Lieutenant Buckley – Chapter 11 – ScarsLikeVelvet

Chapter 11

Evan woke in Lou’s arms. It was a revelation he hadn’t expected to ever experience. He felt safe in a way he hadn’t in a long, long time. He grumbled softly under his breath, simply because the alarm penetrating his ears was dragging him away from that soft, sleepy embrace and into that state of being awake that meant that cuddle time was over, and work was the next point of interest on his agenda.

He turned over and buried his face against Lou’s chest, causing the older man, who was currently shutting off the alarm, to laugh, his voice rough with sleep.

“Good morning, Darling,” Lou rumbled softly. He cupped the back of Evan’s head and leaned in to kiss him gently. It was a sweet brush of their lips against each other. The tip of his tongue gave a gentle, probing lick against his partner’s lips.

Their hips rolled against each other, as Evan’s lips opened like petals under Lou’s probing tongue. They kissed languidly, but it turned more urgent as their arousal skyrocketed, and then they reached their climax and collapsed against each other, laughing.

“Good morning,” Evan rasped back.

They smiled at each other and reluctantly let go of each other. Both of them rolled out of bed and walked into the bathroom side by side. Evan started to brush his teeth while Lou took care of his morning ablutions. Once done, they switched positions before walking out of the bathroom and pulling on their clothes.

Lou headed out into the kitchen and prepared their breakfast—burritos they had agreed to the evening before.

Evan prepared coffee for them both, and they sat across from each other, taking care of waking up before Lou took Evan home. They exchanged numbers and kissed one last time before Evan headed into his house to change into his uniform and grab the go-bag he had prepared before he had gone out the evening before.

He was surprised to see Lou’s car still sitting in the driveway when he had expected him to have already driven away to work. He approached the car and looked at Lou, who rolled the window down.

“Everything okay?” Evan asked, his go-bag shouldered.

Lou smiled.

“I just wanted to steal one last kiss and see you in your uniform,” the detective admitted.

Evan grinned, rolled his eyes fondly, and leaned down to give Lou what he was asking for. They kissed for a long minute, and when Evan leaned back, they smiled at each other before Evan turned away and walked to his truck.

He put his go-bag into the back seat and started the engine. Then he waited for Lou to pull out of his driveway. He followed him down the street, and it took them a while to separate. Evan turned left toward Firehouse 122, while Lou drove the Mid-Wilshire Precinct.

Evan pulled into the parking lot of the firehouse, shut down his engine, and took a look at the clock. It was about an hour before shift start, but Captain DeLuca—Sal, he reminded himself—had told him he would be there an hour early because of the shift handover between captains.

He got out of the car, grabbed his bag from the backseat, and walked into the firehouse. He had been here before to meet the team and get to know the people working at this station.

Evan released a long breath slowly and walked into the firehouse, getting stopped by someone from C-shift.

“Hey, who do you think you are?” he was asked.

Evan’s brow rose. He was wearing a Los Angeles Fire Department uniform with insignia denoting him a probationary firefighter, with a name patch clearly stating his name on his left breast pocket.

“My name’s Evan Buckley,” he said firmly, tapping his finger against his name patch. “And today is my first day with A-shift. Captain DeLuca told me I could come by early to get settled in before our shift starts.”

He spoke calmly and patiently, though it was clear to him that the firefighter he was speaking to didn’t believe him.

“DeLuca doesn’t have space for a new probie,” the man snapped at Evan.

“Look,” Evan replied. “You don’t need to get aggressive with me. I have a work contract with the LAFD for firehouse 122’s A-shift. I signed it in Captain DeLuca’s presence, and he is the captain of A-shift, isn’t he? Also, why would you, clearly a probie yourself, know if DeLuca has space on his shift or not?”

The firefighter standing across from him puffed up like an irritated goose.

“How do you know my rank?” he asked, his arms crossed in front of his chest.

Evan forcefully stopped himself from rolling his eyes.

“You do know how uniforms and insignia work, right?” he asked instead. His voice projected over the apparatus bay the way he had been trained to do and lured other people away from their tasks to find out what was going on.

The firefighter—his nametag read Baker—looked confused.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

Now, Evan couldn’t stop the eye-roll. He motioned for the people who were keeping their distance yet watching curiously to come closer, because he needed examples. As they approached, Evan dropped his bag to the floor and started explaining the different insignia the people were wearing.

He addressed each firefighter by name and rank easily, introducing himself while at the same time teaching Probationary Firefighter Baker something he should have already known before leaving the Fire Academy.

Sal DeLuca watched his new probie give C-shift’s probie a lesson in humility without actually being mean in any way. Buckley was genuinely teaching the other man something he had been missing in his education and that no one on C-shift had picked up during the man’s time with them.

As far as Sal knew, Baker had been with them for eight months by now, but from what he had picked up over the months, his fellow captain or the rest of his shift hadn’t taught the man a lot. He didn’t even have an official training partner, which Sal found weird, but when he asked Captain Solomon Walker about it, he had been told to mind his own business, so Sal had done just that and instead kept notes about the issues he could see cropping up with Baker.

Since he had already picked Buckley up from the Academy, he hadn’t offered to take Baker from Walker’s hands, but if it played out the way he expected it to, he would have two probies before the end of the week because he could already see that Evan Buckley felt responsible to making sure that Baker would get the knowledge he would need to be a successful firefighter and not a danger to himself and society because his captain didn’t care to properly finish his education.

Eventually, Sal decided to step in.

“Buckley!” he called out, catching his probationary firefighter’s attention. “Office, now. We need to get some paperwork fixed.”

Evan thanked everyone for their patience with them, wished them a good day, before grabbing his bag and following Sal into the office.

“Always ready to teach, huh?” Sal asked as he closed the door, and Evan just chuckled and nodded.