31. Ivy
thirty-one
Ivy
Iwake up wearing Beck's shirt, and for a second I just lie here, remembering.
The porch last night. The quiet sky, no lightning this time, no storm anywhere on the horizon. The words I'd swallowed weeks ago, finally said out loud. I love you. And Beck, without a single second of hesitation, saying it back.
I love you too.
I've spent most of this summer wondering whether this was temporary. Whether I was falling faster and harder than he was. Whether August would end us before we really got the chance to begin.
Now I know. Beck loves me. I'm ridiculously, embarrassingly happy about it, lying alone in my room on an ordinary Sunday morning.
I glance down at the shirt. I’ve slept in it for three weeks straight because it was the closest I could get to him while he was hundreds of miles away.
Beck's not hundreds of miles away this morning.
He's down the hall, probably still asleep.
Wearing his shirt suddenly feels almost silly, given the actual man is available.
I decide I don't care. I like the shirt. And I wouldn't mind him seeing me in it.
The kitchen's slowly waking up by the time I get downstairs, coffee already going. Tessa moves with the caution of someone who isn't fully human yet. I pour myself a cup of coffee and lean against the counter. A few minutes later Beck comes in, hair damp from a shower, and stops when he sees me.
His eyes drop to the shirt. Come back up to my face.
Something shifts in his expression, small, unmistakable. I know what he's thinking. His shirt. On me. After last night.
I like his reaction.
“Morning,” he says, crossing the kitchen, and instead of stopping at a normal distance he puts a hand at my waist and kisses me, easy, like it's nothing, except it isn't nothing, not this morning.
“Sleep okay?” I ask.
“Better than I have in weeks.”
There's something different about this morning.
We were already together, already public about it, the whole crew fully aware.
Nothing external has changed. But everything feels slightly realigned anyway, like a photograph that's been the same picture the whole time but suddenly comes into better focus.
He steals a sip from my coffee mug without asking. I watch him do it, completely mundane, nothing romantic about stealing coffee. But it’s different because I know he loves me.
Mabel appears not long after, and wraps herself around Beck’s legs.
“You have to share,” I tell her.
Mabel offers no indication my request has moved her in the slightest.
We spend the morning doing nothing planned.
Coffee. Breakfast eventually, something simple.
I bring my thesis notes out to the porch and work through a section while Beck sits nearby cleaning gear.
Neither of us needs to fill the silence with anything.
It's enough just to be in the same space, occupied with our own things, occasionally saying something to the other and getting a response.
The rest of the crew drifts through their own Sunday rhythms around us.
Tessa disappears with a book. Dani does laundry.
Cassidy and Trevor take off somewhere together, not that either of them will call it a date.
Nolan wanders past at one point still carrying the Bigfoot caller, which has become a permanent accessory.
“Anything new to report?” Beck asks him, deadpan.
“No confirmed sightings,” Nolan says. “But I'm building a case.”
“I genuinely don't want to know what qualifies as unconfirmed.”
By late morning, Beck and Reid start packing, since they've got a long drive ahead and need to be on the road not too long after lunch.
I watch Beck load his bag into the truck and feel a small pull of sadness, but it's nothing like watching him leave with words caught in my throat.
There's nothing left unsaid this time. This time, I told him everything that matters.
The Grangers have moved Sunday dinner to lunch, so Beck and Reid can be there before they need to leave. Nobody treats it like a sacrifice. It's simply what the Grangers do. If people they love need to leave early, the schedule bends, no discussion required.
Annie's made enough food to feed twice our number, which surprises no one. She's already assembling several containers, clearly destined for the truck.
The gathering is loud and warm the way it always is here. There's something especially good about it today, everyone gathered around this table after everything Timber Creek almost lost. Beck and Reid are here, even if only for a few hours.
I watch Beck across the table, easy with everyone, passing the rolls without being asked, teasing Russ about something, knowing where Annie keeps the extra napkins.
He doesn't look like a man temporarily reassigned here anymore.
He looks like someone who belongs. I like watching that without turning it into a promise about anything.
At some point I notice him and Russ talking quietly near the door, low voices, nothing I catch. I don't think much of it. Firefighters talk shop; that's just how it goes.
Annie asks about my thesis somewhere between the main course and dessert.
“Do you have a date yet?”
“October ninth.”
“We'll be there,” she says, glancing at Russ, who nods without hesitation.
“You don't have to—”
“We've heard about this research for two summers,” Annie says. “We're not missing the ending.”
Reid wants to come too, obviously, though he hedges it with the appropriate caution. “Assuming the state stops burning by October.”
Beck asks a few practical questions, where it's held, what time, how the whole defense process works. I can tell he's filing the information away even though neither of us knows what his schedule will look like then.
“I'm going to try to be there,” he says.
“I know.” If he can make it, he will. If he can't, it won't be because he doesn't want to be there.
We don't dwell on the rest of it, what comes after Blackpine's season ends, the thesis revisions and job applications waiting for me in the fall, all the unresolved geography still hanging over both our futures. We talked about that last night. Today doesn't need to revisit it.
Lunch winds down eventually, everyone helping clear the table. Annie loads Beck and Reid down with enough food that Reid predicts, with real confidence, they'll still be eating it Tuesday.
Back at the crew house, there's no drawn-out goodbye to get through. Bags are already packed, truck already loaded. I'm grateful for that. Waiting for someone to leave is sometimes worse than the actual leaving.
I hug Reid, tell him to be careful. Then Beck. “Call me when you can,” I say.
“I will.” He kisses me, and then, easy, like it's the simplest thing in the world now: “Love you.”
“Love you too.” It doesn't feel ceremonial. It's just true, plain as anything.
They climb in. The engine starts. Everyone waves from the porch. Just as they pull out, Nolan raises the Bigfoot caller one last time and lets it rip, a final, ridiculous honk trailing them down the road. He looks thoroughly satisfied with himself.
The others start drifting back toward the house, laughing about it, but I stay where I am, watching the truck get smaller, until it disappears around the bend.
I don't know when I'll see him again. Maybe he'll get another break. Maybe fire season will finally settle down. Maybe the next time really will be October ninth, in a room full of people who came to watch me finish something I've worked years toward.
I don't know.
But it’s okay.
Because there's nothing I wish I'd said. No question left about whether any of this is real. I love him. He loves me. Whatever happens between now and when he comes back, we'll keep trying.