno and I exchanged looks other before turning back to Maxi, who ignored our doubtful looks and carried on.

"Hollie," He said, turning to me, "You know how you hate your dorms?"

"Don't remind me" I muttered and raised my eyebrows, curious as to where this conversation was going.

"Well, I'm moving out of my parent's house and you want to move out of your dorm, so I thought we could share an apartment?" He suggested, raising his hands and shrugging his shoulders.

I jumped up from my chair, mouth open in shock.

"You're serious?"

"Of course, it would be less expensive than each of us owning our own flats, and it will be fun."

"Absolutely!" I cried, running up to Maxi and hugging him tightly, my guilt I had been feeling just a few minutes earlier disappearing within a matter of seconds.

"Wait for me!" Dunno laughed and joined in on our hug. Just as Deano walked into to the tower after setting up the beach with Brooke.

"What's going on in here?" He smiled and pointed at the three of us hugging in the middle of the room.

"Hollie and I are getting a flat together!" Maxi said, removing himself from the hug and collecting his radio from the bottom of the tower.

"Good, I didn't trust you to have your own place!" Deano joked, resulting in Maxi leaving the tower with a very offended look on his face.

"Hollie, can I speak to you for a second?" Deano asked, coming to sit next to me at the front of the tower. Dunno nodded and walked down to the garage underneath the tower.

"I just wanted to let you know, we got a call direct to the tower yesterday. It was your parents, they were asking whether you were in. I know its none of my business but have you talked to them recently?" Deano said quietly, turning the chair to face me.

"I talked to them about a month ago, but I guess the answer is not really." I replied, fiddling with my radio in my hands.

"Maybe you should talk to them, it might make you feel better about not being there this Christmas." Deano flashed a small smile in my direction and placed a hand on my shoulder. I just nodded and thanked him for his advice before going back to scanning the beach. These conversations had become far to depressing for 7am on Christmas Eve.

A few hours later, I was on the beach sat in one of the rhinos next to Jake. We had become very good friends in the few months I had been here and we made everything a competition. We competed about how many first aids we'd each completed or how many rescues we did in an hour. Hoppo had actually encouraged it, as long as we didn't take it too far because it made us work harder than ever.

"Maxi and you are getting a flat together?" He asked.

"Yeah, I'm so ready to get out of the dorms, a few months in there is enough" I laughed and so did he.

"How does Josh feel about it?"

I put my binoculars down and turned to him.

"What do you mean?" I asked, furrowing my brows.

"Well, he's your boyfriend, and you're moving in with one of your guys friends. Surely that's gotta make him a bit jealous?" I hadn't thought about that.

"I'll talk to him about it. He's actually coming down to the beach today with a couple of friends. But surely if he really loves me, he would trust me?"

Jake opened his mouth the answer, but was cut of by a woman calling out.

"Do you mind? What the fuck are you doing?"

We quickly turned towards the sound and saw a group of women sunbathing topless pointing at a tourist with a camera pointed directly at them. Jake started to run towards the commotion while I radioed the tower to let them know we were taking our eyes off the water.

"Mate, you can't take photos like that!" Jake said to the tourist, taking his camera from him.

"What are you doing? I need that to take pictures of the view" He protested in broke English.

"You should have thought about that before you did what you did. It's disgusting" I remarked, joining the chaos. The tourist's attitude suddenly switched. He snatched the camera from Jake and turned to point it at me.

"We don't have many female lifeguards in my country." He said, blatantly pointing the camera at me. Or more specifically at my chest. Before anyone could react, a tall figure stepped in front of me.

"The fuck do you think you're doing? Put the camera away." Josh said in a dangerously low voice.

"Josh, it's okay, I've got it." I said, placing a light hand on his arm as I stepped out from behind him. Jake quickly snatched the camera back and took it to the rhino, with the tourist following.

"Thank you, Josh! I'll be back in a few minutes!" I smiled and followed Jake towards the rhino.

"You can't take these kinds of pictures" Jake was shouting at the man. He gave me the camera and I saw almost a hundred of the same picture, the topless women sunbathing.

Without thinking, I took the SD card from the camera, throwing the camera back to Jake. I rummaged around the back of the rhino before finding a pair of long scissors and swiftly cutting the SD card in half, permanently deleting the pictures.

"Problem solved" I said, and turned around to see the tourist being taken away in handcuffs. I let out a sigh of relief.

"You okay?" Jake asked once we were sat back in rhino. I nodded but my shaking hands disagreed. "Why don't you have an early lunch?".

Walking up the beach, Josh ran up to me and wrapped an arm around my shoulders.

"I'm not leaving your side until you have to be back on duty." He said, making me smile. I pointed back to his group.

"What about your friends?" I asked. Although it was sweet, I didn't want him ruining his day out.

"What about them?" He stated, grabbing the strap of this bag on his shoulder. My smile grew and I leaned into his side, feeling safe in his embrace. Maybe telling him I was moving in with Maxi could wait a couple of days.