Page 48 of Igniting Her

Teak leaned over Cassie’s shoulder, examined the single-word command, and pressed one hand solemnly to her chest. “The likeness is extraordinary.”

“There wasn’t room for all the other words,” the child said.

Cassie studied the drawing. “A sound editorial decision.”

Ellie turned back to the cabbage before her face betrayed her. Cassie’s gaze found her anyway. It held for no more than a second, but Ellie felt it settle in the same place her body still remembered Cassie’s arm around her after midnight. They had not discussed that hour. They had not discussed Harrow Court, the fight at Cassie’s door, or the rules that had bent without being formally amended. Ellie had left Cassie’s house at one thirteen in the morning and spent the rest of their ninety-six hours off respecting every term still standing. No phone calls. No uninvited return. She sent three bare-bones texts over four days. Cassie answered each without adding a word she didn’t have to. At the station that morning, Cassie had assigned Ellie to the nozzle and asked for the medical inventory in a voice that gave nothing away.

Dinner began at six with the bay doors open to a soft coastal evening. The last of the day’s sunlight lay across the apparatus floor in long copper bands. From the table, Ellie could see the side of the quint and the brass memorial plaque beyond it, quiet in the changing light. The station radios murmured from three different belts. Chairs crowded close enough that knees collided beneath the table and nobody apologized.

Mo’s carnitas deserved at least part of their reputation. He had crisped the edges under the broiler and served them with rice, beans, cabbage, radishes, limes, guacamole, two kinds of salsa, and firm instructions nobody followed. Plates moved hand to hand. Jamie’s daughter climbed down twice for things an adult would have passed her. Teak declared the hot salsa defective after taking a third spoonful. Priya’s wife asked why Station 12 owned six identical bottles of cumin and received four conflicting explanations.

Cassie sat halfway down the table rather than at its head. Her uniform sleeves were rolled once, exposing the lower edge of the scar on her left forearm. Jamie’s daughter had chosen the chair beside her and kept setting lime seeds in a neat row along Cassie’s napkin. Cassie didn’t remove them.

Ellie sat across from Teak near the kitchen end. It was far enough away that she had hoped it would keep her from looking too often toward Cassie, which just meant she looked too often toward Cassie from farther away.

“Ridge,” Mo said. “Verdict.”

Ellie swallowed. “I need another taco before I compromise the integrity of the process.”

Mo put a hand over his heart while his wife reached past him for the salsa. “Coward. In my own kitchen.”

“Professional.”

Mo’s wife slid the pork platter toward her. “He’s been calling them legendary since our second date.”

“And yet you married me.”

“For the rice,” she said.

The table broke into several conversations at once. Ellie lost track of who had started the story about Jamie’s breakfast sandwich at the pier. She had heard Teak’s version during her first dinner at Station 12: a gull, an unsecured sandwich, a theft committed in full view of three firefighters. Tonight the account grew with each person who touched it.

The gull became the size of a rescue basket. Jamie’s attempt to recover the sandwich became a coordinated marine operation. Teak claimed she had called for air support. Jamie’s husband said he had seen the incident report and the phrase preventable food loss appeared nowhere in it.

“It did in the first draft,” Teak said.

Jamie pointed her fork. “You were not authorized to draft anything.”

“History belongs to the witnesses.”

Jamie’s daughter had followed the exchange with grave concentration. She turned to Cassie. “Did you make the bird do a punishment?”

Cassie’s mouth moved before any sound came. “The bird declined to cooperate with the investigation.”

“Did you put it on kitchen duty?”

Teak covered her face. Mo made a sound into his napkin. Cassie held out for one second, perhaps two. Then her control gave way.

She laughed.

Not the slight curve at one corner of her mouth Ellie had learned to collect like contraband. Not a breath that might have become amusement under better conditions. A low, open laugh escaped Cassie and changed her whole face. Her head tipped back. The lines beside her eyes deepened. For those few seconds, nothing in her looked braced against loss.

Ellie’s plate tilted in her hand. Beans slid into the folded edge of her taco.

Teak caught the rim before dinner reached the floor. “Firefighter Ridge. Situational awareness.”

“Structural failure,” Ellie said, setting the plate down carefully. “Unexpected conditions.”

Across the table, Cassie looked at her. Laughter still warmed her eyes. Ellie’s pulse made a fool of itself.