“Welcome to your new humble abode!” Brian said as he unlocked the door to the fire station and pushed and held it open.

Nick slowly waltzed in, his mouth agape. The place was HUGE! This old fire station was literally transformed into a living condo that could house more than five people. The parlor was huge, the ceiling extending all the way to the top of the station. There were three floors, and each level had a balcony which you could peer over into the parlor area, almost looking as if someone had cut the station in half, leaving you to view the severed three levels. Two long poles ran the length of the levels, leading down to the bottom floor. There was a spiral staircase located towards the back of the parlor, smack dab in the middle.

“Holy shiiii-” Nick slurred off quick, feeling uncomfortable using foul language around Brian. He walked in further, seeing that there was a large kitchen located towards the back left of the parlor, while their dining area was located towards the back right, not far from the staircase. “This place is huge!”

Brian smiled, “Yeah, it took a while for us to renovate it. We did a lot of the remodeling ourselves, so all our creative ideas kind of went into making this place. As you can tell, this place is three stories, and this tall ceiling wasn’t like this before… the ceiling was the height of the first level, and so on. AJ kind of came up with the idea of ‘cutting the place in half’, so to speak, and knock down and clear out half of the upper three levels, leaving us a large ceiling space for the living room. He thought it’d be cool to build a railing for each level, for not only our safety, but to have it appear as a balcony, with us being able to look over it. There’s four rooms on each floor, and of course you can slide down the two poles if you’re too lazy to walk down the flight of stairs, or in our case, in a rush to get to the station or wherever they dispatch us to go.”

Nick continued wandering around with his mouth agape, taking in the large ‘L’ shaped couch and loveseats, along with a few lounge chairs. He stared in awe at the large screen TV that was situated in front of the sitting area. “This is too freaking cool!” he stated in excitement, letting his hand drag across the black leather couch.

“Come check out the kitchen!” Brian stated as he led Nick towards the back left of the place.

Nick followed, his eyes widening upon the sight, “Holy shit balls!” he whispered, no longer caring to hold in his vulgarity.

Brian chuckled at his choice of words, “Yeah, this is where we do all our cooking for us hungry men. We’ve dubbed Howie as all of our personal chef, but we all try to get some cooking in for us from time to time.”

Nick admired the two large refrigerators, oversized stoves and ovens, the industrial sized sinks and the long island that ran down the middle of the kitchen, with nice bronzed pots and pans that hung above.”

Brian led him out to the dining area next, “This is where we all come to eat. Though all of our shifts are crazy, we try to come here to enjoy a meal together… say a nice prayer before we dig in and just talk and relax after a long, stressful day.”

Nick smirked as he let his fingers drag across the long dining table, thinking of how he’ll become apart of this now. “This place is too cool.”

“You want to see something even more cool?” Brian asked as he made his way towards a door that was located not far from the dining area. “Come and check this out.” He opened the door, which led into a well sized room.

Alongside one of the walls were a roll of lockers, while the other side was lined with large mirrors. “Is this your guys locker room or something?” Nick asked.

“This was the area that would house the firemen’s uniform and gear… once they slid down the pole, they’d come into this room and change before they ran through those two doors to their fire trucks.” he pointed out the two doors at both ends of the room. “You can say that we changed this into our own personal locker rooms, because through one door is our gym, and through the other door is our game room.”

Nick’s eyes widened, “You guys have a freaking gym and game room?!?”

Brian laughed, “Yes… us men have to keep our physique looking good, and like to have fun at the same time.” He walked over towards the door on the left and opened it, leading them into their personal gym. He flicked on the light, illuminating the large, indoor gym. “We’ve transformed the two former fire truck ports into our personal gym and game room. So, this is where we go to get a good workout and keep ourselves fit. From what I heard, you gave Vernon a good run earlier today.” he joked.

Nick smiled sheepishly, “Yeah.”

Brian chuckled as he flicked the light off and then lead him over towards the game room, which was through the door located on the right. “Again, the game room was AJ’s idea, he insisted on getting a billiard table to put somewhere in this place, but Kevin refused for him to place it in the living room. So, AJ took it upon himself to invest in a billiard table and transform this second port into a game room. I eventually went along with it and invested in a KISS pinball machine, which both my mother and Kevin weren’t too happy with my purchase, as you can imagine. From there, we accepted old donated video game machines and took it on as projects to fix up and make it playable again. Harry and Vernon also invested quite a bit in this room, they’re such big kids.”

Nick was beaming like a little child on Christmas day as he wandered through the game room. There was AJ’s billiard table as a prominent centerpiece, along with two large couches that were situated on each side of the table, as well as a poker table. Along the walls were the video game machines and pinball machine, along with a smaller size refrigerator and a large flat screen TV, with video game consoles hooked up to it.

“Oh sweet, Super Nintendo!” Nick voiced out excitedly as he ran over towards the console, looking it all over. “This is probably my favorite room of this whole place!”

Brian grinned, “Figured you’d love this place. Once we get you settled in and finish eating, perhaps you and I can play a game for a bit, before we go down for bed.”

Nick looked up at Brian, his eyes wide with excitement, “Really?”

“Why not?” Brian asked with a shrug, shoving his hands into his pocket. “Between you and me, these guys freaking suck when it comes to playing these games, but you look like a worthy opponent!”

Nick smiled and rose from where he was crouched, sticking his hand out towards Brian, “You’ve got yourself a worthy game playing partner!”

Brian cocked an eyebrow, “Do I now?” he smiled and grabbed Nick’s outstretched hand. “May the best man win.”

Nick beamed brightly and bit his lower lip, bounding excitedly out of the game room, “Man, and to think that I was going to fight with staying with you guys!”

Brian followed Nick out, flicking the light off and closing the door behind him, “Well, I’m glad that it didn’t take much to get you on our side.”

Hearing that made Nick stop suddenly in his tracks. He turned to Brian, his facial expression serious. “Why me though?” he asked in a soft voice. “Why did you guys pick me to stay here with you guys? I mean, you don’t know anything about me… besides the fact that I’m nothing but a punk street rat.”

Brian tried to give a genuine smile as he ruffled his hair, “We know enough about you kid… more than you think.”