Chapter 3
Morning comes slow, the sun a dull orange smear through the smoke.
The fire has passed. The tower still stands, the windows still hold, and the roar that filled the cabin all night has faded to a distant rumble.
But the forest below is still burning. I can see it through the haze, patches of orange flaring up in the blackened timber, columns of smoke rising into a sky the color of a bruise.
The air tastes like ash and creosote, thick enough to chew.
Felix is already awake. He’s at the window, one hand braced against the frame, the other holding the radio to his ear.
His voice is rougher than it was last night, but the words are the same.
Wind speed. Fire behavior. Containment percentage.
I don’t know how he’s still on his feet.
I don’t know how he’s still talking, still thinking, still processing information like the world isn’t on fire around us.
The radio hisses. He sets it down and rubs the back of his neck.
“Anything?” I ask.
“We’re stuck here another day. Maybe two. The fire jumped the containment line on the south flank. They can’t get a crew up here until it’s safe.”
“Safe.” The word feels absurd in the ash-choked air.
Felix turns from the window. His face is still streaked with soot, his eyes red-rimmed, his shoulders slumped in a way I’ve never seen before. He looks exhausted and wired at the same time, running on fumes and whatever stubbornness has kept him upright through two fire seasons.
“Might as well make yourself useful,” he says.
“I’m a photographer. Not much call for that up here.”
“Then I’ll teach you something.”
He crosses to the window and gestures for me to follow. I do. The glass is warm under my palm, the view below a wasteland of blackened trees and smoldering embers. It looks like the end of the world. It looks like something I should be photographing, and I haven’t touched my camera once.
“See that?” Felix points to a column of smoke rising from the eastern ridge. “That’s what we call a column. The fire’s still active there, pulling in air from the surrounding area. You can tell by the color, darker smoke means heavier fuels. Timber, probably. It’ll burn for a while.”
His voice is different when he talks about the fire. Not the clipped, efficient tone he uses on the radio, but something slower. More deliberate. Like he’s letting me in on a secret he’s been keeping for years.
“That lighter patch to the north… that’s spotting. Embers carried by the wind, starting new fires ahead of the main front. That’s what makes this job dangerous. The fire doesn’t just move in a line. It jumps. It surprises you.”
“How do you read it?” I ask. “How do you know where it’s going to jump before it does?”
He reaches for the binoculars on the table. “Here. I’ll show you.”
He hands them to me, and I lift them to my eyes. The smoke blurs everything, shifting and swirling. I can’t find the spots he’s talking about. I can’t find anything except gray and orange and black.
His hand covers mine on the binoculars.
“Angle down. Toward the creek bed.”
His palm is rough, calloused from years of gripping tools and hauling hoses. His fingers adjust the focus, gentle but insistent, and the contact sends a jolt up my arm. My skin prickles. My breath catches in my throat.
“See the line of green along the water? That’s a natural firebreak. The blaze won’t cross it unless the wind pushes it. That’s where we’d make a stand if we had to.”
I don’t answer. I can’t. His hand is still on mine, his body close enough that I can feel the heat radiating off him. The scent of smoke and sweat fills my senses.
The silence stretches. His fingers don’t move.
“Graham.”
I lower the binoculars. He’s looking at me, not the fire, his eyes dark and unreadable. The ash on his jaw. The small burn scar on his forearm. The way his throat moves when he swallows.
“What do you see when you look at me?” he asks.
“What?”
The question lands wrong, or maybe exactly right. I don’t have an answer. I’ve never let myself look at him through the lens. I’ve been too busy looking away.
He steps back. His hand drops from mine, and the cold rushes in where his palm was pressed against my skin.
“We should check the radio again,” he says.
“Felix.”
“Graham.”
I don’t push. I’ve pushed enough for one morning, more than I meant to, more than I knew I was capable of. But something shifted. The silence is full of things neither of us is saying.
He turns back to the window. His shoulders are tense, his jaw tight. The coiled alertness from last night is back, but it’s not the fire he’s watching anymore.
I set the binoculars on the table. My hand is still warm where he touched me. My heart is still pounding, my skin still tingling, my body still reacting to him in ways I don’t know how to name.
I’ve been looking at him since I got here. Maybe longer. Maybe since college, since the backpacking trip, since he sat me down on a log overlooking a valley and told me who he was with his voice steady and his hands shaking.
I didn’t let myself see it then. I was engaged. I was straight, I mean, I am straight. But I was the guy who had everything figured out, and Felix was just my best friend, and nothing had to change.
The fire crackles in the distance. The radio hisses static. Felix doesn’t turn around, but I can see his reflection in the window glass. He’s watching me. He’s been watching me the whole time.