"Marianne's going to want this fast." Half to me, half to herself. "If the arrests are public, other outlets will run it by tonight. We need to be first. And Rebecca's photo needs to go wide."
"Go." I caught her hand. "Do what you do."
She looked up at me. That fierce focus in her eyes, the one that appeared when she was locked onto a story.
But underneath it, something softer. Something just for me.
"Shane and Maya are having us over for dinner tonight. Brian and Ava too. You in?"
"I'll be at the office late. Marianne's going to want to go through the piece line by line, and Rebecca's photo means a separate conversation with legal." She squeezed my hand. "Tell everyone hi."
"You sure?"
"Go be with your firehouse family." She smiled. "I'll be at your place when you get back."
She kissed me. Quick, warm, already halfway gone in her head. Then she was walking toward the subway, phone to her ear, that purposeful stride I'd watched from across fire scenes for years.
I stood on the sidewalk.
Pride, for what we'd built. Relief, that the house was safe.
And underneath, something darker. Becks in the firehouse kitchen. The smile I'd trusted. The questions I'd answered without thinking twice.
Shane and Maya's apartment smelled like garlic and rosemary. Zoe and Lily at a sleepover, the evening claimed for adults.
Dinner was loud and easy. Braised short ribs, roasted potatoes, the kind of meal that made you want seconds before you'd finished firsts. We talked about Rodriguez's face when he got the call, how the man had actually smiled. A real one. Brian swore he saw Rodriguez's eyes get wet, but Rodriguez would deny it to his grave.
Over dessert, Ava set down her fork.
"We have news." Something in her expression, nervous and excited and barely contained. She looked at Brian, who reached for her hand.
"We've decided to start trying," Brian said. "For a baby."
Maya's hand flew to her mouth.
"We've been talking about it for a while," Ava continued. "And with everything that's happened this year, life feels too short to keep waiting for the perfect time."
Maya was out of her chair, pulling Ava into the kind of hug that only women who understood each other could give. Shane clapped Brian on the back. Brian looked the way he always looked when something good happened to him. Stunned. Like he still couldn't believe he got to have this.
"Engine 295 is becoming a nursery," Shane said.
We clinked glasses to that.
The conversation settled into the easy rhythm of people who loved each other. Maya was telling Ava about the differences between her first pregnancy and this one. How she'd been seventeen years old with Zoe, and now she was doing it again with teenagers in the house and a husband who teared up every time he felt the baby kick.
"Shane cried at the ultrasound," Maya said. "Twice."
"I did not cry twice," Shane protested. "There was something in my eye."
"Both times?"
"It was a dusty room."
Shane kept circling back to it. A son. He'd said the word four times already, like he couldn't quite believe it.
The conversation lulled. The comfortable silence of people who didn't need to fill every gap.
Then Shane's eyes found mine.
