Chapter Four
Kira
My boobs are vibrating.
Even when I’m ninety percent asleep, my brain manages to comprehend there’s something wrong about this scenario. Boobs do
not naturally vibrate of their own accord. I peel one eye open, glance down... and find my phone face down on my sternum,
right where I probably dropped it when I fell sleep.
Ah, normal after all. It’s a fairly regular occurrence for my boobs to be gently serenaded to sleep by the dulcet tones of
some random sitcom or documentary. All my friends and family know not to bother me the morning after a shift, though, so what
the hell? If this is some couple trolling through bi women on Tinder for a third (even though my profile explicitly says I’m
not looking for that), I will personally track these humans down and spray them in the face with a fire hose.
I lift the phone and the screen comes to life, displaying a string of texts:
Nicole: Our first challenge has arisen!
Nicole: Skylar wants me to go cake tasting with her in two days. She’s really leaning into the whole wedding metaphor here.
Nicole: AND she wants to do it at Shelly’s Bakery where the cheapest cake is like A MILLION DOLLARS
Nicole: Help meeeeeee what do I DO? Come with us??
The corner of my mouth tugs up into a smile, then remembers it’s morning and falls back down. I normally nap for at least three hours after getting off work at 8:00 a.m., but duty calls, I guess. Texting feels like so much effort, though, so I
tap her name and hit the Call button, hoping she’ll forgive me for this sin. It rings four times, and I’m about to hang up
when the call suddenly connects, followed by a sudden BANG. I jerk away from the phone, but there’s a scuffle, then Nic’s
voice.
“I’m so sorry, that was terrible timing,” she says, sounding slightly out of breath.
“What the hell was that?” I ask, my heart still in alarm mode.
She laughs helplessly. “I’m at work. I swear, not every day is fire and explosions. Sometimes it’s a lot of reading and meetings
and spreadsheets and other science-y stuff.”
“Whatever you say, pyro.” I’m picturing her in a white lab coat, cheeks dusted with soot, hair in a tangled mess, standing
next to one of those Looney Tunes –style detonators. I get to the point to keep from laughing and having to explain. “So, your cake dilemma. I can’t come with
you. I work that day. I’m twenty-four hours on, forty-eight hours off.”
Nic half groans/half sobs her displeasure. Someone in the background shouts something at her—I think I catch the word extinguisher ? I really hope she’s not about to burn up—but Nic says something unintelligible back before moving to a quieter room.
“Sorry about that,” she says. “But honestly, who needs saving more? Me, trapped in a boutique cake shop for rich people with
a Skylar on a mission, or people with their cat stuck up a tree or whatever?”
I do laugh this time.
“Uh, the people whose buildings are on fire? Obviously?”
“Yeah, but you had to think about it for half a second, didn’t you?”
Fair point. I stretch luxuriously, legs sliding against the deliciously smooth sheets. Getting up is hard. Getting up is a
terrible idea.
Getting up is inevitable, isn’t it?
I sigh.
“Okay, look,” I say. “When’s your lunch break? I was thinking we should get together and make a plan. Define our goals, brainstorm
some possible tactics, decide on a course of action—”
“Wow,” Nic interrupts. “I didn’t realize a person could actually sound like a neatly tabbed binder and a fresh pack of highlighters personified.”
I’m silent for a second, caught off guard—is that a good thing or a bad thing?—until Nic breaks out into frankly adorable
giggles.
“I kind of love it,” she says. “If it were up to me, we’d probably fumble around for three months with some half-formed idea
of what to do, then chicken out and curl into a ball with a bottle of coconut rum.”
Now I’m laughing too, because the image she paints is so vivid. From what the others have told me about her, Nic has always been good
at reacting to Skylar’s (many) needs, but when it comes to preemptive strikes, it takes her too long to forcibly remove her
head from the clouds and gain the courage to step up. Skylar waits for no one. In fact, now that I think about it, they’re
quite similar—both geniuses, incredibly knowledgeable and methodical in their chosen fields, but disaster kids at everything
else. It’s a good thing the two of them never dated, because the planet wouldn’t survive the chaos. I wipe my eyes and finally
sit up in bed, feeling a bit more energized.
“I’ll forgive you for the coconut rum, because I hate to judge people I’ve just met too harshly, but item one on our list
might have to involve whiskey.”
“Blegh.”
I clutch my hand over my heart in mock agony, even though she can’t see me.
“You hurt me right in my soul . If your workplace didn’t involve so much fire and explosions, I’d bring you a thermos of whiskey for lunch, just to prove
how wrong you are.”
“But it would be a Lord of the Rings thermos, right?”
“If it would get you to drink something not routinely puked up by college freshman, then yes, I would bring you a hobbit thermos.”
“We’re going to get along just fine.”
I smile in spite of myself and roll out of bed with a decadent stretch, pressing the phone to my ear with one hand and reaching
for the sky with the other.
“So, you’ve successfully gotten me out of bed—”
“Not my typical goal with girls,” Nic quips, then sputters, frantically backpedaling. “I mean, not that I— I’m not trying
to—”
I bust out laughing, true and loud this time, even as my cheeks grow hot. My Skylar laugh, Grace calls it. “Oh my god, chill,
it’s okay. I was sleeping. I am no longer sleeping. Lunch meeting? Yes? Time?”
“Right, right. Uh, let’s say twelve thirty? That’ll give me time to order food, clean up, and get the grad students going
on their next project.”
And that’ll give me time to pull up a yoga video on YouTube and do one of my readings for the FEMA National Fire Academy course
I’m working on. Once I finish this certificate, my résumé will be so incredible, they’ll have no choice but to promote me.
I can make the most of this unfortunate early wake-up call.
“Twelve thirty, you got it,” I say. “See you soon.”
“I’ll text you the address. Bring your highlighters, legal pads, binders, Post-it flags—”
“—and a hobbit thermos of whiskey. Byeee.”
I hang up the phone and stand there for a minute, trying to pinpoint why I feel so weird.
Then I realize: I’m grinning from ear to ear.
The ever-present dread of the whole situation feels a little lighter now. Sure, my life and career will still be doomed if
Skylar leaves, but there’s hope now. I have an ally. We’re going to save the day.
This might actually be fun.
When I arrive, I realize I’ve made a rare error in planning. The Pacton Laboratory Complex is in a remote corner of the sprawling
university campus with seemingly endless parking lots blocked off by security gates and guards standing at every entrance.
I have no idea where to go. I must look suspicious as hell, because a guard finally flags me down and motions for me to roll
down my window. It’s a manual crank (this car is twenty-five years old and counting, a gift from my dad I refuse to get rid
of), and it always sticks about two thirds of the way down.
“Sorry, that’s as far as it goes,” I say with a shrug, but the guard gives me the side eye.
“You lost?” he asks, all friendly smiles, but with an edge to his voice.
“Completely,” I admit. “I’m meeting a friend for lunch. She works in the Miller Building, which is... somewhere?”
“She’s a pyro?” he asks, eyebrow raised. “Good luck with that.”
“Well, I’m a firefighter. If anyone can handle her, it should be me, right?”
I can see the moment the words land in the sludgy tar pit of his brain and start sinking down.
“Wait, you’re a firefighter? You sure?”
Oh my god, am I sure of my own career? Fucking hell. Why always this from random dudes?
“Uh, yeah, pretty damn sure I know where those paychecks in my bank came from,” I say, my tone clipped. “The Miller Building?”
The skeptical tilt of his eyebrows lingers as he steps back and points.
“Two buildings down, turn left, then park in the lot on your right. The building has about a hundred fire hydrants out front,
can’t miss it.”
Well, that’s something of a relief.
“Thanks for your help. Have a nice day.”
Douche.
The last bit is silent only because my mama raised me right, and I’m not entirely certain she can’t twist my ear long-distance
from Vancouver. The guy says something else, but I ignore him out of self-preservation and drive to the correct building.
My car is just starting to overheat as I pull into the lot and beg the car to shift into Park. It begrudgingly agrees with
an unhappy clunk, and I shut the engine off just as a figure in white comes dashing out the front. The guard standing watch
there dives to one side to avoid being hit by the door as the figure—Nic—jumps up and down, waving her arms as I climb out.
“I’m so sorry!” she calls, then jogs over to my car. “I should have given you directions. I hope the guards didn’t bother
you much. I’m almost done. You can come on up. Oh, did you bring your ID? You’ll need to sign in.”
“What are you wearing ?” I ask as I follow her back to the building. It looks like a chef’s coat, high-necked and buttoned over the left breast,
but with elastic at the wrists to pinch the sleeves closed over blue gloves.
She looks down at herself, then jumps as if startled.
“Oh, right. Let me finish up in the lab and we can eat. Sorry, James,” she says with a weak smile for the guard, then scans
a badge and pulls the door open for me. I follow her inside, sign in, and get my little visitor name badge, then follow Nic
down hallways that contain increasingly more worrying signs. Eye wash stations, showers, and fire extinguishers are more common
than doors in this building. Finally, Nic turns to me, her hand on the knob of a door with a red light next to it. She holds
up a finger, and we wait... until, suddenly, there’s a shout, a “WHOO!”, and the light next to the door changes to green.
Nic scans her badge and pulls the door open.
“Fire?” she shouts.
“No fire,” someone calls back.
“Hose on deck!” is her response. Then she steps back to allow me past. Am I the hose? I shake my head. Just go with it.
My eyes are used to the fire station, where things are clean but worn. Well used, but well cared for. Here, everything is
bright white, stainless steel or glass, with fluorescent lights shining off every surface. Everything is precisely in place,
which... is logical I guess? But somehow, I wasn’t expecting it. Though if there’s any room in the world I want to be in
pristine order, it’s a room full of flammable shit.
“Wow,” I say, taking it all in. “This is... shiny. What are you working on?”
Nic lights up. “I’ll show you!”
She beckons me toward a far corner of the lab, past a guy in a giant face shield that makes me very nervous. Should I be wearing a face shield? Nic snatches something from the back counter, then thrusts it into my hands. I nearly drop it,
half expecting it to be covered in corrosive acid or something, but stop myself at the last second. And stare.
“What am I holding?” I ask, turning the thing—a lightweight flap of bright yellow rubbery fabric—over in my hands.
Nic beams. “It’s a new material we’re testing here. It was originally developed for something totally different in the culinary
industry, but after meeting you last night, it occurred to me that, with some adjustments, it might have applications in firefighting.”
My heart does a funny thing in my chest, a sort of warm, pulsing skip. I lug around tons of gear every day, but I’ve never
really thought about where it comes from, or the people who might be working to make us safer. I look from the scrap of material
to Nic and back again.
“Like, you could make new bunker gear out of this?”
“Sure!” she says. “It would need extensive testing and adjustment, of course; it’s just a preliminary idea. It might also
be good for hosing, depending on...”
And she totally loses me. I know a lot about fire, but she’s talking molecular-level shit here. I knew in the back of my brain
she had to be pretty smart, being a scientist and all—but mentally, I’m putting this white-coated chemist together with the
girl in the floppy long sleeves who spilled half a rum and Coke on Ian’s beard a few nights ago. The whole, I admit, is much
more intriguing. Skylar is exactly this kind of nerd sometimes, when it comes to the way human brains and thoughts work, and
I can totally see why they were best friends. Something ugly and selfish rears its head at that— I will not be replaced , it says—but I push it away. I’m a better person than that. We can share. I can handle co–best friends.
“Kira?”
I blink and return my focus to Nic, who winces.
“Sorry, she mutters. “I know I can go on and on.”
“No, no!” I rush to reassure her. “This is amazing, really. I was just thinking how smart you are. I can see why you and Skylar
get along. You’re more alike than I thought.”
A blush colors her cheeks, and for the first time, I register that she has a faint dusting of freckles. It was too dark in
the bar last night to notice, but here, under the bright lights of the lab, a constellation of pale brown freckles peeks out
from under her very sparse makeup. I wonder if she’s one of those people who’s self-conscious about them, which I’ve never
understood. I love my freckles, and I’m a total sucker for them on other people. They’re cute. Unique. I look back up to her
amber-brown eyes and smile.
“So, what’s for lunch?”
She smiles back hesitantly, then strips off her gloves and starts wriggling out of her lab coat, the elastic at the wrists
apparently requiring great effort. Underneath, she’s dressed in simple tan slacks that hug her legs beautifully, along with
a black button-down that looks plain at first, but on second glance has a tiny word stitched on the left lapel: “Science!”
Something about this is so unbearably adorable that I have to bite the inside of my lip to keep from grinning. There’s an
unmistakable tug in my gut as I trace a line from the curve of her waist to the dip of her collarbones, and I freeze.
Uh oh.
Nope, undo, get out of here, brain. Going after Skylar’s other best friend would be a terrible idea. Squash it down forever.
So she’s cute, and brilliant, and fun to be around, and queer. That doesn’t mean I have to be into her. We can be friends.
I hope. If my damn hormones will calm down. My phone buzzes in my pocket—one of my four dating apps, maybe? As much as I’m
looking for a real relationship, something that might actually lead to the family I want one day, a quick hookup could be
just what I need right now. I’ll check after lunch.
Nic throws her coat onto a hanger in a locker by the door, then twirls around. I arrange my face into what I hope looks like
a neutral waiting expression.
“Okay, ready! I’m afraid lunch won’t be too fancy,” she says, beckoning me out into the hallway. I follow her around several
identical blank hallways to an office door with NICOLE WELLS scrawled on an index card taped over the nameplate beside the
door. “I didn’t know what you might want to eat, and I don’t have any food in my apartment anyway, so I just ordered a ton
of stuff. Whatever you don’t want will be my dinner for the week! I would starve to death without sustenance delivered to
my office.”
She opens the door, and I’m hit with a wave of delicious smells. Nic has spread a blanket out on the floor of her tiny office,
and her desk is loaded with takeout boxes. There’s a whole pizza, tacos, Indian curry, and fancy ramen, all vegetarian “just
in case.” She was not kidding—it’s enough food to last her several days, easily. She hands me a paper plate, then proceeds to take a little of everything,
letting it all mix together on her plate like a heathen. I grab two tacos to start with and arrange myself on the “picnic”
blanket (a no-sew fleece blanket with a Princess Leia on it) with my back against the wall. She sits against the opposite
wall with her legs kicked out in front of her, wiggling her sneakered feet back and forth. Nervous, or excited? She nods at
the notebook sticking out of my bag, giving it a much hungrier look than her food ever got.
“So, let’s get this party started,” she says with a wicked grin, ticking points off on her fingers. “Our mission: to keep
our best friend from totally destroying her life with this dumbass decision. Our time frame: two and a half months. Our reward...”
She raises a determined fist. “Keeping our best friend, and keeping the friend group from collapsing into inevitable slow
death by apathy.”
“Hell yes,” I say, offering my can of sparkling water up for a toast. “And our strategy: to help Skylar realize her bad decision
on her own , because you know if she gets even a whiff of meddling, she’ll move to Fiji even earlier out of spite.”
Nic groans, and I can’t quite tell if it’s from dread over Skylar’s inevitable reaction if we’re caught, or from pleasure
at the bite of taco she just took. Either way, I agree.
Nic thunks her head against the wall, then looks back over at me. “So, how do we do this?”
I polish off a taco and think. How can we make Skylar wake up and smell the reality without her catching on? I nod to myself
as I sift through the past two years of Skylar knowledge.
“We need to make her understand how totally not ready she is to do this, and how much it’s going to wreck her life. So, we
have to present her with evidence, right? What are the specific elements of Skylar’s plan that are problematic?”
I pull out my binder and turn to the first blank page, clicking a purple pen as Nic lists them off.
“Farming, because I’m pretty sure she’s never kept so much as a houseplant alive in her life. Finances in general, and for
the party specifically. She’s already thinking way overboard for this thing, and how is she even managing this move to Fiji?
Renting property, getting her stuff shipped there, travel, all that. Leaving her family, her friends, literally everyone who
loves her and has her back, to move to a place she’s never been, totally alone. Completely cutting off her only sources of
income. And finally, water, and Skylar’s total lack of ability in or on it. Kind of a necessary skill set when one is living
alone on an island. Maybe. I mean, I don’t know. It feels logical?”
I scribble frantically to keep up with the growing list, and when I finish, I study the page in despair. Now that it’s all
spelled out on paper like that, it looks even worse. Nic must be thinking the same thing, because she somehow manages to make
her next bite of her delicious mango taco look forlorn, staring at the ground with her glasses sliding down her nose. I hate
that we have to do this, because it’s obviously bringing her down. I want to see her smile again, want to see that total nerd-out
gleam in her eyes, like when she was talking about her work, or that bit of playfulness that came out at the bar last night.
There’s something in the set of her mouth, the downward cast of her eyes, that feels heavy. She’s totally lost in thought.
I’m sad about this too, both about having to do it and about the possibility that it might not work, but it must be even worse
for Nic. She only just got back. She must have been imagining so much time with Skylar in the future, so many chances to reconnect
after being gone so long. I know they kept in touch while Nic was gone and all, but even I, as a new person to the group,
could see that there was some kind of awkward rift for a while between them that either caused Nic’s move or was caused by
it.
Whenever Nic’s name was brought up in my early days with the friend group, a strange pall settled over everyone, as if they
all knew something but no one was willing to talk about it. Nic’s back now, though, and everything seems good between her
and Skylar. If we don’t succeed in our plan, she’ll lose one of the big reasons she moved back here. I kick her foot and catch
her eye when she looks up.
“Hey,” I say, mustering a small smile. “I know this sucks. It feels mean, but the stakes are just... really high, for all
of us. I’ll lose someone I’ve been through hell and back with, you’ll lose the best friend you’ve only just reconnected with,
and Skylar... well, you saw the list.”
Nic bites her lip, then glances down at her lap.
“What happened to make you and Skylar so close? I mean, I get it if it’s too personal,” she says, trailing off, but hurt pinches
at the corner of her eyes. It must have sucked to see her friendship be seemingly replaced, and by someone who’s known Skylar
less than half as long as she has. But she’s stumbled into something too big for our second day of knowing each other.
“I’ll tell you someday. Soon. But not right now, okay? It’s a lot of pretty bleak stuff. And we need to turn this around!
Yes, we’re sabotaging our best friend, and it’s kind of a dick move, but it’s for her own good, right? And you know how she
is. Big! Dramatic! The more fun we have with this, the more likely it is to work. You get me?”
Nic switches from taco to pizza and thinks for a moment, then musters a faint smile.
“Yes, I get you, and I think I have the perfect opening move.”
“Oh? What’s that?”
My phone buzzes. I glance down to see a text from Grace lighting up the home screen.
Grace: Soooooooo how’s your first date with Nic going?
I snatch the phone up and tap out a quick reply, glancing furtively at Nic with burning cheeks.
Kira: Not a date. My dates have a lot more skin and a lot fewer flammable chemicals
I slam the phone down on my lap and look back up at Nic, who studies me curiously.
“Everything okay?”
I force an awkward laugh. “Yeah. Just Grace being Grace. Anyway, you said you had an idea?”
Super smooth and totally not suspicious topic change there. Nic rolls with it though.
“Yes, our opening volley,” she says, rubbing her hands together. “Target: Skylar’s wannabe farmer phase. Here’s what we do.”
As she talks, Nic grows more and more animated, the mischievous light coming fully back into her eyes as she outlines her
logic. She talks through the idea layer by layer, letting it evolve as she goes and incorporating my thoughts until we have
a firm plan. Once the plan is fully formed, we fall silent, picking at the wreckage of our huge lunch as the enormity of our
task settles over us.
“So, we’re really doing this, I guess,” I finally say. “I feel like we’re supposed to—I don’t know, shake hands or something.
Isn’t that what people do when they form a grand conspiracy?”
“Oh, you’re right!” Nic says, hovering her hands over her work slacks like she’s about to wipe the pizza grease off on them.
She opts for a napkin instead. Once she’s done, I hold out my hand, and she takes it, too gently for a business transaction
but just firm enough to not quite be... more. My stomach can’t tell the difference, apparently.
“We’re in this together now,” she says, keeping hold of my hand after we shake.
“Yes, we are,” I agree.