Oh good, more men in uniform! #2
Colt exhales slowly beside me, trying not to laugh.
Ghost moves past us, already checking over the closest woman out of habit.
“Any slips? Falls?”
“No, dear, just heartbreak.”
Fletch nods solemnly. “Understandable.”
Beck shoots him a look. Fletcher shuts up.
One of the ladies catches my sleeve lightly as I move forward.
“You’ll save what you can, won’t you?” She gestures toward the baking trays with sincerity. “The school lets us use their kitchens every year before the Lake Bake Sale, and this shortbread won last year. It’s practically a town treasure!”
I follow her line of vision to the soggy, blackened mess floating in the baking trays.
They’re absolutely fucked.
“…We’ll, uhh, see what we can do,” I reply.
She nods, like I’ve just made a binding promise, and I tug my sleeve free to move past Beck, stepping carefully through the water toward the ovens, scanning for heat, source, and spread. There’s nothing active but faint smoke and a sprinkler system that did exactly what it was meant to do.
“Smoke set the system off,” I say, glancing back toward Beck as I check the panel. “No active fire.”
“Yeah,” he replies. “Let’s get it shut down.”
Behind us, the doors swing open again, and I catch the familiar blue of a Maplewood Police Department uniform stepping inside.
“Everything under control?” Officer Tucker asks.
“Little late to the party, Tuck,” Fletcher mutters under his breath.
“Thought you guys would have it handled,” he shoots back.
One of the women perks up immediately. “Oh, good, more men in uniform! This just keeps getting better.”
Tucker pauses mid-step as he’s surrounded by the ladies, talking a mile a minute.
I leave him to it as I make my way to the controls to kill the system. But I drag a hand over the back of my neck while I try—and fail—to not let the corner of my mouth lift.
***
The station’s warmer than outside, but it still takes a second for the cold to leave my hands as I shrug out of my jacket and hang it back up.
Gear goes where it belongs without much thought. At this stage, it’s muscle memory more than anything. Boots thud onto concrete, and lockers clang as the place settles back into itself.
These are the kind of callouts that don’t leave us sitting in a daze. We’ve all seen some bad shit in our time, and compartmentalizing is a part of first-responder life. So when callouts lean more into the absurd or amusing, it’s relieving.
Fletch grabs a towel and drags it over his hair. “I’m still saying we could’ve saved those cookies.”
“They were literally floating,” Colt replies, toeing his boots off.
Ghost hooks his helmet back up. “And you don’t even buy the shortbread at the Lake Bake.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Actually, that is the point.”
I grab a bottle of water from the drinks fridge we keep stocked in the corner of the bay, and lean back against the counter, taking a long pull before lowering it again.
“Better add ‘can operate an oven’ to your nanny interview list,” Fletch says, dropping onto the bench and tipping his head back against the lockers. “Right next to ‘won’t flood a school.’”
I don’t look at him. “I’m not hiring from that group.”
“Missed opportunity,” he says. “Great energy.”
“They nearly took out a sprinkler system.”
“They were passionate.”
Colt snorts, grabbing a clean shirt from his locker. “You’re not asking the right questions on that form anyway.”
“That so?”
“Yeah.” He shrugs like it’s obvious. “You don’t care about half the stuff you think you do. You just need someone who can keep a schedule, not panic when things go sideways, and actually tell you when something’s off with your kid.”
Fletch snorts. “Boring.”
“Accurate.”
“Also,” he adds, like he’s just remembered something critical, “you need a personality filter question.”
“I don’t.”
“You do.” He sits forward, placing his elbows on his knees. “Something that tells you who they are as a person.”
I twist the cap back onto my bottle. “And that would be?”
“Favorite Spice Girl.”
“No.”
“Think about it,” he insists. “It tells you everything. Leadership, chaos tolerance, emotional range—”
“You’re not adding a Spice Girls personality test to my hiring process.”
“Hard disagree,” Ghost says from the table where he’s scrolling his phone. “It’s a valid metric.”
I glance over at him. “What?”
Ghost shrugs slightly. “Elle needs someone with a bit of personality, because she has a massive one herself. She’s made me sit through that same science channel with that woman, uhh—”
“Dahlia Jenkins,” Fletch says immediately, clearly also a victim of Elle’s favorite science presenter.
“That’s the one,” Ghost confirms. “If the nanny can’t handle watching Science with Dahlia, or Elle explaining black holes for twenty minutes straight while also playing fairies, they’re not lasting a week.”
“That’s actually not a bad call,” Colt says, nodding once. “It’s like a patience test.”
Fletch leans back again, satisfied. “See? We’re building a well-rounded questionnaire here.”
I shake my head, pushing off the counter. “I’m not using any of this.”
“Denial,” Fletch says easily. “Big theme for you today.”
Beck, who had a meeting with Chief Rhodes as soon as we got back to the station, steps back into the bay.
“Good work out there, boys.”
“Thanks, Cap.” Fletch straightens slightly. “We preserved the spirit of the shortbread.”
Beck ignores him, already turning back toward the door. “Go grab coffees from Flora’s. And something to eat that isn’t out of the vending machine.”
Fletch hops down from the bench in seconds. “Say less.”
I make my way back to the truck without thinking too hard about it. Coffee and food are exactly what I need right now, then I’ll get back to figuring everything else out.
It’s busy in Flora’s once we get there, the noise drowning out the chiming bell over the door as we step in.
Warmth hits me, along with the smell of coffee and something freshly baked that hasn’t been anywhere near a sprinkler system.
“About time,” the owner, Rose Potts, calls from behind the counter. “I was starting to think you lot had finally learned how to make decent coffee on your own.”
“Don’t spread lies like that, Rosie,” Fletch says, already drifting toward the counter to line up. “You know we’re dependent.”
“That much is obvious.”
Fletch leans in slightly to look past the person in front of us. “If they’re out of cinnamon buns again, I’m walking.”
“You won’t walk,” Colt scoffs.
“I might.”
I let them carry on, my attention drifting past them and catching on a streak of blue in front of Fletch.
She’s standing at the counter, menu in hand, halfway through ordering. Her head tips slightly as she reads, pink lips moving under her breath as though she’s talking herself through the options.
“I feel like I should be more decisive about this,” she says to Rose, tapping the edge of the menu. “But I don’t trust myself with baked goods. I make emotional decisions.”
Rose hums like she’s heard it all before.
“I came in here thinking coffee and eggs,” the girl continues, glancing down at the cabinet, “and now I’m looking at something with icing, and I don’t know who I am as a person anymore.”
Rose barks a laugh. “Relatable.”
She laughs too, and it carries just enough to cut through the noise. Light and bright and almost like music. I don’t mean to keep listening, but I do.
Blonde hair falls forward as she leans toward the cabinet, the ends dyed in a blue that catches the light when she moves. Elle would love it. Would probably demand we stop immediately to tell her how pretty it is.
She bites her lip and exhales, as though she’s making an all-encompassing life decision.
“I’ll regret it in about twelve minutes if I pick something sweet, but that feels like a future-me problem.”
I huff a laugh through my nose before I can stop it.
There’s nothing particularly unusual about her, and yet she doesn’t slot into the room the way everyone else does.
She’s new to town, for sure, but there’s something more.
Most people move around in cafés like they’re on autopilot.
Orders come out before they’re fully spoken, and no one hesitates for long. She does.
“Also, this might be a long shot,” she pauses, “but while I decide how much sugar I need, I’m also looking for work… I can do pretty much anything, and I learn fast. I show up on time, and I’m very enthusiastic about baked goods, clearly.”
Rose glances up at that, considering her properly for the first time. “I’m so sorry, my dear, I would absolutely love to give you a job—if I had one available. Right now, we’re at capacity.”
“Oh. That’s okay! Do you know of anything else going?”
“Prince.” Colt bumps my shoulder, knocking me out of whatever that just was. “You good?”
I clear my throat, dragging my attention away from the counter and the blonder with the blue-tipped hair.
“Yeah,” I nod, shaking it off. “I’m good.”