Free Hot Nights with the Fireman by Lynne Silver Page A

the search and rescue thing? Me, too. Want to ride together?”
    He forced a smile on his face and sat on his cot to pull on his Haix boots. “Sure thing.” He hoped his tone sounded easygoing. This meeting should be a no-brainer, a breeze. They were both top firefighters in prime shape. There was nothing about the meeting to get their panties in a wad over, except…his were. He was nervous as all hell.
    He stood and followed Dan out the door to Dan’s truck. “How long have you wanted to apply?” he asked.
    Dan shrugged and turned the key in the ignition. “Saw the poster a few weeks ago, and figured I’d check it out.” He pulled out of the spot with a slight squeal, and Jason grabbed the passenger-side handle above the window. So Dan hadn’t been yearning after this job for years. Unless he was playing it cool. It wasn’t as if they were in direct competition. It was an elite squad that needed more and more volunteers. Unfortunately for the earth’s human population, Mother Nature was a bitch who kept fighting back. There was no shortage of disasters, and the need for rescue workers seemed to grow with every passing year.
    No, they weren’t in competition, but it would still rub him the wrong way to see Dan sail through the application process while he struggled.
    When they arrived at the local community center where the meeting was being held, they hopped out of the car and entered the building. Swarms of people huddled around the entrance to the door. Dan started to push his way through, but Jason grabbed his elbow. “I think there’s a sign-in sheet.”
    They joined in the more-crowded-than-expected mob and waited their turn to add their names to the long list. When they entered the room, gray hard plastic chairs filled the large room in rows. Large colorful posters of disasters in faraway countries dotted the walls. They looked unsuccessfully for two seats together, and Jason wasn’t too sad when they had to sit three chairs away from each other. He settled the notepad he’d brought with him on his lap and pulled out his black pen. Valerie would be proud of him. He fully planned on taking notes.
    When the session began, he remembered why he rarely took notes and relied on his memory instead. He wasn’t very good at taking notes. Too often, he didn’t know which bullet points to scratch down and ended up trying to write every word out of the lecturer’s mouth. Which, of course, meant he couldn’t write fast enough and ended up missing key parts of the talk. Finally he gave up and clicked his pen closed and chose to listen intently instead.
    This was going to be a big year for them. Obviously, turnout and interest in the Search and Rescue Team were higher than expected, thanks to the publicity they’d received during the major tsunami and earthquakes of the past few years. They couldn’t take everyone, though they appreciated everyone’s interest and spirit of volunteerism for a rough job that paid next to nothing.
    A woman took the front of the room and started talking about the family support network. He supposed it was important and impressive that they’d developed resources to help the families of the rescue team stay in touch while their loved ones were thrown into hot zones, but as he didn’t have a wife and kids, it wasn’t very relevant to him. He just couldn’t see his parents calling in for a nightly teleconference if he were in some foreign country digging victims out of rubble.
    His mind wandered a bit and he scanned the room checking out his fellow rescue worker wanna-bes. Somehow the people had self-selected to sit with their peer groups. He sat in the front right corner nearest the door in a group of obvious firefighters. They all looked like him, young and fit. The front left had a bunch of guys in khakis and collared shirts. Most of them were typing on laptops or other electronic devices. They were probably the engineers, the demolition experts. The ratio of male to female in