Lily groaned. “I’m good with red as well.”
“Oooh, I get the whole bottle of white to myself?” Poppy squeaked.
“Where are your kids?” I asked Poppy.
“Maverick and Devon are hanging with Hatch and Maisie,” Lily said. “I think they’re heading over to my parents’ in a bit. Ace and Cassidy were there for dinner, so they offered to watch all the kids for a few hours. A recruit drove us over.”
“This all means we can get a little tipsy,” Tillie exclaimed, grabbing her wine with a grin.
“I like tipsy,” I said, and Poppy handed me a glass.
For the next four hours, I discovered what it meant to be part of a girl squad who all loved and respected each other. I had that with my sister, definitely, but I’d been hard-pressed to find it with other women. They were far more like Madison, so I steered clear.
“Oh my god, you have to tell us what it’s like working for Mack,” Tillie demanded. “He’s so hot.”
“Ew, Till,” Poppy said with a groan. “He’s like our uncle.”
“He’s like our hot uncle,” Tillie pointed out.
She was right. Mack was hot. Not as hot as Flash, but still gorgeous for a dad.
“Well, working for him is kind of awesome,” I admitted. “But it hasn’t been very long, so only time will tell. Right now it’s all honeymoon stuff.”
“When do you take the Bar?” Lily asked.
“Hopefully in February.” I sipped my wine.
“I wish I knew what I wanted to do with my life,” Tillie breathed out. “Y’all have known what you wanted to do since you were two.”
Poppy laughed. “Um, hello, you know what you want to do, you’re just in a really competitive area.”
Tillie was a singer and an actress, and her parents had basically given her carte-blanche to pursue her dreams with their full support. They gave her a free place to stay while she spent her time practicing her craft.
Tillie still worked her ass off as a bartender at night, so she could audition and rehearse during the day, and I was kind of in awe of her confidence to constantly put herself out there.
“I just need something more than a fucking vagina commercial.”
“Didn’t that commercial make you a mint?” Poppy asked.
She sighed, sipping her wine. “Yeah, it did. But I kind of wish it didn’t because now I’m known everywhere as the girl with the whistling hoo-ha.”
I glanced at Poppy who burst out laughing, which made me lose my composure and then all of us were rolling with laughter at the thought of Tillie’s giggling vagina.
“Oh my god, bitches, I need more wine,” Tillie said, once we’d pulled ourselves together.
By the time the girls left me, I was calm and happy, and finally felt like I could relax. I fell into bed, sleeping soundly even though Flash wasn’t there to wake up to. I was actually looking forward to my case load the next day and couldn’t wait to get started.
* * *
Flash
Two days into my attemptto help with these goddamn fucking fires, we’d barely put a dent in any of it. I’d been flying back-to-back runs and I was exhausted. I wanted to find the asshole who decided it would be fun to let off illegal fireworks in the middle of July, in one of the highest risk areas of California and put a dent in his head.
My chopper was fitted with a “bucket,” a flexible vessel used to haul and deliver water to fire sites. My job was to collect water from swimming pools from the Sacramento neighborhoods closest to the fire zone. The bucket held over two-thousand gallons of water, and according to my flight logs, I’d flown eighteen trips in two days and was looking forward to my shift ending soon.
I was flying what was scheduled to be my last mission when a distress call came in over the radio. A volunteer firefighter got separated from his group and was trapped behind a twenty-foot wall of flames that was closing in around him. He was completely cut off from everyone in the area, making a ground rescue impossible.
“This is Firebird Helo, callsign Bravo Zero Niner Delta,” I said, turning around. “I am within range of your firefighter and should have enough fuel to reach him.”
