“I mean,” I add quickly, “for the feature. For the night shifts. It matters that you see the whole pattern.”
“Right,” he says.
“Yes.”
“The whole pattern.”
“Exactly.”
He looks at me for a moment.
Then he says, very softly, “I’m glad I came back too.”
The room changes.
Or I do.
It is not much. Just a thin shift in the air between us. A warmth that has nowhere useful to go. His voice. My stupid pulse. The knowledge that if I stepped closer, he might not move away.
The knowledge that I might not want him to.
“Pippa,” he says.
I should not like how he says my name but I do.
“Yes?”
“I’ll stay where you put me.”
The words are sensible.
The tone is not.
The tone is a problem.
For half a second, I cannot decide whether to step back or step closer, which is a ridiculous set of options to be weighing in a room full of fold-out beds at work.
Then the alarm goes.
Sharp. Loud. Immediate.
The whole station changes in a breath.
Control comes through over the station system, clipped and calm.
Building fire. Possible person involved. Isolated property off Millbeck Lane. Caller reports flames visible fromoutbuilding. Elderly male possibly inside. Heavy rain. Difficult access.
That strips the warmth out of the room faster than the alarm.
When we get to the appliance bay Kev is already moving. Mish is at the pegs. Dan crosses to the appliance with the quick, economical stride of someone who has done this a thousand times and still knows the next one can go wrong.
AJ follows, but he looks once at me first.
Not asking what to do.
Waiting for the instruction.
I point to the spare high-vis jacket hanging near the bay. “Put that on.”
