Chapter Eight
Kira
I have such mixed feelings about the Fourth of July. I adore the opportunity to get sloppy and hang with my friends, but the
firefighter in me can’t turn off the anxious anticipation. To most people, the Fourth is a day for barbecues, fireworks, and
singing along to all the country songs they pretend not to like the rest of the year. For a firefighter, it’s parades in the
morning and a night full of garage fires, grass fires, house fires, boat fires, firework burns, and the worst: drunk-driving
accidents.
This year, the Fourth happens to fall on my day off, and I didn’t even draw the on-call overtime straw. I’m one hundred percent
free. I’m trying to embrace it, but I can’t stop thinking about how the three guys who also interviewed for the lieutenant
position are all either working or on call. Does it look bad for me to be off on one of our busiest holidays? Is them not
scheduling me a bad sign? I volunteered for the parade anyway, because I think it’s important for the little girls out there
to see someone like them as part of SFD. A lot of the firehouse bros think parades are stupid. They don’t see the value. They
don’t need to, I guess.
Ugh. Obviously, the answer here is another whiskey to pass the time until my pointless Tinder date later.
It’s unseasonably warm tonight—yet another record high day. Thanks, climate change. It does mean we get to play outside without
lugging sweaters around in the middle of summer, though. There’s a huge block party happening in Capitol Hill near-ish to
Skylar’s apartment, sponsored by one of the neighborhood gay bars, and it’s like Pride part two out here. A stage is set up
at one end of the blocked-off street, where some of Seattle’s most famous drag queens are lip-syncing their fabulous hearts
out, while the other end of the street is choked with food trucks of every kind.
“This is heaven,” Nic says, munching on fries from a paper cone in Skylar’s hand.
“Right?” Skylar says. “I knew you’d love them.”
Nic gestures expansively at the line of food trucks, her gestures clumsy with tipsiness.
“This whole thing though,” she says. “So far I’ve had a freshly fried donut, an amazing pineapple taco, vegan mac and cheese,
which I didn’t think was possible but it totally is , a tiny apple pie, and so many delicious beers. How are there so many kinds of beer? Lots. Many lots of beer.”
Skylar and I lock eyes and bust out laughing, but Nic doesn’t even notice, just dives right into those french fries like they’re
the most precious delicacy on the planet and are scheduled to disappear at any second. Did someone give her a hit of their
weed?
Grace gives a wolfish grin and elbows Ian in the side—though given their height difference, it hits his hip. “Hey, isn’t that
the mom of one of your preschoolers over there?”
Ian’s eyes go wide and he whirls around, scanning the crowd, then glares at Grace. “Not funny. One of them ambushed me in
the grocery store as I was trying to buy condoms last week. I thought I was going to die. I had to pretend I was looking for
laxatives instead, because they were right next to the condoms. For some reason, that was better.”
“Oh my god, just buy the condoms ,” Grace says. “I don’t get it. You’re an adult, and safe sex is important! Shows you’re a smart guy who’s teaching those
children well.”
Ian covers his face in remembered mortification. “Not exactly a subject that’s covered in preschool, Grace. I don’t know how
to explain it to you. Teachers are held to a weird standard, you know?”
“I totally get it,” Skylar says. “Back when I was doing my clinical hours, I ran into some clients of mine three times in
one week at the worst possible times. Once while I was holding a box of dental dams, once at the gynecologist’s office, and
once at a club, just as I was getting ready to take a girl home. I started to wonder if they were stalking me. So humiliating. Don’t cross the streams.”
“Don’t cross the streams,” Ian echoed solemnly, clinking his plastic beer cup against Skylar’s.
“Speaking of taking people home,” Willow says, appearing from nowhere. “Where’d Marco go?”
“Yeah, I haven’t seen him yet!” Skylar pouts.
Marco’s head swivels around a few feet away, where some guy has his fingers wrapped in Marco’s belt loops. “You rang?”
“Marco, you live!” Skylar shouts. “How’s the glamorous world of nursing?”
“I only had to give two awkward sponge baths today, so pretty good, I think!” he shouts back, then turns to let his maybe-date whisper something in
his ear. Something filthy, if his lascivious grin is anything to go by.
“Place your bets,” Grace calls, and everyone quickly gives a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down. Grace, Nic, and I are all thumbs-up:
Marco is totally going home with this guy at the end of the night. To my surprise, though, Ian and Skylar are both thumbs-down.
“No?” I say, furrowing my brow at them.
Ian shrugs. “Nah. I don’t think so.”
Skylar smiles up at him and nods. “I agree! Smart man.”
The traditional prize is a nice, greasy hangover brunch the next morning, with the check split between whoever guessed wrong.
It’s been going on since before I joined up with this group, since their sophomore year in college together, I think. I’m
pretty sure Marco somehow invented this whole bet system, though, because the result is that whether he goes home with someone
or not, he never has to pay for his own brunch. A glitch in the system no one has ever bothered to fix. Ah well. He pays for
enough rounds of drinks that I’m sure it equals out.
“Is this about Marco’s Sunday brunch guy?” I ask. “He mentioned him that night we were at Crescent. Bit out of character,
right?”
Ian and Skylar share a look.
“Who knows?” Ian says with a shrug, then steals a fry from Skylar’s cone. She gives an indignant protest, which kicks off
a round of the sibling-like bickering that has always characterized their friendship. With the other half of the group distracted,
Grace takes the opportunity to pounce.
“So,” she says with a wicked expression, “how’s Operation Flying Fox going?”
“Operation what now?” I ask, looking between Nic and Grace.
“It’s going horribly,” Nic laments, collapsing forward to rest her forehead on my shoulder. I wrap an arm around her waist—she’s
swaying an awful lot for only eight thirty in the evening—and give Grace a one-armed shrug.
“The Fijian flying fox is Fiji’s only endemic mammal,” Grace says as if that explains everything, which I guess it does. Didn’t
realize our shenanigans had been given a name, or that between the two of us, we’d told Grace enough for her to give it a name. I glance up really quick to make sure Skylar is occupied and won’t overhear, then lean in closer to give our report.
“She’s still full speed ahead, as far as we know. It’s hard to tell if you’re getting through to her sometimes, you know?
She’s so good at breezing past things. But the stuff we’ve tried so far doesn’t seem to have worked.”
“You haven’t been by her apartment lately, have you?” Nic asks, lifting her head with a hopeful look.
Grace raises an eyebrow. “No. Why?”
“No reason,” I hurry to answer, picturing the desiccated husks of a hundred dollars’ worth of plants littering her windowsills.
“The less you know, the better. We still have time. We’ll make it work. And if we don’t, well, it’s been fun hanging out anyway,
right?”
I don’t realize until the stab of fear hits me that I actually want to know the answer. Is Nic enjoying spending time with
me? Does she mind how much of her time I’ve been monopolizing? Of course, she’d probably rather be spending it with Skylar,
with the possibility of her leaving hanging over us all. Nic seems to be a little in denial about it, though, and Skylar’s
been MIA a lot lately anyway. Whenever I ask Skylar about where she’s been, she gets ultra-mysterious. All she says is, “Lessons.”
I try not to interpret the word as ominous.
Nic smiles up at me, though, her cheeks flushed from the beer. “Yeah. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I came home. I kinda
worried you were my replacement in the group. But you’re nice. And fun. And pretty.” She scrunches up her brow in confusion
at that last one, like it just materialized out of nowhere, then shrugs. “It’s true. We are officially friends. Crying into
my terrible pie solidified it forever.”
An uncontrollable smile takes over my lips. I can’t meet her eyes.
“Well, good,” I say. “If we fail, we’ll both be in the market for a new Seattle-based best friend.”
A stricken look crosses Nic’s face, and I try not to take offense.
“But this is so much fun ,” she says, turning to face me so she can shake my shoulder for emphasis. “Fun is the best , and Skylar always organizes all the fun. No one will talk to me if Skylar leaves, and her mom will forget me, and I’ll just be a sad Casper
floating around between a lab full of fire and an apartment full of fire.”
There are so many things about that sentence that worry me, the phrase “sad Casper” not the least among them, but there’s one thing I can definitely
clear up.
“ I will still talk to you,” I say, forcing myself to meet her gaze. Intense eye contact is difficult, though, when one party
is starting to feel the buzz, and the other is sprinting for mythological levels of drunkenness with everything she’s got.
“And if the frequency of Mama Clark’s texts to you is any indication, she will still talk to you, too. We’ve got you.”
But Nic isn’t listening anymore. She breaks free of my hold and whirls dangerously around.
“SKYLAR!” she shouts at the volume of the obliviously drunk. “Skylar, you know there’s no Fourth of July in Fiji, right? You’re
gonna miss alllll this so much . This whole thing,” she says, smacking the stranger next to her with an expansive gesture, “was your idea. Who will you have to go along with all your things in Fiji?”
Skylar’s expression softens, and she steps forward to gently cover Nic’s mouth with the hand not holding an umbrella drink.
“Sweetie, that’s still supposed to be a secret, remember? And I know I’ll be lonely at first in Fiji, but you know me. I like
people! People like me! I’ll find my way. And of course I’ll stay in touch with all of you and visit as often as I can.”
Nic barrels on like she didn’t hear a word of what Skylar said.
“And no one will talk to me except Kira, which is great because she smells nice, but I love all of you, and I don’t want us to drift apart, because Skylar is the glue.”
I blink. I smell nice? The look Grace shoots me is positively devilish, but this isn’t about me. This is about Nic veering
close to dangerous territory.
“Nic,” I say, taking her by the elbow. “Why don’t we—”
“I’m trying to make you see,” Nic says to Skylar, insistent, and my eyes go wide. Grace pulls out her phone and brings up a rideshare
app, ready to pour Nic into a ride home if necessary. Willow, absolute angelic saint that they are, senses the danger and
rematerializes at Nic’s side with more food before she can get another word out.
“I got you more tacos to soak up some of those shots you took,” they say, shoving the taco straight at Nic’s mouth so she
has no choice but to take a giant bite.
“When did she even take shots?” I ask, bewildered. “I was with her the whole time!”
Skylar barks a laugh. “Oh, you have to watch her every single second. She’s a ninja shotter. You turn your back to say hi
to someone, and by the time you turn back, she’s downed a shot of J?ger and has tequila on the way.”
My stomach lurches at the mere thought of J?ger. Never again.
While Nic happily munches on a mouthful of taco that’s probably filled with quinoa, kale, and rare local mushrooms or something,
I make pleading eyes at Ian and gesture with my empty cup. I don’t want to leave Nic alone holding the bomb that is our Skylar
scheme, but I also can’t possibly get through this experience without more whiskey. My fingers are itching to pull out my
phone and check every 911 scanner app and SFD social media account to see how busy the department is tonight. Ian snatches
the cup from my hand and disappears for a moment, then reappears with a cup twice as large, filled to the brim.
“You are a saint among men,” I declare, and take a long gulp as Marco rejoins the group.
“What happened to your date?” Nic shouts to Marco, then chases Willow’s hand with an open mouth for another bite of taco.
“Wasn’t a date,” he shouts back. “Just an old friend saying hello. I’m here with you all tonight.”
Skylar and I glance at each other, and I raise an eyebrow.
“Marco bailing on someone who’s obviously down to fuck? He really has caught feelings for his mystery brunch guy,” I say,
but she only puts a finger to her lips and winks. Ugh, there is something going on there, and it is going to kill me . I must know. Normally, Grace is one who collects secrets like a gossip-hungry decorator crab, but when you dangle something
shiny straight in front of my face, I’m gonna go for it.
Marco rolls his eyes and throws his arms around Skylar and Ian. “So, what, are we just gonna stand around all night, or are
we gonna go dance ?”
“Dance!” Grace says, skipping off into the crowd without waiting for anyone else. Marco, Ian, and Skylar all follow, drinks
hoisted above their heads so they don’t get hit by a flailing partygoer. Nic is nearly done snarfing her taco, so Willow and
I split the last one, discard the wreckage, and haul Nic into the crowd. I down half my drink in one go to reduce the likelihood
of spilling, but also because Nic is eyeing it like she wants some, and I think she’s had enough. Between us all, we manage
to pour water into her instead of alcohol for the next two hours. I, on the other hand, make up for lost time until everything
is pleasantly blurry around the edges and that thing that normally keeps laughter locked up inside my chest relaxes.
The show is, quite honestly, magical . It’s sort of a lip-syncing competition/pageant, which I didn’t realize before, with a cash prize for best performance. We
dance through tons of performances until, at 9:30 p.m., the competitors all file back onstage for a big group number. Then
I realize why: as soon as the city’s big fireworks show begins in the sky behind the stage, the music kicks off, and the choreographed
dance begins. The crowd shouts their approval as the world blurs into glitter, lights, and bass. The mashup of songs builds
higher and higher along with the fireworks, and when the beat drops, the drag queens break ranks and stride offstage, straight
into the audience, arms thrown over their heads and hips swiveling wide. The crowd goes wild, jumping along with the music
in a wild sea of waving hands, forcing the seven of us even closer together. Ian throws an arm around Marco, drawing him closer
to his front, while Grace loops her arms around Ian’s waist from behind. Willow, Nic, and I press close around them, and Skylar
jumps in a dizzying circle, her hair whirling everywhere in a golden cascade, somehow dancing with all of us and none of us
at the same time. Nic edges up to Skylar, trying to draw her closer to the group, but the people next to us crowd her away
from Skylar and into me instead. I take the opportunity to pull her close and murmur in her ear.
“We’ll make this work,” I say, curling an arm around her waist to draw her close. “We’ll get her to stay. And even if we don’t,
if it doesn’t work out, then you’ll still have the rest of us, okay? You’ll still have me.”
She turns around in my arms so we’re face-to-face and studies me.
“I’m not giving up,” she says carefully.
I shake my head. “Me neither.”
Then she’s hugging me tight, holding me so close our bodies press together from chest to thigh, swaying to the music.
“I’m glad I met you,” she says, pulling back to kiss me on the cheek. But she’s drunk, and I’m pretty much there myself.
She misses.
She’s kissing me.
On the mouth .
God.
Distantly, I think I should stop this, that we shouldn’t, but with her soft lips moving on mine and her nails dragging through
my hair, I suddenly can’t think of a single reason why.
Would it be so bad if we got together? Skylar wouldn’t mind, I think. None of the others would mind. Why should I deny myself
the possibility of being with someone so smart, so driven and passionate? So beautiful ? I have to at least consider it.
Maybe it’ll be awkward later. Maybe I’ll regret it. But right now, in this moment, it feels important. Necessary and real,
like I don’t actually have to wait for a promotion to deserve this. Like it could really work, just because we are who we
are, right here and now.
I’m gonna give this a try. I’m gonna pursue this girl.
And I’m definitely gonna cancel my boring Tinder date.
I smile, run my thumb up under the back hem of Nic’s shirt, and pull her body even tighter against mine, loving the feel of
her breasts pressing against mine and her skin under my hands.
We kiss again.
Again.
And damn, it’s good .