Chapter One
The ferry churned forward, its engines roaring steadily beneath my feet, vibrating up through the rail as I gripped it. The brackish scent of Puget Sound mixed with diesel, damp wood, and the lingering spice of Hiro's coffee. Below deck, a child's laughter pierced the sea air before dissolving into the hollow vastness of open water.
Hiro stood beside me, one hand wrapped loosely around his paper cup, the other buried in the oversized sleeve of a University of Washington hoodie that had seen better days. His dark hair was wind-tossed, bits of it catching in his eyes, but he ignored it, his gaze fixed somewhere past the horizon.
As always, he had that look—the one that suggested he was perpetually on the verge of solving some cosmic equation. But when he spoke, it wasn't about cellular structures or protein chains or whatever kept him in his office until 2 AM.
"You're thinking too hard again."
I exhaled, watching the way the mist softened the edges of the distant shoreline, blurring the boundary between water and sky until you couldn't tell where one ended and the other began. "I always think too hard."
Hiro made a quiet sound, not quite a laugh, more like the auditory equivalent of an eye-roll. "Yeah, but you're supposed to be here not thinking too hard. That was the whole point of this day trip."
My grip tightened on the railing until my knuckles whitened. "It's not working."
He hummed, taking a slow sip of coffee, savoring it like a man who refused to be rushed by anything, not even a ferry cutting its way through the water on a predictable, mapped-out course. Everything about Hiro was like that—deliberate, methodical, as if he existed half a step outside of time.
He taught cellular biology, had a mind that could deconstruct the most intricate biochemical pathways, yet half the time when he spoke, it was in long, meandering observations that had nothing to do with science at all.
"So." He rocked back on his heels. "You want to talk about the firefighter?"
I flinched. Hiro, of course, didn't miss my reaction. He never did.
"Ah," he said, nodding to himself with the quiet satisfaction of a hypothesis confirmed.
I sighed, scraping my thumb along the cool metal of the railing. The ferry cut through a patch of rougher water, making the deck shift just enough to remind me we were suspended over a deep abyss. I closed my eyes and willed myself to not think about pools and drowning.
"He's a problem," I said finally, the words feeling inadequate the moment they left my mouth.
Hiro snorted. "Yeah? For who?"
"For me."
Another sip and another thoughtful pause. "Because of the case?"
"Yes. And no. And yes." I let my forehead rest against the chill of the railing for a second before lifting it again, trying to organize my thoughts into neat categories.
Unfortunately, Marcus defied categorization—he wasn't merely another subject to analyze. "It's not only that. It's—it's everything. It's how he looks at me, like he's already decided I'm someone worth knowing and maybe even trusting. Like he sees past all my careful analysis straight to the parts I've spent years trying to protect. And it's how I—"
"Want to trust him back?"
I closed my eyes for a beat, letting the truth settle between us. "Yeah."
Hiro shifted, bumping his shoulder lightly against mine, a gesture that managed to be both casual and grounding at once. "James, you spend your whole life tearing people down into their component parts, predicting their next moves, and knowing how they'll fuck up before they do it. And then this guy walks in, and he doesn't fit any of your patterns, right?"
I let out a humorless laugh that caught in the wind. "You know, for a scientist, you sound an awful lot like a shrink."
"I spend most of my time analyzing things under a microscope. You think I don't do the same to my friends?"
A seagull wheeled overhead, its call sharp and distant. The dock was in view now, the island rising in jagged outlines of evergreens and low-roofed buildings pressed against the shoreline.
Mist curled around the trees. It was the kind that had surrounded Marcus that first day, when he'd stood in the wreckage of another fire with a quiet strength that made everything else fade away.
Hiro exhaled, long and slow, his breath visible in the cool air. "So, real talk—are you actually worried about the ethics of getting involved with him? Or are you scared of what happens if you let him in?"
I rubbed a hand over my face, jaw tight enough to ache. "It's both. The ethical concerns are real, Hiro. I can't ignore them because he has a smile that makes me forget how to breathe."
"Mm." He made a vague, unhelpful gesture with his coffee. "Well, if you're looking for me to tell you what to do, you came to the wrong person. I'm the guy who spent six years dating a theoretical physicist who believed in quantum immortality."
"That sounds exhausting," I said, trying to redirect the conversation away from my own complications.
Hiro let out a laugh. "You have no idea. Try having an argument with someone who believes there's a universe where they're always right and another universe where they didn't leave their socks on the floor. There's yet another one where they actually remembered our anniversary."
I turned to face him, momentarily distracted from my own turmoil. "You never told me about this."
"Because it's simultaneously the most ridiculous and most on-brand relationship of my academic career." He shifted his empty coffee cup from hand to hand. "Picture this: department mixer, six years ago. I'm trying to hide by the sad cheese plate when this gorgeous man starts talking about Schr?dinger's cat like it's a personal offense. Not the usual quantum mechanics discussion—no, he was genuinely angry about the hypothetical cat."
"Of course you found that attractive."
"Listen, when you spend your days staring at cell samples, someone getting passionate about theoretical physics is basically foreplay." He grinned. "Akihiko was brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Also completely impossible. He'd show up three hours late for dinner because he claimed in another universe, he was early. He'd buy two of everything because of quantum uncertainty. Once, during a fight, he tried to convince me that in an infinite number of universes, we were perfectly happy, so this universe's problems didn't really matter."
The ferry rocked gently beneath us. "What happened?"
"Reality happened. Or didn't happen, according to him." Hiro shrugged. "Turns out, even if there are infinite universes where a relationship works, you still have to live in this one. He couldn't understand why I cared about this particular reality so much. I couldn't understand how he could care about it so little."
I absorbed the story, thinking about patterns and predictions and about the gap between theory and practice. "Do you regret it?"
"Not for a second." Hiro's voice was firm. "You know why? Because some things are worth the mess. Worth the uncertainty. Even if they don't fit into our carefully constructed frameworks." He fixed me with a pointed look. "Sound familiar?"
I turned back to the rail, watching the island grow closer. "That's different."
"Is it? You're so busy analyzing every possible way this thing with Marcus could go wrong that you're missing the reality of what's right in front of you. At least Akihiko had the excuse of believing in infinite possibilities." He paused, then added with a small smile, "Though I will say, the makeup sex was amazing. Something about the conservation of energy..."
"Please, stop."
The ferry horn sounded, vibrating through the metal beneath our hands. I thought about Marcus and how he lived so firmly in each moment, whether he was fighting fires or teaching me to trust the water. No theoretical frameworks and no probability calculations. Only presence. Purpose. Reality.
Hiro crumpled his cup. "Akihiko's theory had one major flaw."
"Just one?"
"He believed that in an infinite number of universes, everything that could happen, would happen." Hiro's eyes crinkled at the corners. "But he never considered that in every single one of those universes, I'd still be your friend, calling you out on your bullshit."
The ferry let out a deep, rattling groan as it prepared to dock, the water lapping hungrily at the pilings.
"You want my opinion?"
I glanced at him, catching the glint in his eyes that meant he was about to say something uncomfortably true. "You're going to give it anyway."
"Damn right I am." He tilted his head, scrutinizing me like I was a sample in a petri dish. I only allowed it because of our years of supportive friendship. "You already made your choice. You made it the moment you started looking for reasons not to make it. You're only here trying to talk yourself out of it because that's safer than admitting Marcus McCabe might be worth the risk."
The gangway lowered with a metallic clang that resonated through the damp air. The line of passengers began shuffling toward the exit, backpacks slung over shoulders and hands tucked into pockets. I hesitated, letting them move ahead, my feet rooted to the deck as if the weight of truth had made them too heavy to lift.
The problem was, Hiro was right. He was always right about these things, which was precisely why I'd avoided having this conversation for so long.
The choice had been made the moment I met Marcus's gaze through the haze of smoke and heat, when I realized he wasn't merely another piece of the puzzle—he was the puzzle itself. Every detail I'd examined and every pattern I'd tried to analyze only led me deeper into the mystery of him.
And I'd never been the kind of person who could leave a question unanswered, even when—especially when—the answer might change everything.
I wasn't drifting anymore, caught between professional distance and personal desire. I hadn't been for a while now.
I was already falling, had been falling since that first moment under his umbrella and since the first time his hand steadied me in the pool. The only question left was whether I'd let myself acknowledge the landing that waited at the end of the freefall.
Hiro's hand landed on my shoulder, squeezing once. "Come on," he said softly. "The coffee shop on the island makes these ridiculous cinnamon rolls that'll either give you diabetes or clarity. Maybe both."
I managed a weak smile, finally unsticking my feet from the deck. "Is that your professional opinion as a biologist?"
"That's my professional opinion as your friend." He started toward the gangway, then paused, looking back at me with unexpected seriousness. "You know, sometimes the most scientific thing you can do is admit that not everything fits into neat categories. Sometimes you have to trust the data in front of you, even when it breaks all your previous models."
The ferry horn sounded one final time, its deep note carrying across the water like a reminder that even the most carefully chartered course sometimes led to unexpected destinations.