Chapter 3 #2
Cal’s quiet for a while. Peeling the label off his beer in long strips, the thing he does when something’s working its way up.
“Hanna’s engagement,” he says out of the blue.
“Ty’s good for her. He is. I just—” He shrugs.
“Dad was captain of Station 7. Died in service when Hanna was in high school. I spent a lot of years being the guy between her and whatever was coming. Now she’s got Ty and I’m happy and I don’t know what to do with the empty space. ”
He says it flat. The way you say something you’ve been carrying so long the weight’s just part of how you stand.
“Your dad sounds like he was a good man,” I say.
“He walked into a room and the room got easier,” Cal says. “That was his whole thing.” He takes a drink. “You’d have liked him.”
I know that kind of guy. People say the same thing about me. I also know what it costs.
“What about you?” Cal asks. “Family? Big life story?”
“Nothing big. I fight fire, I move, I fight more fire.”
Cal looks at me. His face does the quiet shift where he’s reading me. He knows I’m leaving stuff out, but he doesn’t push.
“Okay,” he says, and for once he lets it sit.
Diaz shows up around the second round. He doesn’t say why. Sits, orders, drinks. Three stools down, not crowding, not joining, just present the way Diaz is always present, like a wall you don’t notice until you need one.
Derek’s still going. “What’s the next move? Flowers? Donuts? You gonna drive the engine past the clinic with the sirens on?”
“I’m going to finish this drink and go to bed.”
“Boring.” Derek polishes a glass—his father’s son, always polishing something. “Your success rate with this woman is currently zero. I find that impressive.”
“Serious question,” Derek says. He leans on the bar, elbows down, fully committed.
“Have you ever been turned down? Ever? In your life? Because I think I’m watching a man encounter rejection for the first time, and it’s the most educational thing that’s happened in this bar since Dad cut off Brennan at the Christmas party. ”
“That was a good night.” Cal stares off into the middle distance like he’s back there.
“That was a GREAT night,” Derek says. “But this is better. This is a whole season.”
Diaz, three stools down, sets his glass on the bar. “Your problem isn’t the success rate.” He doesn’t look at me. “Your problem is that every room you’ve ever walked into has liked you, and you’ve never been in one that didn’t. You don’t know what to do when it doesn’t work.”
The bar goes quiet. Derek raises his eyebrows. Cal takes a drink. Diaz goes back to his beer like he didn’t just open a vein without warning.
“Night, everybody,” I say.
“Night, Sullivan,” Derek says. “Tell the vet I said hi.”
“I will not,” I call over my shoulder.
The main drag is quiet on the walk home. Streetlights pooling orange on the sidewalk, a town half-asleep. Cal walks beside me, beer label still in his fingers because Cal never finishes anything. Drinks, sentences, label strips.
“Diaz isn’t wrong,” Cal says.
“I know.”
“But she hasn’t told you to stop coming, either, so that’s good.”
He’s right. She hasn’t. The wall’s up, but the door isn’t locked. I’m not going to look at what that means.
Janet watches me walk into the clinic. She’s been watching me walk into this clinic every day, and the look she gives me over her glasses has evolved from curiosity to something that’s probably amusement and is definitely not pity, because Janet doesn’t seem to do pity.
The burns are healing well. Dr. Hartley peels back the dressing and the skin underneath is pink and new, still tender, still working, but the worst of it is behind him. The dog holds still for her. Always does.
“Dermatitis is responding to the medication,” she says, writing in the chart. “He’s ready to live outside the crate. I’ll send you home with the medication schedule and wound-care instructions. Drop the visits to every other day for checkups.”
After days in the crate, he’s well enough to wander with supervision, and the crew has already set up a corner in the day room with a bed Navarro bought and a water bowl Keller labeled SMOKY in Sharpie, which means the dog has a name and a home and a labeled water bowl at a fire station in a town I’m supposed to be passing through.
Every-other-day checkups. Fewer trips to this exam room. I should be relieved.
She goes over the medication, dosage, timing, what to watch for. All of it aimed at the chart, professional, thorough. I’ve been coming here every day. Each visit I’ve told myself it’s about the follow-up. The first time, that was true. I’m not so sure about all the other times.
Dr. Hartley looks up. Catches me watching her.
For half a second something crosses her face that isn’t the reserve or the professional wall. A crack. She shuts it down fast and closes the chart.
The dog looks between us, one ear up, one ear down, entirely too satisfied with himself.
“Every other day, Sullivan.”
“For the dog,” I say.
She holds my eye. One beat longer than necessary.
“For the dog,” Dr. Hartley says.
The dog yawns, full jaw, tongue curling, total disregard for whatever the humans are doing. He puts his head on her shoe and closes his eyes.
Buddy. Same.