I mark the map and we keep walking. The brush crackles underfoot, pine resin and dead grass on the air, the edge of something building.
Our rotation’s off, and Cal talks me into going to the Watershed. “You’ve been to the clinic every day this week,” he says. “You need a night where the only animal is Big Jim.”
The Watershed looks the same as it did the first night I walked in: wood paneling, mounted fish, the smell of spilled beer and decades of the same conversations. Derek’s behind the bar tonight, helping his dad. He pours without asking and then slides the glass.
“How’s the vet situation?” Derek asks.
“There’s no vet situation.”
“Sullivan.” Derek leans on the bar. “You go to that clinic every day. You brought her coffee and got the order wrong. You asked Micah what she drinks and then ignored the answer, which—and I mean this with all the love I can muster—is the most on-brand move you’ve ever made.”
“The dog has burns and needs medical care.”
“The dog has burns,” Derek repeats. “And you’ve got it bad. Those are two separate conditions.”
Cal’s quiet for a while. Peeling the label off his beer in long strips, the thing he does when something’s working its way up.
“Hanna’s engagement,” he says out of the blue. “Ty’s good for her. He is. I just—” He shrugs. “Dad was captain of Station 7. Died in service when Hanna was in high school. I spent a lot of years being the guy between her and whatever was coming. Now she’s got Ty and I’m happy and I don’t know what to do with the empty space.”
He says it flat. The way you say something you’ve been carrying so long the weight’s just part of how you stand.
“Your dad sounds like he was a good man,” I say.
“He walked into a room and the room got easier,” Cal says. “That was his whole thing.” He takes a drink. “You’d have liked him.”
I know that kind of guy. People say the same thing about me. I also know what it costs.
“What about you?” Cal asks. “Family? Big life story?”
“Nothing big. I fight fire, I move, I fight more fire.”
Cal looks at me. His face does the quiet shift where he’s reading me. He knows I’m leaving stuff out, but he doesn’t push.
“Okay,” he says, and for once he lets it sit.
Diaz shows up around the second round. He doesn’t say why. Sits, orders, drinks. Three stools down, not crowding, not joining, just present the way Diaz is always present, like a wall you don’t notice until you need one.
Derek’s still going. “What’s the next move? Flowers? Donuts? You gonna drive the engine past the clinic with the sirens on?”
“I’m going to finish this drink and go to bed.”
“Boring.” Derek polishes a glass—his father’s son, always polishing something. “Your success rate with this woman is currently zero. I find that impressive.”
“Serious question,” Derek says. He leans on the bar, elbows down, fully committed. “Have you ever been turned down? Ever? In your life? Because I think I’m watching a man encounter rejection for the first time, and it’s the most educational thing that’s happened in this bar since Dad cut off Brennan at the Christmas party.”
“That was a good night.” Cal stares off into the middle distance like he’s back there.
“That was a GREAT night,” Derek says. “But this is better. This is a whole season.”
Diaz, three stools down, sets his glass on the bar. “Your problem isn’t the success rate.” He doesn’t look at me. “Your problem is that every room you’ve ever walked into has liked you, and you’ve never been in one that didn’t. You don’t know what to do when it doesn’t work.”
The bar goes quiet. Derek raises his eyebrows. Cal takes a drink. Diaz goes back to his beer like he didn’t just open a vein without warning.
“Night, everybody,” I say.
“Night, Sullivan,” Derek says. “Tell the vet I said hi.”
“I will not,” I call over my shoulder.
