Chapter 3 #2
“I’ve seen hell, and it’s an endless spaghetti dinner,” he mutters back, waving at Nancy.
She makes an even more emphatic come over here gesture, and Hunter glances down at me.
“Back me up, will you?” he asks.
Then he starts walking for Nancy without waiting for me to answer.
For a split second, I’m annoyed, irritation flaring through me like gasoline catching fire in a rush.
I guess he still does this too, I think. Just walking into something and expecting me to follow.
But then it fades almost instantly, and I realize I just got annoyed about something that happened eight years ago.
Just pretend this is all brand-new, I tell myself. At least pretend you’re just old friends seeing each other after a while.
Not everything he does is about you. It never was.
I follow Hunter to the throng of ladies, where Nancy already has one hand on his arm and is gushing about him to her friends, all of whom are actually smiling real smiles.
I sure don’t get real smiles from this crowd.
“The fire came within a few miles of Trudy’s house,” Nancy is saying. “She told me she nearly had to evacuate. Had her bags packed and everything.”
“Thank the Lord she didn’t,” says another woman — Shelly? — who’s got her hand over her heart.
“All those mementos she has,” pipes up another woman. “She’s been collecting those spoons for almost forty years.”
Everyone nods somberly. Then they look at me like they’re noticing my presence for the first time.
“I didn’t know you two were acquainted,” Nancy says, her voice cooling a little. She’s never been a big fan of me, though I’m not sure why. Maybe just because her personality sucks.
Hunter and I look at each other for a moment, then back at the ladies.
“We’re old friends,” he says.
“We went to high school together,” I say. “Over in Ashlake.”
“Oh, my sister lives there,” one of the ladies says, but I barely hear her.
Old friends.
It feels weirdly good to put a label on what we are, and it feels weirdly good that the label is old friends, like we really are past our dumb breakup bullshit. Like finally, at least, we’ve talked again and we’re cool.
“Go fighting bison!” Hunter says, holding up one fist, and the ladies all titter-laugh.
“We want to hear all about firefighting,” one of them says. “Isn’t it scary?”
“Actually, I said I’d see Clementine home,” Hunter says, and looks over at me.
I’m about to say no, you didn’t, when I remember his request for backup.
Well, his demand, but that’s not a fight old friends have. Instead, I fake a huge yawn that turns into a real one.
“Yeah, I have to get up bright and early tomorrow,” I say.
“It’s sweet of you to walk a lady home,” one of the ladies says.
Nancy nods, but the look she gives me isn’t quite as positive. She lets his arm go.
“Come into Ellie’s Bakery sometime,” a woman says as we turn away. “Free cookies for firefighters!”
“I’d be delighted,” Hunter says, and then we’re walking away from the knot, across the lawn, and onto the sidewalk.
We walk in silence for half a block, cross a street, and then he speaks up again.
“Thanks for the rescue,” he says.
“It’s your hide when they find you later,” I say. “And make no mistake, they will find you.”
“I can only take so much goddamn fake nice in one day,” he says. “Tonight they’re grateful their houses didn’t burn down, but give them a week and they’ll be writing letters to the editor about how today’s misspent youth will never amount to anything and we should all be drafted.”
I laugh out loud.
“Miss small-town life yet?” I ask.
“I don’t have to miss it,” he says. “I still live in Ashlake. In the winter, anyway.”
Ashlake is an hour away as the crow flies. Three hours if you’re a human and have to drive around the mountain.
“I didn’t know that,” I say.
“You would if you had Facebook, or Twitter, or went to our five-year reunion,” he says. “I was starting to wonder if you were dead.”
I make a face, but deep inside, I think: he looked for me.
“I spend half my time in the woods, digging holes to poop into and not showering a whole lot,” I say. “And I didn’t really want to re-live high school.”
“You’re the only one,” he says, as we cross another street and I lead us left. “I’m pretty sure most everyone we went to high school with peaked at about age seventeen.”
I glance over at him. Even if he looks a little uptight right now, in a button-down shirt and khakis, I can tell that at least he didn’t peak physically at seventeen. Not that he was bad then. Not at all.
A quick shiver runs through me, and I tear my eyes away.
Old friends, I think.
“You don’t think you peaked at seventeen?” I ask.
“I sure as hell hope not,” he says, and smiles his most charming smile at me. “You think I did?”
“I don’t think I’m in a position to judge,” I say. “I don’t know what you’ve been up to.”
He gives me a long look. We turn right, onto my block, and I start to feel like I’m under a microscope. I keep my eyes straight ahead, suddenly too nervous to look over at him.
“I did two more tours after the last time we talked,” he says. “And you know how I always said I was gonna go to college after?”
I just nod.
“I lasted less than a semester,” he says. “Then I applied for the Hotshots, went to training, and here I am. Summers, I dig fire breaks and set controlled burns. Winters, I stay with my parents and I work on their dude ranch.”
“You’re a firefighter half the time and a cowboy half the time?” I ask.
“It sounds better when you put it that way,” he says.
“You’re half the Village People all by yourself.”
“That’ll look good on my resume,” he says.
We’re almost to the house I share with two other forest rangers. It’s big, creaky, and could use some fresh paint, but the rent is cheap since it’s owned by the forest service, and it’s in a good location, right on the edge of town.
Besides, I spend half my time out in the woods, doing my job. I don’t need all that much house.
I stop in front of it, and Hunter looks up at it, then at me.
“This is you?” he asks.
“This is me,” I say, rummaging in my purse for my keys.
He laughs, and I look up. Hunter jerks his thumb over his shoulder.
“They put us in the old bunk house,” he says.
I blink. Then I turn and look at the house next to mine. I know it used to be some sort of lodging, and it’s owned by the Forest Service too, but I didn’t know they were having people stay there.
“We just got in this afternoon,” Hunter goes on.
“How long?” I ask, finally pulling my keys out.
He’s next door? I think. I’m going to see him all the time, whether I like it or not.
“Probably four, five days,” he says. “Just enough time to rest up before something else catches on fire. Don’t worry, you’ll be rid of us soon.”
I make a face at him.
“That’s not what I meant,” I say.
“I know,” Hunter says.
I don’t know what to say to that. I can’t find the words for I like that you know or this is more okay than I thought it would be, so I just look at him for a long moment, his deep blue eyes nearly black in the dark.
“You look good,” Hunter finally says, his deep, raspy voice softer now. “And you seem happy.”
“You look the same,” I say, because he does. He looks a little older, maybe his face looks a little leaner, his hair a little shorter, but all that’s minor. In all the ways that count, he’s still the handsome, all-American jock who got assigned to be my lab partner in eleventh grade.
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” he says, smiling.
“You would,” I tease, and we both laugh.
“I’ll see you around?” he asks.
I swallow, because I’m suddenly nervous that he’s leaving. I wanted more than see you around. I don’t know what, because I don’t really understand what we are to each other.
I don’t have a map for this relationship. But this kind of casual later, dude, isn’t quite it.
Old friends, I remind myself.
“Yeah,” I say, ignoring the sudden butterflies in my stomach. “You’re just next door.”
His gaze flicks from my eyes to my lips and back, so fast I nearly miss it.
Kiss me, my subconscious whispers, and I hold my breath in sudden alarm.
DO NOT KISS ME, I think. I definitely don’t want that, not even a little.
Then he nods once, still smiling, and turns around. I don’t exhale until he’s walking away.