In honor of the new-guy-cooks rule, I made breakfast for the crew on C shift. A Mexican egg skillet, my specialty.

I was on probation—the probie. Even though I was five years into the job, I was only five shifts into this station. That meant I was the last one to sit down to eat and the first one to get up and do dishes. I was practically a servant. They had me cleaning toilets and changing sheets. All the grunt work.

Sloan and Kristen opted to help me, and Brandon took pity on me, so they all stood in the kitchen wiping counters and scraping food off plates while I washed the dishes and Shawn and Javier played cribbage at the table.

Kristen had glared all through the meal, but only when she didn’t think anyone was watching. It was kind of funny, actually. I kept ribbing her. From what I gathered through my prodding, she’d told everyone the shirt was her boyfriend’s.

I wasn’t going to say anything. Brandon didn’t need to have the thunder stolen from his new truck by learning it had already been defiled, but I was drawing untold amounts of enjoyment from giving Kristen shit. And she didn’t take any of it lying down either. She matched me tit for tat.

“So, Josh, you drive the fire truck, huh?” Kristen asked casually, wiping down the stove.

“I do.” I smiled.

“Are you any good at it? No problems stopping that thing when you need to?” She cocked her head.

“Nope. As long as someone doesn’t slam on the brakes in front of me, I’m good.”

Glare. Smirk. Repeat. And Sloan and Brandon were oblivious. It was the most fun I’d had in weeks.

Sloan handed me the cutting board to wash. “You’ll be walking Kristen down the aisle at the wedding.” She smiled at her friend. “She’s my maid of honor.”

“I hope you walk better than you drive,” Kristen mumbled under her breath.

I grinned and changed the subject before Sloan or Brandon asked questions. “What’s your dog’s name, Kristen?”

The little thing had sat on her lap all through breakfast. Occasionally his head popped up over the table to look at her plate, the tip of his tongue out. He looked like a fluffy Ewok.

“His name is Stuntman Mike.”

I raised an eyebrow over my sink of dishes. “Tarantino?” She raised hers. “You’ve seen Death Proof?”

“Of course. One of my favorite movies. Kurt Russell as Stuntman Mike. And your dog has issues?” I asked. The little Yorkie wore a shirt that read I HAVE ISSUES on it.

“Yes, they’re mostly with Shawn.” I chuckled.

Sloan swept cilantro stems into her hand and tossed them in the trash, and Brandon pulled out the bag and tied the top. “Kristen has an online business called Doglet Nation,” Brandon said. “She sells merchandise for small dogs.”

“Oh yeah? Like what?” I asked, setting a casserole dish into the rack to dry.

Kristen pulled out the coffee grounds and dumped them into the compost bag. “Clothes, bags, gourmet dog treats. Sloan bakes those. Our big-ticket item is our staircases though.”

“Stairs?”

“Yeah. Little dogs usually can’t jump up on a high bed. So we make

custom staircases that match your bedroom set. Stain, carpet, style.”

“And people buy that?” I set the last bowl to dry in the rack and peeled off my rubber gloves.

“Uh, yeah they buy that. Why would you drop a couple grand on a nice Pottery Barn or Restoration Hardware bed, only to have some hideous foam staircase next to it from PetSmart?”

I nodded. “I get that, I guess.”

“Which reminds me—I’m out a carpenter,” she said to Sloan. Sloan’s brow furrowed. “What? Since when?”

“Since Miguel quit on me last week. He got a union job at Universal doing set work. Dropped me like I was radioactive. I have three stairs on order.”

Sloan shook her head. “What are you going to do?”

Kristen shrugged. “Put an ad on Craigslist. Hope the guy doesn’t end up being some kind of pervert out to kill me to sell my organs on the black market.”

I snorted.

Brandon nodded at me as he put a new bag into the trash can. “Josh is a carpenter. He’s pretty good at it too.”

Sloan looked at me. “Really?”

Brandon was already fishing out his cell phone. I knew what he was pulling up. The tiki bar I’d built in my backyard. Celeste’s tiki bar. Brad’s tiki bar.

“Look,” he said, handing around the phone. “He built this.”

Sloan nodded in approval. Then the phone went to Kristen, and she glanced at it before her eyes shot up to mine.

“Not bad,” she said begrudgingly.

“Thanks. But I’m not looking for any side work,” I said, waving them off. I didn’t need to build dog stairs for pennies on my day off. The living room of my new apartment was still full of boxes.

“Yeah, who needs an extra two hundred dollars for three hours of work?” Kristen said, flipping a hand dismissively. “Not Miguel apparently.”

I froze. “Two hundred dollars?”

Sloan sprayed the counter with lemon-scented all-purpose cleaner. “Sometimes it’s more—right, Kristen? It depends on the style?”

Kristen stared at her best friend like she was telling her to shut up. Then

she dragged her eyes back to me. “The stairs run four to five hundred dollars apiece, plus shipping. I split the profits fifty-fifty, minus the materials, with my carpenter. So yeah. Sometimes it’s more.”

“Do you have a picture of the stairs?” I asked.

Kristen unenthusiastically handed me her phone and I scrolled through a website gallery of ridiculous tiny steps with Stuntman Mike posed on them in different outfits. These were easy. Well within my ability.

“You know, I think I do have time for this. I’ll do it if you don’t have anyone else.” A few of these and I could pay off my Lowe’s card. This was real money.

Kristen shook her head. “I think I’d rather take my chances with the organ thieves.”

Sloan gasped, and Brandon froze and looked at Kristen and me.

“Is that right?” I said, eyeballing her. “How about we talk about this over

coffee.”

Kristen narrowed her eyes and I arched an eyebrow. “Fine,” she said like it was physically painful. “You can build the damn stairs. But only until I find a different guy. And I will be looking for a different guy.”

Sloan looked back and forth between us. “Is there something you guys want to tell us?”

“I caught him staring at my ass,” Kristen said without skipping a beat. I shrugged. “She did. I have no excuse. It’s a great ass.”

Brandon chuckled and Sloan eyed her best friend. Kristen tried to look mad, but I could tell she took the compliment.

Kristen let out a breath. “Give me your email address. I’ll shoot you the orders. When you’re done with them, let me know and I’ll generate and send you the shipping labels. And I’ll be inspecting every piece before you take them to FedEx, so don’t try and half-ass anything.”

“Wait, you don’t have a shop?” I asked. “Where am I supposed to build these?”

“Don’t you have a garage or something?” “I live in an apartment.”

“Shoot. Well, it looks like this won’t work out.” She smirked.

Sloan stared at her. “Kristen, you have an empty three-car garage. You don’t even park in it half the time. Can’t he work there?”

Kristen gave Sloan side-eye.

I grinned. “He can.”

A loud beeping came over the speakers throughout the station followed by the red lights. We had a call. Kristen held my stare as the dispatcher rattled off the details. Too bad. I could have hung out with my cranky maid of honor a little longer.

No luck.

Brandon leaned in and kissed Sloan goodbye. The girls would probably be gone by the time we got back. “We’ll finish cleaning up,” she said.

“Get my number from Brandon,” Kristen said to me, crossing her arms over her chest in a way that I think was meant to keep me from offering her a hand to shake.

Since the call was medical, we didn’t have to put on our fire gear. So Brandon and I headed straight for the apparatus bay where the engine was parked. I could feel Kristen’s eyes on my back and I grinned. She hated me. An ongoing theme with the women in my life at the moment.

Besides Celeste, all six of my sisters and my mom were pissed that I’d moved. Even my little nieces were giving me the cold shoulder when I called. Seven and eight years old and they’d already mastered the little-girl passive-aggressive equivalent of “I’m fine.”

“What’d you think of Kristen?” Brandon asked through a grin as we climbed into the engine.

“She seems cool.” I shrugged, putting on my headset.

Brandon and I had spent a year together in Iraq. He knew me well. Under normal circumstances, Kristen was my kind of woman. I liked petite brunettes—and women who tell me to go fuck myself apparently.

“Just cool?” he said, putting on his headset. “Is that why you were checking out her ass?”

Javier took his seat, chuckling to himself at Brandon’s comment and Shawn hopped in, catching the tail end. “Kristen’s hot as fuck. I check out her ass every time she’s here.” He put his headset on. “That dog bit me once though.”

We all laughed and I fired the engine to life.

“She’s not into me. She’s got a boyfriend. And I’m not looking right now anyway.” I hit the switch to open the garage door. “I’m not done paying for the last one.”

Literally.