I am also not fooling anyone, least of all me.
“Friends,” I whisper into the dim.
Tomorrow there will be permits to finalize and volunteers to wrangle and a meeting with vendors who think arrival window means anytime before the gates open. There will be a thousand small fires to put out.
Tonight, there was one I didn’t.
And I’m not sorry.
SIX
VAN
It’s quiet at the station tonight.
And it’s a good thing too. We have company.
“Dad!” he yells. “Can we go down the pole?”
“Easy, tiger,” I laugh. “We’ll get there.”
Huck bursts in behind him, eyes wide as saucers. “You have afire pole? Like a real one?”
Lanie’s right behind them, cheeks flushed from the cold, her scarf crooked from corralling two bundles of energy through the parking lot.
“They’ve been talking about this all day,” she says, breathless. “You’re a hero for inviting us.”
“Happy to be their entertainment.”
And yours,I almost add.
The station’s small—three bays, a handful of bunks upstairs, a kitchen that doubles as a break room—but tonight it feels full. The boys dart from the trucks to the gear wall, marveling at helmets, hoses, and every shiny thing in reach.
“Touch gently,” I warn, and they nod solemnly before climbing up into the engine cab.
Huck finds the siren switch cover and looks at me like he’s discovered a nuclear launch button.
“Maybe not that one, bud,” I say.
Lanie laughs, the sound light and free. It hits me square in the chest.
She fits here—standing under the fluorescent lights in her flannel and jeans, eyes bright with amusement, like she belongs among all this chrome and chaos.
When the boys have exhausted the gear room, I herd them toward the pole in the back corner. It drops from the second-floor landing to the main bay—shorter than the ones in city stations, but still enough to make a six-year-old’s dreams come true.
“Okay,” I tell them, “rules are simple. You slide, you hold tight, and you wait for me at the bottom. No racing.”
TJ looks at Huck. Huck looks at TJ. They nod in unison and take off up the stairs before I finish the sentence.
“They definitely heard ‘race,’” Lanie says, shaking her head.
“Yup.” I grin. “C’mon, you should try it too.”
Her eyes widen. “Me? Oh no. I’ll stay down here and?—”
“Supervise?” I tease. “I’ll catch you.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
