I thought about him for a week.
He tracked me down through my byline.
I'd published a small piece in the campus paper about housing conditions in student apartments—nothing major, justinvestigative work I'd done for a class that turned into something publishable. My email was at the bottom.
His message was short:
I know this is forward, but I can't stop thinking about the woman who told off a guy twice her size over a stranger's coffee order. Dinner? My treat. I promise not to make any scenes you'll have to rescue me from.
I said yes.
I shouldn't have. I had deadlines. A five-year plan. Ambitions that didn't include firefighters with devastating smiles who thought my fire was magnificent instead of something to be managed.
But I said yes.
We met at a different coffee shop—neutral territory, he called it. He was early. I was late. He didn't mention it.
He asked about my work. Actually listened when I answered. Asked follow-up questions that proved he'd read my article—really read it, not just skimmed the headline.
He told me about his job. Assigned to a station in Brooklyn. The kind of work that left marks you couldn't always see.
"Why firefighting?" I asked.
Something flickered across his face. There and gone.
"My father was FDNY. Died in the line of duty when I was seventeen." He said it simply, without self-pity. "I wanted to... I don't know. Continue what he started."
"That's—" I didn't know what to say. I'd been prepared for bravado. Hero complex. The kind of swagger I associated with men who ran toward danger.
Not this. Not quiet grief transmuted into purpose.
"Heavy for a first date," he finished. "I know. Sorry."
"Don't apologize." I reached across the table and touched his hand. Brief. Impulsive. His fingers were warm. "I asked."
He looked at where our hands had touched. Looked at me.
"Can I see you again?"
"Yes."
And then I kept saying yes. To coffee. To dinner. To walks through the city that lasted until midnight because neither of us wanted to say goodnight.
To falling so hard I forgot to be scared.
We moved in together after a year.
The apartment was in Brooklyn—small, drafty, radiators that clanked through the night. The building was old, and the neighbors were loud, and the hot water ran out if you showered longer than ten minutes.
It was perfect.
"We need a system," Garrett said, unpacking boxes. He'd brought his own, neatly labeled: Kitchen. Bathroom. Books. Mine just said Stuff on all of them. "You're chaos. I'm order. We have to find a balance."
"Chaos is creative." I was sitting on the counter, drinking wine from a coffee mug because I couldn't find the glasses. "Order is boring."
"Order keeps you from losing your keys three times a week."
"I don't lose them. They migrate."
