14. Beck
fourteen
Beck
Ivy's rinsing plates and I'm drying them, mostly because Annie gave up trying to kick us out of her kitchen about ten minutes ago.
“Not the good towels,” Annie says, passing through with a stack of serving dishes. “Those are for company.”
“We're not company?” I ask.
“You're regulars.”
She disappears again before either of us can figure out if that was an insult. Ivy laughs, flicks a little water off her fingers in my direction, and goes back to the sink. “Don't even think about it,” she says, without turning around.
“I wasn't doing anything.”
“You were thinking about it.”
She's not wrong. I let it go anyway, mostly because starting a water fight in Annie Granger's kitchen seems like the kind of thing that could get me permanently banned from Sunday dinner, and I like being at Sunday dinner more than I want to have a water fight. Even if it would be with Ivy.
The rest of the crew has that kind of sluggish, well-fed contentment that shows up after a big meal when nobody's in any rush to be anywhere else.
Reid's arguing with Trevor in the living room about whether Bigfoot could survive a Montana winter.
Tessa and Cassidy are on dessert duty, or possibly dessert theft, judging by the amount of laughing coming from that direction.
Nolan's parked in front of the window watching the sky get heavier, speculating about whether it's going to storm.
A month ago I was a guest here, figuring out where things went, careful not to take up too much space.
Tonight I'm drying dishes next to Ivy, and Annie scolded me over a towel the same way she'd scold Reid.
Like I've been coming here for years instead of weeks.
Nobody's treating it as anything unusual.
Neither am I, which might be the more surprising part.
Russ finds us in the kitchen a while later. “Beck. When you've got a minute, I need to run something by you and Reid.” Something in his tone pulls my attention, just slightly.
I follow him outside to the far end of the porch, away from the noise, where the evening air's gone cooler, and there's a heaviness building in the sky that matches the one in Russ's voice. Reid’s already on the porch.
“Elk Ridge reached out this afternoon,” Russ says. “Couple hours west of here. They've got a fire that's grown into a priority. Granite Creek. Multiple starts have stretched their people thin, and they're asking for anyone who can spare experienced hands.”
Reid straightens. I know that posture. I've probably worn it myself a hundred times.
“We've been quiet since our lightning fire,” Russ continues. “I told them I had two experienced smokejumpers I could talk to. Didn't commit you to anything. Wanted to ask first.”
“When?” Reid asks.
“Tomorrow afternoon, if you're in. Gives you tomorrow morning to get ready.”
“How long?”
“At least a week. Could stretch longer, depending on how the fire behaves. I won't lie to you and pretend I know exactly how long.”
Reid doesn't hesitate. “I'm in.”
That's Reid. Give him a fire that needs fighting, and he's already halfway out the door before anyone's finished the sentence. It's part of why I like working with him. It's also, for the first time, not quite the same reaction I'm having.
“Beck?” Russ asks.
“I'm in too.”
I mean it. People need help. It's the job. There's no version of this where I say no. But underneath the automatic yes, something else registers that hasn't before on a hundred other assignments just like this one.
Ivy.
I'm going to leave her. A week, at least. Maybe two. On any other assignment, that thought wouldn't have crossed my mind at all. Tonight it won't leave me alone.
Russ nods, satisfied, and heads back inside.
Reid looks at me once Russ is gone. “You good?”
“Yeah.”
“Could only be a week.”
“I know.”
He doesn't push it further. Reid's known me long enough to read what I'm not saying, and long enough to know Ivy's part of it, and long enough not to make a joke out of something that clearly isn't one right now.
I find Ivy still in the kitchen, drying the last of the dishes on her own. I don't lead with anything dramatic. I just tell her.
“Russ got a call from Elk Ridge. They need help on a fire out there. Granite Creek. He asked me and Reid to go.”
She sets the towel down slowly. “When?”
“Tomorrow afternoon.”
“How long?”
“At least a week. Could be longer. Maybe two.”
She's quiet, processing it the way I imagine she's processed this kind of news before, watching Reid pack a bag and disappear for the fire season.
“Okay.” She says it evenly. Too evenly, like she's practiced staying calm about this kind of news.
I don't push it. I let it go for now, and we rejoin the rest of the house like nothing's changed, even though something has.
Dessert gets demolished. Nolan argues with Tessa about cake donuts versus Krispy Kreme, a debate that's been simmering since I arrived in Timber Creek and shows no sign of resolving tonight either.
Ivy ends up beside me on the couch, close enough our knees touch. Her hand finds mine. Nobody in the room even glances over. Last week, holding her hand in a room full of people still felt like something new. Tonight it's just what we do. I'm already dreading how much I'll miss it.
The storm arrives during the drive back to the crew house, first a few fat drops against the windshield, then a steady, serious rain by the time we're pulling in. Everyone scatters for the door at a run, laughing, half-soaked, shoes squeaking on the porch boards.
Ivy doesn't run with us.
I notice after I'm inside, shaking water out of my hair, and glance back through the screen door to see her still out there, standing at the porch rail, watching the rain come down in sheets over the yard.
I give her a few minutes. Whatever she needs space for, I don’t want to take it from her. Eventually, I go out to the porch anyway.
She doesn't look over when I step up beside her. The rain's loud enough that talking would mean raising my voice, so for a while neither of us tries. We just stand here and watch it fall.
“Do you want to be alone?” I finally ask.
“No. Not if it's you with me.”
I wasn't ready for what those words would do to me. I don't say anything back right away. I'm not sure I trust my voice.
We stay quiet a while longer before she speaks again.
“I've done this before. Watched Reid leave.
Sometimes he calls every night. Sometimes I don't hear anything for four or five days.
I know it doesn't mean anything's wrong.
It just means he's busy, or there's no signal, or he forgot his phone is even in his bag.”
“So you're an expert,” I say, mostly to see if I can get a smile out of her.
It works, a little. “At pretending not to worry.”
I think about the calm way she took the news in the kitchen, and I understand it a little differently now.
She wasn't unbothered. She was practiced.
She's spent years learning how to ask the necessary questions and accept whatever answers she gets, learning not to make someone feel guilty for going and doing the job they're trained and hired for.
That doesn't mean it doesn't cost her something.
“But this feels different,” she says.
She looks at me when she says it. Doesn't explain further. Doesn't have to. I know I'm the difference.
“I don't really want to go,” I say, and it surprises me a little, hearing it out loud.
She glances over, genuinely surprised. “But you love your job.”
“Yeah. Both can be true.”
It's a strange thing to realize so plainly, something I've never quite had language for before, because most of my life those two things haven't co-existed. Wanting the job and wanting to stay somewhere have never once competed with each other. Until now.
“I'll call when I can,” I tell her.
“I know.”
“And if you don't hear from me—”
“I know that too.” A small, tired smile. “Remember? Expert.”
There's nothing else I can promise her. Not a perfect signal, not a return date, not a guarantee nothing will go wrong out there. Wildfire doesn't make guarantees to anybody. So I don't try to manufacture one. I reach up instead, my hand finding the side of her face, and I kiss her.
It's different from Silver Bell. That kiss was discovery, uncertain but also electric and new. This one is something else entirely, slower, steadier, full of everything neither of us has said out loud yet.
She tilts her head back into it. That's all it takes.
I place my hands on her hips and lift her onto the porch railing, close enough that we're level with each other, her knees bracketing my hips, the rain still coming down steady beyond the roofline behind her. I wrap my arms around her, so she can’t tip backward off the rail.
Her hands start at my shoulders and slide up, wrapping around my neck, holding on like she needs something solid too.
When I start to pull back, she doesn't let me.
Not yet. She chases the kiss, and I don't have it in me to be the one who ends it.
When we finally break apart, she doesn't let go, and neither do I.
I pull her in against me even closer until there's no space left between us.
She turns her face into my neck, and we just stay like this for a while, her breathing a little unsteady against my skin, neither of us in any hurry to be the one who moves away first.
“I'm going to miss you,” she says quietly.
“I’ll miss you too. Take care of Mabel for me.”
“She's not even your cat.”
“Try having that conversation with her.”
Ivy huffs a laugh, which is what I was hoping for.
We continue to hold each other close under the porch roof while the rain keeps coming down around us.
Inside, I can hear the muffled sound of the others, laughter and an argument about whose turn it is to wash the pile of dishes sitting in the sink from lunch.
Out here, it's just the two of us and the storm.
Normally, when a new assignment arrives, my head goes straight to it. New location. New fire. New crew. What's the terrain, what's the weather doing, what do they need. That's been the shape of my whole adult life. Somewhere new is always next.
Tonight my head keeps turning the other way. Back toward this porch. This crew house. Sunday dinners that go too long and card games that get too loud. And especially this woman wrapped in my arms.
I haven't even packed my bag yet, and already I'm thinking about coming back.