Daddy [mxm]

3

As firefighters, we seldom have real fires to deal with. Often it's a false alarm, like someone burning some food, or a water leak. The majority of our calls are medical calls: difficulty breathing, stroke, lift assist, and bloody noses are the most common. The head and neck are pretty well vascularized and bleed like crazy even with superficial wounds, so lots of those cases get called in. When there is something serious to respond to, it's usually a car fire or a motor vehicle accident. Whatever it is, we've got about ninety seconds to get out the door, even if we're sleeping in bed.

What we really spend most of our time doing is chores. We do expect the probies to do most of the daily chores, but not all of them. I kind of enjoy the work, to be honest. I like the quaint, homely atmosphere around the firehouse. It's all the warm tones and oak furnishing, coupled with the perpetual laughing and friendly banter wafting from the living room. I don't partake in it, though. In addition to being introverted, I've got the approaching anniversary of my dad's death weighing on my mind.

After his death, I was consumed by a longing for Rudy as a stand-in paternal figure. An inspirational older male role model is important in a boy's life. All the other kids had dads to teach them the things I wanted to learn; I didn't have anyone, except Rudy. He made time for me when he could, and I never forgot it. I think I sort of imprinted on him, clinging to him with the desperate ferocity of someone who knows what it's like to have what you love taken from you. I don't know where the line blurred and my feelings gave way to lust. The transition was a very gradual process.

But it's very cruel of fate, I think, to so hopelessly entangle my happiness with a man who is as untouchable for me as the moon. If only I could let that stop me. But every time he looks at me, smiles at me, texts me, I forget the impossibility of a romantic relationship all over again. I can't tamp down that cursed hope.

It happens while Bret and I are on a breakfast grocery run for the firehouse. My phone pings, lighting up with a text from Rudy. My heart skips a beat, as it usually does when this rare blessing is bestowed on me.

He's sent me a video of a guitar cover. Not a YouTube link, a recording of his screen. How ooooooold. He's so cute; it's absolutely adorable how technologically inept he is. I take a trip to tingle heaven for a full minute, leaning back against the rack and letting my eyes shut briefly to savour this hit of serotonin while it lasts.

In that split second, I picture him, pacing around his immaculate, up-scale living room enthusiastically enjoying this piece of music - and then thinking of me, of sharing it with me. I picture the little details of him, the flecks of grey in his beard and speckling his chest. His skin a deep, burnished bronze from the sun, a little saggy on the pecs and belly. His pearl-white teeth. His quintessential, panty-melting, lopsided smirk. But his most swoon-worthy traits are probably his cool composure, swagger, and self-assurance. He has this way of holding himself that demands drooling admiration.

Remembering myself, I type a reply with flying fingers before he thinks I've left him on read.

Wow Rudy, I manage before Bret nudges my shoulder.

"What's up, E?" The bill of his baseball cap brushes my jaw as he leans over my shoulder. I swear it's surgically attached to his head.

"Nothing, fuck off."

"Are you texting my dad?"

"Seriously, Bret, fuck right off."

"Laaame." Rolling his eyes, he takes the cart from me and steers it down the aisle.

I continue typing my message, trailing behind him. This is really good! I'm ambivalent towards country music, honestly - but for him, I can be a fan.