Chapter 4 #2
"You get used to it." He pauses, like the words surprised him. "The dinosaur thing. Some of it's actually interesting."
I look at him. He studies the wall just past my left ear.
"No excessive visitors," he adds, apparently deciding that was enough honesty for one evening.
"My social life is currently me, a fern, and that judgmental cat outside."
"Clarence isn't my cat."
"He's claimed your porch as personal territory."
"He's persistent."
"You said that already."
"Because it's still accurate," he mutters.
I take a sip of coffee. Beck's still standing there, arms crossed, running through some internal checklist to see if he's missed anything.
He has the particular quality of a person who double-checks locked doors before bed --- not anxious, just thorough.
The kind of thorough that comes from experience with things going wrong.
"What's your shift schedule like?" he asks.
"Twenty-four on, forty-eight off. Extra shifts when they're short."
He nods. "Station 7?"
"Yeah. Ambulance with Tommy Ricci," I say.
"Good medic. Quiet."
"That's Tommy." I lean against the counter. "You were Seattle before this?"
"Twelve years."
"Long time. What made you leave?"
His shoulders tighten. For a second I think I've stepped somewhere I wasn't invited. Then: "Needed a change. Slower pace."
There's more behind it --- I can hear it in the flatness of his voice, see it in the way he's looking past me instead of at me. But I'm not going to push. I know what it's like to have reasons you don't want to hand to a stranger.
"Copper Ridge is definitely slower," I offer. "Biggest call I've had so far was a woman convinced she was having a heart attack because her cable went out during Jeopardy."
His mouth shifts. Almost a smile. "Seattle had similar calls. Different excuses."
"What was the worst excuse?"
"Man convinced he was having a heart attack," he says. "Turned out to be gas station sushi."
I wince. "That's not a medical emergency; that's a poor life choice."
"I didn't say that to him," Beck says.
"But you thought it."
He doesn't deny it. His mouth does the almost-smile thing again, and this time it gets a little closer to the real thing before he reins it in.
We fall quiet again, but the temperature of it has changed. Easier. Like we've found shared ground in the particular language of people who show up when other people can't.
"Denver Health before this?" he asks.
"Trauma center."
He looks at me more carefully. "That's a significant change."
"Yeah, well." I shrug. "Like you said. Slower pace."
"How long were you there?"
"Five years."
"That's not that long."
"Long enough." The words come out flat, and I watch him register the tone the same way he registered the tightness in his own voice a minute ago --- a small nod, subject closed, no further questions.
It should feel like getting away with something.
Instead it just feels like two people standing in a kitchen, both carrying things they're not ready to put down.
"First shift at the station go okay?" I ask.
"Crew's still sizing me up," he says. "They're polite."
"But distant."
"Yeah."
"They'll come around. Station 7's good people. Just protective of their own."
He grunts. "Noticed that."
"Show them you're solid in a call and they'll trust you. They're not complicated."
"That's the plan."
Through the window, Clarence appears on the railing and meows. Loud and pointed. Beck's eye twitches.
"He did that last night too," he mutters.
"Maybe he's hungry."
"I'm not feeding him," Beck says, with the conviction of a man who will absolutely be feeding him within the week.
"You said that very convincingly."
"I mean it."
"Sure you do, Captain."
He gives me a look that closes the subject. Then he picks up his empty mug, rinses it at the sink --- sets it upside down on the drying rack, which has been there less than a day and is already perfectly positioned --- and heads for the connecting door.
The pause stretches just long enough to be something.
"If you need anything, kitchen's fair game after five. Anything breaks, tell me before you try to fix it."
"Noted."
"And..." He gestures vaguely at nothing in particular. "Thanks for. Earlier. With Ivy."
"She's great."
"She's amazing." A beat. "And exhausting." The way he says it --- flat, factual, both things equally true and equally love --- does something small and inconvenient to my chest.
Then he's gone, the door clicking softly behind him.
I stand in the middle of my living room and run an assessment.
My landlord just spent the better part of an hour giving me a comprehensive tour of a space I already spent a night in.
He demonstrated the shower temperature zones I discovered through painful personal experience.
He showed me the coat closet currently holding my jacket.
He treated the laundry schedule like municipal code, made one joke he refuses to acknowledge, rinsed his mug and positioned it perfectly on the rack out of what appears to be pure instinct, and said thank you like the words cost him something to find.
Beck Delano is going to be a problem. Not the annoying kind. The other kind.
I wash my mug in the kitchenette sink --- I already know which way the hot tap sticks --- unpack the rest of my duffel, and drop onto the couch. A spring registers its objection immediately. I shift. Another spring. It's fine. It's dry, it's mine, and the walls don't have water running down them.
My phone buzzes.
Riley: How's the new place?
Me: Dry
Riley: Setting the bar high
Me: Landlord gave me a full house tour. Including a demonstration of the shower handle. Has a label maker for the breaker box.
Riley: Sounds delightful
Me: Also has a six-year-old who is obsessed with dinosaurs and possibly the cutest human on the planet
Riley: Oh no
Me: What?
Riley: You're going to get attached
Me: I'm not going to get attached. It's six weeks.
Riley: Sure, Gem. Six weeks.
I toss the phone onto the cushion and stare at the ceiling. She's wrong. Six weeks is plenty of time to find something permanent without getting attached to a grumpy fire captain with excellent coffee and a kid who has strong feelings about the orange cat's emotional life.
Kevin lists slightly to one side on the windowsill. I straighten him before heading to the bedroom.
I collapse onto the unmade mattress and stare up.
Through the wall, Beck's voice. Low, steady.
A bedtime story --- I can't make out words, just the rhythm.
Patient. Nothing like the clipped efficiency of the house tour, nothing like the careful way he parceled out personal information and then shut the door on it.
Just a man reading to his kid at the end of the day.
Then Ivy, clear as a bell: "Daddy, I think the new person is pretty."
I freeze.
Long silence from the other side of the wall.
Come on, Beck. Anything.
"Go to sleep, Ivy."
I press my face into my pillow so the laughter doesn't carry. Six-year-old wingwoman. Completely unhinged. I love her already and that is exactly the problem Riley was pointing at.
Through the window, Clarence sits on the railing, silhouetted against the star-packed sky. His eyes catch the light. Watchful. Waiting.
I find the gas station sandwich at the bottom of my duffel and bring it out to him. He eats it in three seconds, looks at me, looks at where the sandwich was, and then begins grooming his paw with the expression of someone who expected better but isn't surprised.
"You're welcome," I tell him.
Back inside, I pull the blanket up and listen to him purring through the window --- loud enough to carry through the glass, which seems like a lot of effort for a cat who was just unimpressed by my sandwich.
Tomorrow, first shift at Station 7. With Beck.
My new captain who is also my landlord, gives tours of places you already live, and sounds like a completely different person reading bedtime stories.
Six weeks. Totally manageable.