Stay, For Me

Ten

After my conversation with Nikolai, I was a little shaken. I had never seen Niko so vulnerable before. Before I could do anything, the alarm sounded dispatching us to the scene of a biking accident. I got in the truck sitting behind Bobby as usual, Niko sat across from Ravi. When we arrived on scene I looked around. We were in a wooded are and I could see a young guy curled up on the ground a little ways up the trail. We went up the trail and saw the extent of his injuries. The young man had a compound fracture on his right arm, his humorous was protruding through the skin. His right shoulder had been dislocated and there were deep lacerations all over his arms and face. His pants were torn and there were cuts on his legs. His right knee was situated at an awkward angle and it appeared to be broken. Hen quickly got to work tending to his injuries.

"Can you tell us your name?" I asked as I kneeled down in front of him.

"Levi," he answered, "my name's Levi."

"I'm Buck," I replied, "do you remember what happened Levi?"

"I was riding my bike and I was going too fast," explained Levi, "I lost control of my bike and hit that tree over there."

Levi pointed at a large oak tree about ten feet away from where we were.

"The crash launched me off my bike and I landed here," he continued, "I don't know where my bike went, all I know is that I can't move my leg and I'm in a lot of pain."

"Wait you can't move your leg?" Hen asked with concern, "Like can you move it even a little bit?"

Levi moved his right leg ever so slightly and winced in pain. Tears started forming in Levi's eyes as he tried moving further.

"Okay stop moving Levi," Hen instructed, "your leg is pretty swollen and more than likely broken. Storm go get the backboard and the collar out of the ambulance. Ravi I need your help dealing with the cuts."

The two guys did as they were told, Niko came back with the backboard and the neck brace. Niko and Ravi followed Hen's instructions as they carefully put him on the backboard securing the brace around his neck.

Levi looked at me with a confused look in his eyes.

"How does a guy with the last name Diaz end up being called Buck?" Levi questioned, "I'm betting there's an awesome story behind that."

"I wish there was some awesome story to tell you," I answered, "but there isnt. The truth is, my last name is Buckley, that's why everyone calls me Buck. This is my boyfriend's shirt, I tossed him my uniform by accident when we were getting ready for work this morning."

"I think that's really sweet," Levi said fondly, "I wish I could do that with my boyfriend. He steals my shirts all the time but his are all croptops on me, downside of being six foot six and having a boyfriend who's five foot ten. I'm guessing there's not much height difference between you and your boyfriend."

"I'm six two," I replied, "he's six foot, we both wear the same size shirt. I steal his sweaters all the time, I'll also steal his t-shirts from time to time."

"That's awesome," Levi stated, "although I admit I'm a little jealous that you guys can just swap shirts anytime time you want. You said that's your boyfriend's uniform though? What's his name?"

"His name's Eddie," I responded, "he currently runs the LAFD social media accounts. That's temporary though, he's going to come back and be on the trucks again. How about you, what do you do when you're not biking?"

"I'm a contractor," Levi replied, "that's actually how I met Spencer, he's an architect. He'd hired us to build a house for one of his clients, the first day there I literally ran into him and spilled my iced coffee on his shirt. Thankfully he was a nice guy about it and understood that it was an accident. After that we started talking and things just kinda went from there. Our five year anniversary is next month. How long have you and Eddie been together?"