Page 158 of Honeyfires

"Come here," she said.

She lifted the blanket, and beneath it she was wearing exactly what she'd worn the very first night I'd stayed over, which was nothing at all. Which remained, after six years and a wedding and a baby and a dog and a mortgage, enough to set my skin on fire.

I stripped and climbed in, and she pulled me close immediately, skin against skin, her body as familiar as the air in my lungs.

"I missed you," she said against my mouth.

"I was gone one night."

"One night is too long." She kissed me, and it started lazy and became something else quickly, the way it always had. "That's just a fact of our marriage."

We took our time. We had the luxury of that now, of knowing this was permanent, of not having to prove or claim or outrun anything. Just this. Just us. The depth of intimacy that came from years of choosing the same person and being chosen back.

After making frantic, passionate love with the sun steadily rising, we lay in the morning light, her fingers finding the phoenix on my ribs the way they always did, following the wings she'd memorized long ago.

"Do you ever think about it?" she asked. "How different things could have been?"

"How do you mean?"

"If I'd never moved into that building. If I hadn't introduced myself that day." She propped herself up to look at me. "If you'd decided to stay in Copper Valley. If I'd stayed there, too."

I thought about it. About a woman in a flower-print dress at the end of a hallway. About the ridiculous name Preppy. About Etta James sung off-key to a stranger without a single ounce of embarrassment.

About a diner date and a first kiss in a library and a gear bag with a note tucked in it. About a bathroom floor at 2 AM and a batch of snickerdoodles and a red-threaded leather jacket and the exact moment I'd understood I was going to be completely, irrevocably fine.

About Station 19 and the Bell 212 and a year in Copper Valley that had been hard and good and necessary. About driving back into San Jacinto with everything we owned and finding the crew exactly where I'd left them. Stevens taller, Miller quieter, Jackson louder, Rodriguez exactly the same, all waiting with the quiet affection of people who had never really let go.

"All the time," I said. "All the things that had to go exactly right."

"We shouldn't have worked," she said. "On paper."

"On paper," I agreed. "Too different. Too fast. Too complicated."

"But."

"But." I looked at the ceiling. Lucas and Santi's names on my ribs beneath her hand. Bailey snoring softly in the doorway. The baby monitor glowing green on the nightstand. Outside, San Jacinto going about its morning, utterly indifferent to the fact that everything in this house was exactly what it was supposed to be. "We're so fucking lucky."

"We are," she agreed.

"Six years ago I thought I knew what I wanted," I said. "Purpose. Service. Somewhere for the adrenaline to go." I looked at her. "I was right about purpose. Wrong about where it lived."

"Where does it live?"

"Here." I put my hand over hers on my ribs. "You. Willow. The crew showing up in that hallway during the deliberations and pretending they just happened to be passing through. Miller bringing vanilla extract to our apartment. Rodriguez saying don't screw it up like it was an operational directive." I laughed, low and quiet. "Here. All of this."

She kissed me for that, her lips lingering.

"You know what I think about?" she said, when she pulled back.

"Preppy," I said.

"I was making an educated guess—"

"You called me Preppy."

"I was working with the available information—"

"I was wearing a leather jacket and Doc Martens."