Chapter 6 Maya
Maya
Shane Briggs kept his word.
That was the problem.
Two weeks since he'd stood in my doorway and offered friendship like it was something effortless. Something harmless. Something he could deliver without strings, without expectations, without the slow creep of obligation that always came with men who wanted something.
I’d been waiting for it to fall apart. For the texts to slow down, the visits to space out, the interest to fade, the way interest always faded when someone realized what they'd signed up for.
A cramped apartment in Queens. A thirteen-year-old with trust issues.
A woman so tired she could barely remember what it felt like to be wanted.
But Shane kept showing up.
Monday morning, I was in the teacher's lounge refilling my coffee. It tasted like burned regret, but it was free, and it was caffeine, and that was enough.
A murmur rippled through the room. Chairs scraped. Someone gasped.
"Is that Shane Briggs?"
I turned. Shane was standing in the doorway in jeans and a worn FDNY t-shirt, a paper cup in each hand, scanning the room until his eyes found mine.
Every teacher in the lounge went still.
He crossed the room like he didn't notice the stares, the whispers already starting. Linda elbowed the teacher beside her, barely containing her delight. He stopped in front of me and held out one of the cups.
"Passed the bodega on 43rd. I remembered you said Mondays are rough."
I'd mentioned once, in passing, a few nights ago, during one of our late-night text conversations that had become disturbingly routine, that the bodega on 43rd Street made good coffee.
"Two sugars, splash of milk." He set it in my hands. "Still warm. Figured you could use it before the Monday chaos starts."
He remembered.
I had told him about the “Monday Morning Brief” or the frantic ten-minute huddle where we were forced to sync the week’s schedule before the kids even hit the hallways.
It was our time to brace for upcoming events and manage the “weekend fallout” or whatever drama or trouble the students had found on Saturday night that would inevitably blow up in our classrooms by first period. The administration called it “boosting morale.”
"You didn't have to do that," I managed.
I always said that. Like kindness was something people needed to justify.
"I know. I was already passing by." He shrugged, easy, like this was nothing. Like bringing coffee to a woman in a room full of gossip was just something friends did.
"Well." A voice came from behind us. "Isn't that thoughtful?"
I turned. Principal Hendricks stood in the doorway, files tucked under her arm, a warm smile spreading across her face. I hadn't even noticed her walk in.
"Principal Hendricks." Shane gave her a polite nod.
"Mr. Briggs. Nice to see you again." She glanced between us. There was something knowing in her expression. "Such a dedicated friend."
Shane just smiled. "Maya's worth being dedicated to."
The room went so quiet I could hear the coffee machine gurgling.
"I should let you get to work." He was already stepping back, headed for the door. "Have a good one."
And then he was gone.
Principal Hendricks caught my eye, her smile softening into something that looked almost like hope. Then she cleared her throat and addressed the room. "Staff meeting in ten, everyone."
The whispers waited until she turned away. Then they erupted like water through a broken dam.
I took my coffee and left before anyone could corner me.
Thursday evening, he showed up with a toolbox.
"Your faucet," he said when I opened the door. "You mentioned it was dripping."
I had mentioned it. Once. A throwaway comment about the landlord who never fixed anything, and the YouTube tutorials I didn't have time to watch.
Shane fixed it in fifteen minutes, packed up his tools, said goodnight, and left.
Friday evening, he asked how Zoe did on her math quiz.
Shane
Zoe ace that math quiz?
Saturday morning, he sent a video: a little kid presenting a research project about why pizza should be a vegetable. Dead serious, full poster board and everything.
Shane
Future student of yours?
I watched it three times.
Every interaction was exactly what he'd promised. Friendship. No pressure. No expectations. No loaded silences or lingering touches or comments that made me wonder what he really wanted.
It was maddening.
I'd spent years learning to read men. Learning to spot the angle, the agenda, the moment their patience ran out and they revealed what they'd wanted all along.
David had been charming for two years before he started sighing every time I mentioned being tired.
Before the sighs turned to criticism turned to absence turned to "I didn't sign up for this. "
But Shane wasn't sighing. Wasn't hinting. Wasn't doing any of the things that would let me categorize him as another man who'd eventually leave.
He was just... there. Present. Consistent in a way that felt foreign, like a language I'd never learned to speak.
I didn't know what to do with that.
Zoe noticed before I did.
"Mom." She was sprawled on the couch, geometry homework spread across the coffee table, when Shane left after tightening the loose cabinet hinges that had been driving me crazy for months. "Why does Shane keep coming over?"
"We're friends."
"Friends." She drew out the word, skeptical. "He fixed our cabinets."
"Friends can fix cabinets."
"He brought you coffee at school."
"How do you know about that?"
"Mrs. Rivera told her daughter, who's in my grade." Zoe rolled her eyes. "By lunch, everyone knew. The whole school's talking about how that hot firefighter from the calendar is bringing Ms. Cummins coffee."
My face went hot. "He's not—we're just—"
"Mom." Zoe sat up, something serious crossing her face. "I'm not stupid. I know you like him."
"Zoe—"
"I'm just saying." She picked at the corner of her textbook. "He's different from the other guys."
The other guys. There had been exactly two dates in the eight years since David left. Both disasters. Both ended with me crying in my car, convinced I'd never be enough for anyone.
"Different how?"
Zoe shrugged, trying to look casual and failing. "He actually listens when I talk. Like, really listens. Not just waiting for me to stop so he can say something."
I watched her. My fierce, guarded daughter who'd learned too young that fathers could leave. Who'd built walls almost as high as mine.
"When you were preparing lesson plans last week," she wouldn't meet my eyes. "I asked him about the firehouse, the rescues, and whether he ever gets scared."
"What did he say?"
"He said yes. All the time." Zoe finally looked up. "He said fear keeps you sharp. That the guys who stop being scared are the ones who get sloppy."
Something loosened in my chest. Shane could have lied. Could have performed bravery, the way men so often did. But he'd told my daughter the truth that courage wasn't the absence of fear; it was showing up anyway.
"I like that answer," I said quietly.
"Yeah." Zoe went back to her homework, but I caught the ghost of a smile. "Me too."
That night, after Zoe went to bed, I made a mistake.
I Googled him again.
Not the surface search I'd done after the hospital. This time I went deeper. I clicked through pages of results, and let the algorithm pull me into a spiral I couldn't escape.
Shane Briggs at a charity gala, black tie, arm around a woman in a red dress that probably cost more than my monthly rent.
Shane Briggs at a restaurant opening, models on either side, flash bulbs exploding.
Shane Briggs on the cover of a magazine called NYC's Most Eligible, the headline screaming about his "revolving door of beauties. "
Comments under articles were:
I saw him at Marquee last year. Left with a different girl than he came with.
My friend hooked up with him at a firehouse benefit. Said he was gone before sunrise.
Typical hot firefighter. Enjoy the ride, ladies, but don't expect him to call.
My stomach turned.
This was it. What I'd been waiting for.
The truth behind the charm, the evidence that men like Shane Briggs didn't end up with women like me.
I was a novelty. A project. The struggling single mom, he could help out of the goodness of his heart, before returning to his real life of charity events, models, and women who had time to wear red dresses and go to restaurant openings.
You're a good story, I thought. The exhausted teacher he rescued. He'll tell people about you at parties. "This one time, I helped this single mom. She was so grateful."
I put my phone down and pressed my palms against my eyes until I saw stars.
I needed to distance myself from him, pull back the texts, decline the visits, rebuild the walls before he could break them down any further. I'd been surviving on my own for years. I didn't need a famous firefighter playing savior with my life.
Needing people only led to disappointment. I'd learned that lesson early and well.
I'd just forgotten it for a minute. That was all it took.
Saturday evening, Shane showed up with grocery bags.
"You mentioned you hadn't had time to shop." He was already moving past me into the kitchen, setting bags on the counter.
"Shane, you can't just—"
"Already did." He was unpacking. Vegetables. Chicken. Pasta. "I'm making stir fry. Unless you hate stir fry, in which case I'm making something else."
The Google images flashed through my mind.
Shane on a red carpet. Shane, with his arm around a model.
Shane in a world of glitter and flashbulbs that had nothing to do with this cramped apartment with its dripping faucet—fixed now, because of him—and its thirdhand furniture and its windows that didn't quite seal against the winter drafts.
What are you doing here? Don't you have galas to attend? Models to date? A real life to get back to?
I should have argued. I should have told him to leave because I couldn't let him keep doing things for me without knowing what he wanted in return.
Instead, I heard myself say, "I don't hate stir fry."
"Good. Sit down. Grade papers. I've got this."
I sat down at the kitchen table, where Zoe was already doing homework. Picked up my red pen and started grading Marcus's essay about why dogs were better than cats.
Shane moved through my kitchen like he belonged there. He found the cutting board without asking and located the good knife in the drawer. He turned on the stove and adjusted the flame like he’d done it his whole life.
When Zoe finished her homework, she drifted over to watch Shane cook.
"Can I help?"
"Sure. You're on vegetable duty." He handed her a pepper and a knife. "Think you can handle it?"
“I’m not a baby,” she said flatly.
"Just making sure you know not to cut toward yourself."
Zoe rolled her eyes but positioned the pepper correctly. I watched Shane watch her patiently. He stepped in only when she struggled with the onion.
"You're crying," Zoe said, staring at him.
Shane wiped his eyes with the back of his wrist, laughing. "Onions. They get me every time."
"Aren't you supposed to be tough? You run into burning buildings."
"Fire, I can handle. Onions are my kryptonite." He sniffed dramatically. "Don't tell the guys at the station. They'll never let me live it down."
Zoe grinned. Actually grinned. "Your secret's safe with me."
"Appreciate it." He handed her a paper towel. "Pro tip: put them in the freezer for ten minutes before cutting. My mom taught me that."
"Does it work?"
"Usually. When I remember." He adjusted the flame under the pan. "She was a great cook. You remind me of her,” he said, almost absently.
Zoe's grin faded into something more cautious. "How?"
“She had the same 'I don't trust you but I'm going to give you a chance anyway' look."
Zoe snorted. But she didn't deny it.
After dinner, Zoe retreated to her room. Shane and I ended up on the couch—him with a beer, me with tea, a careful distance still between us.
"Got a call the other day," he said. "Kitchen fire in Woodside. A Small one. Grease fire that got out of control."
"Did anyone get hurt?"
"A lady burned her hand. Nothing serious. The real drama was the cat."
"The cat?"
"Persian. His name was Mr. Fluffington." Shane grinned. "He hid under the bed when the smoke started. We had to crawl under there to get him out. He was not happy about it at all."
I laughed. "Did Mr. Fluffington make it?"
"Mr. Fluffington is fine. He is very traumatized, though. Very judgmental about the whole rescue situation." Shane's grin softened. "The family was so relieved. The cat's been with them for fifteen years. Their kids grew up with him."
“That’s a lifetime,” I said.
"Yeah." He was quiet for a moment. "That's the part people don't see. The after. When everyone's safe, and you get to watch families hold each other. It makes up for the other calls."
"The bad ones?"
"There are always bad ones." His voice was steady, but something shifted in his eyes. "But that one wasn't one of them. That one was good."
The silence stretched. Why are you here? The question pressed against my throat. What do you want from me?
But I couldn't make myself ask. Because part of me already knew the answer: he was here because he wanted to be. Because he liked my daughter and my terrible coffee and my cramped apartment with its fixed faucet and its thirdhand furniture.
Because maybe, impossibly, he liked me.
And that was the terrifying part. That was the thing I couldn't let myself believe.
Because believing meant hoping. And hoping meant risk.
Shane finished his beer and stood. "I should head out. I have an early shift tomorrow."
"Of course."
I walked him to the door. He paused, hand on the frame, and I found myself staring at it.
At the broad knuckles, the calluses from years of gripping hoses and axes and pulling people from burning buildings.
His forearms were tan beneath the pushed-up sleeves of his Henley, corded with muscle, a faded scar running along the inside of his left wrist.
I wondered what those hands would feel like on my skin. The thought came unbidden, and I shoved it away, but not before heat crept up my neck.
For a second, I thought he might say something. Do something. Break the careful boundary he'd been honoring for weeks.
But he just smiled. "See you next Saturday?"
"Sure."
He left.
I watched him walk to the elevator, waited until the doors closed before I let out the breath I'd been holding.
Just friends.
He was keeping his word, showing up without pushing. Being present without demanding.
And I was starting to wish he wouldn't.