We’d worked together for years—running into burning buildings side by side, surviving bad coffee and worse jokes, showing up for each other when it mattered.
He’d been my best man. Talked me off the ledge when I thought Ava was gone forever. Showed up at the hospital at my worst moment.
Shane Briggs was the brother I'd chosen. I couldn't imagine this life without him.
Things had changed for him, too, these past months.
After everything with the Langs, after the articles and the trial, and the dust finally settling, Shane and Maya's foster application had gone through. Lily had arrived three months ago—fifteen years old, quiet in the way kids became when they’d learned not to expect anything. But she was settling in. Zoe had taken to having a sister with the fierce protectiveness of someone who remembered what it felt like to need a safe place.
“I have news to share with everyone,” Shane said. Then pushed back from the table and stood.
The table went quiet. Garrett looked up from his coffee.
Shane's grin widened—that particular grin he got when he was bursting with something good and couldn't hold it in anymore.
"Maya and I are expecting."
For a moment, there was silence. Then the table erupted.
Guys were on their feet, crowding around Shane, voices overlapping—congratulations, manandabout timeandyou ready for midnight feedings on top of 24-hour shifts?
I stayed in my seat, grinning up at him, letting the chaos wash over me. The joy on his face was the kind you couldn't fake. The look of a man who'd found everything he wanted and couldn't quite believe his luck.
"We didn't plan on it," Shane was saying, accepting another round of congratulations. "But Maya's really excited. Zoe too."
"Another member of the firehouse family," one of the guys called out. "Kid's gonna be running drills before it can walk."
"Maya's already got a Pinterest board for the nursery," Shane laughed. "I'm not allowed to have opinions about paint colors."
"Smart man," someone else said. "That's how you survive marriage."
The banter continued—predictions about whether it would be a boy or girl, jokes about Shane's sleep schedule being destroyed, threats to put the baby on the roster as soon as it could hold a hose.
I caught Garrett's expression across the table.
He was smiling. Genuinely happy—I could see it. But underneath, something else flickered. Pain. Longing. The particular grief of someone watching others receive something they'd lost, or never had, or couldn't let themselves want.
The expression was gone almost as quickly as it appeared, smoothed away behind Garrett's usual calm. But I'd seen it.
I didn't ask. This was Shane's moment. And I trusted Garrett to open up when he was ready—if he ever was. Some wounds weren't meant to be poked at.
"You're going to be a great dad." I clapped Shane on the shoulder.
"Yeah?" Something vulnerable flickered in his eyes.
"Yeah. You showed up for me when I didn't know how to ask. You'll show up for them, too." I grinned. "Plus Maya will keep you in line."
He laughed and shoved my shoulder. "Thanks for the vote of confidence."
Before I could respond, the common room door opened.
Captain Rodriguez walked in, and behind him?—
Sloane Harper.
The shift in the room was immediate. Garrett went still, his coffee cup stalled halfway to his mouth.
Sloane looked the same as she did during the Lang investigation—sharp features, dark hair pulled back, those keen green eyes that missed nothing. Her gaze landed on Garrett for a fraction of a second. Something passed between them—pain, history, something unfinished—before she looked away.
