GEMMA
Every damsel in distress deserves a hero.
—TRACYANNEWARREN
Kai pulls into the parking lot of our new class location. It’s a brick firehouse with a tall cinder-block tower in the back for training.
I scan the area, searching for my favorite hero. Instead of his black uniform and shiny badge, I see a group of men walking across the parking lot in thick khaki pants held over their navy T-shirts by suspenders. They’re young and fit and would probably be considered attractive if not for all their strange mustaches. One man even has the huge sideburns that, along with his handlebar mustache, make him look like an old-timey boxer.
“They’re pretty much a scene from a movie montage.” Charlie must be watching them too.
“I’d film them in slow motion.” Kai parks and shuts off the engine.
“Special effects would add a huge fireball exploding behind them.” Charlie pops his door open and holds it for me while still looking at the firefighters. “I’ve never thought about doing a documentary on firemen before. But if the police thing doesn’t pan out …”
I climb out and stare with him. I’m still not over the mustaches. “Why do their faces look like that?”
I know facial hair is kind of a trend, but I’m more used to my clean-shaven roommates and my boyfriend’s five-o’clock shadow.
Kai clicks his key fob, then shoves the keys in his pocket and walks around the Jeep to join us. “I think it’s supposed to make them more manly. I’ll admit, I’m a little jealous. I can’t grow much facial hair.”
“Huh.” I try to picture Kai with a mustache, but my brain keeps morphing him into Magnum, P.I., even though the only thing those two have in common is Hawaii.
Charlie rubs his own chin. “Maybe I’ll grow some.”
Now Charlie I can definitely imagine as an artsy outdoorsman on film location in Ecuador. He already drives the Subaru. “Are you wanting to look manly, or do you just need a new challenge?”
Kai chuckles. “I heard the county fair has a beard competition every summer.”
Charlie perks up. “Really?”
This is not going to end well.
“Hey. Over here.” Karson’s voice draws our attention away from the crew headed into the garage. He’s snuck up on us while we were entranced by the firemen.
I give him my full attention, as I always do in class. “I was looking for you.”
“Really?” He’s joking, though there’s an edge. I’ve heard policemen and firemen often have rivalries, but he’s got nothing to worry about.
“Yeah, I was just”—I pull my long braid around to hold under my nose like a moustache—“trying to figure out the weird facial hair.”
He smirks. “Firefighters can’t grow beards because the hair would prevent their oxygen masks from sealing correctly, so they do the mustache thing.”
I nod as if his explanation justifies the look. “Ah …”
“That settles it.” Charlie plants his hands on his hips. “I’m doing it. I’m growing a beard, because I can.”
Kai shakes his head at me. “We created a monster.”
My roommates head off, arguing, but I stay put with Karson.
One of the best parts of falling in love is the pockets of alone time where we don’t have to worry about anything else but looking into each other’s eyes. Today, Karson’s eyes remind me of when the sun glitters off the ripples in a lake. I call them “water sparkles,” and I take lots of pictures of them.
“How was your pie?” I ask, and I don’t mean his grandmother’s. I baked an apple pie using almond flour for the crust and dropped it off at his precinct so he would know that a relationship with me didn’t mean he’d never have pie again.
“Interesting.” He says this in a PC kind of way. Like he wanted to say gross, but one doesn’t say that to a new girlfriend. “I’m used to Grams cooking with lard.”
That’s a kind way to say he thought it tasted like cardboard. Though it can’t be that bad. I made one to help Kai’s girlfriend find a man, they ate it together, and she wound up with him. “I’ll keep working on it. So do you get to hang out with me through today’s class?”
