Chapter 6 Ava
Ava
The ceiling in Brian's bedroom had a crack in it.
A thin, jagged line that started near the window and wandered toward the closet, like a river on a map no one had bothered to follow. I'd been staring at it for an hour. Maybe two. Watching the streetlight outside trace shadows across the plaster.
Watson was a warm weight on my chest, his purr rumbling through my ribs. His yellow eyes had long since closed, whiskers twitching as he dreamed whatever small murders cats dream of. He looked peaceful. Completely at ease.
One of us should be.
I turned my head toward the door. Closed, but thin. On the other side, Brian settled on the couch. The creak of cushions. A soft exhale. Familiar sounds. Four years of hearing them through the wall between our apartments.
Now there was just a door.
I closed my eyes, and it came back anyway. The lamplight. The way he'd leaned forward—barely. Just enough to close the distance by inches.The breath that caught in my throat before Watson decided to interrupt.
I'd wanted to kiss him.
I waited for the panic. It didn't come.
Four years of careful distance. Of telling myself friendship was enough. That needing him would be a weakness. But I'd wanted to close that gap. To find out if he tasted the way he smelled—like safety, like something I'd been circling for years without letting myself land.
What the hell was I doing?
The firehouse crew descended at 8 AM like an invasion force with a battle plan.
Brian had warned me they'd come to help with the move. What he hadn't mentioned was the scale of it.
I was still in sweatpants and an old t-shirt, hair escaping my braid, when Shane walked in and surveyed the stacked boxes.
"Where's the truck?" He grabbed the nearest box.
"Parked out front," Brian said, appearing from the bedroom with a duffel bag over his shoulder. "Rodriguez is already down there."
"Then let's move." Shane was halfway to the door before he finished the sentence.
Maria swept in next, already directing traffic. With the efficiency of someone who clearly ran her household the same way the captain ran the firehouse.
"Shane, start with the couch. Garrett, grab the other end. Marco, no running in the hallway."
A small boy streaked past her, giggling, followed by his sister.
"Lucia! Get your brother!"
"I'm trying, Mama!"
Zoe appeared in the doorway, clipboard in hand, earbuds dangling around her neck. Fifteen, all sharp angles and barely contained opinions.
"I made a loading plan," she announced. "Heavy furniture first, then boxes, fragile stuff on top. If everyone follows it, we'll be done by lunch."
"When did you become a project manager?" Brian asked.
"When I realized you guys would mess this up without me."
She handed him the clipboard. He looked at the clipboard, then at her. The smile came slowly, spreading across his whole face.
"You color-coded the truck layout."
"Obviously."
Garrett grabbed one end of my couch without a word, nodded at Shane, and they maneuvered it toward the door in perfect sync.
Within twenty minutes, my apartment was empty of everything that mattered.
By noon, the new apartment was full of boxes, furniture, and people arguing about where things should go.
"The couch should face the window," Maya said.
"It should face the TV," Shane countered.
"What TV? They don't have a TV yet."
"They'll get one. And when they do, they'll thank me."
Maria was unpacking kitchen boxes, organizing cabinets with a system I didn't understand but immediately trusted.
Rodriguez had assembled my bed frame in the time it took me to find the sheets.
Zoe directed Garrett on optimal bookshelf placement.
The kids chased Watson around the living room, and Watson—for once—didn't seem to mind.
"You okay?" Brian appeared at my elbow, voice low.
"I wasn't expecting—" I gestured at the room. At the people filling it. "This."
"Yeah. They don't really do halfway." He looked around at his crew, his family, filling the space with noise and warmth and the kind of chaos that felt like belonging.
Our apartment. The word caught in my chest before I could examine it.
Maya appeared with bags that smelled like fresh pastries. Maria followed with a cooler full of drinks and containers of food.
"Figured we'd need fuel," Maya said, setting the bags on the counter. "Long afternoon ahead."
Brian surveyed the spread, shaking his head. "I wanted to throw a proper housewarming party."
"You could still throw one," Captain Rodriguez suggested, appearing from the bedroom with Marco on his shoulders. "What's stopping you?"
"Yeah, Torres," Shane said. "What's stopping you from hosting another event where we do all the work?"
Everyone laughed. Even Garrett, quiet in the corner, let the edge of his mouth twitch upward.
I watched them. The easy rhythm of it, the banter that flowed like they'd been doing this for years. Because they had. Birthdays and holidays and random Saturdays, showing up for each other without question.
I took a breath. A real one. The kind I hadn't realized I'd been holding.
Watson handled the invasion with his usual social enthusiasm.
The moment I let him out of his carrier, he began making the rounds. Shane was first. Watson wove between his legs while Shane tried to maneuver the headboard through the doorway.
"Your cat is trying to kill me."
"He likes you," I said.
Watson abandoned Shane for Garrett next, rubbing against his shins with single-minded determination. Garrett, stoic as ever, reached down and scratched behind his ears without breaking stride.
Watson climbed into Marco's lap the moment the boy sat down. Marco went still, like he'd been handed something precious and breakable.
"Mama, look! The cat likes me!"
"Don't squeeze him."
"I'm not squeezing, I'm hugging."
Watson, for his part, looked extremely pleased with himself. He allowed Marco to pet him with sticky hands, then supervised Zoe's clipboard work from a sunny windowsill, yellow eyes tracking every person who passed.
"He looks like he's plotting murder," Shane observed.
"He's a sweetheart." I lifted a box onto the counter. "He just has resting villain face."
"Takes after someone," Brian said, passing by with another box.
"I heard that, Torres."
"You were meant to."
Heat crept up my neck. I turned away, busying myself with a box that didn't need my attention.
Maria appeared at my elbow with a plate of pastries. "Eat," she said. "You're too thin."
"I'm not—"
"Eat." She pushed the plate into my hands. End of discussion.
"You didn't have to cook all this."
"I wanted to."
She said it like it was simple. Like showing up with enough food for a small army was just what you did for the people your husband worked with.
I thought about my mother's dinner parties—catered, immaculate, everyone performing their assigned roles.
This was different. No performance. No transaction. Just people showing up because they wanted to.
I didn't know what to do with that.
"Thank you," I managed. "For everything."
Maria patted my arm. "You're part of the family now. You'll get used to it."
Brian caught my eye across the room. Smiled. That slow, private smile that made my chest ache.
Part of the family.
I smiled back and pretended I didn't feel the ground shifting under my feet.
My phone buzzed in my back pocket while I was helping Zoe reorganize the bookshelf for the third time that morning.
I glanced at the screen. Detective Diaz.
"I need to take this," I said, stepping toward the hallway.
Brian caught my eye from across the room. I shook my head slightly.
I'm fine.
I slipped out the door, pulling it mostly closed behind me.
"Dr. Rothwell." Diaz's voice was brisk and professional, but there was something underneath it. Satisfaction, maybe. "I wanted you to hear this from me before it hits the news cycle."
I leaned against the hallway wall, heart picking up speed. "What is it?"
"We arrested Kevin Lang this morning. Vehicular manslaughter and leaving the scene of a fatal accident."
The words didn't land right away. I heard them, understood them, but my brain kept looping back—the way I'd reread a lab result that seemed too good to be true.
"You arrested him."
"The traffic camera footage from that night finally came through."
My grip tightened on the phone.
"Took months to get the warrant—the councilman's lawyers fought us every step—but we got it." A beat of satisfaction in Diaz's voice. "Footage shows Kevin's car running the red light at that intersection. Timeline matches. Vehicle damage lines up."
I closed my eyes. Derek Edwards. Seventeen years old. His mother's hand was gripping my arm in the ER, desperate for answers I couldn't give her.
"What happens now?"
"Arraignment is tomorrow. DA's pushing for high bail—the Langs have resources to disappear if they want to." Diaz paused. "Your report is what started this. Without that, we never would have pulled the cameras."
She didn't say the rest. She didn't have to.
Something unknotted in my chest. Not relief, exactly. More like the first full breath after being underwater too long.
"Thank you for letting me know."
"Thank you for not backing down."
She hung up. I stood in the hallway for a long moment, phone still pressed to my ear, staring at the ugly carpet and the water-stained ceiling and feeling something I hadn't let myself feel in weeks.
Hope. Sharp and unfamiliar.
Kevin Lang was in custody. The case was moving forward. Maybe, for once, the system would actually work.
The door opened. Brian stepped into the hallway, concern written all over his face.
"Everything okay?"
I looked at him. Four years of showing up. Four years of never asking for anything in return.
"They arrested Kevin Lang," I said. "This morning. The detective just called."
Brian went still. Then the grin came. Slow. Fierce. Relief and triumph and something harder underneath.