Page 49 of Honeyfires

"Sir—"

"That's an order, Alves."

"Yes, sir," I said, and filed that sentence in the same internal pocket where I kept the Post-its.

Jackson deployed the cookies strategically, waiting until everyone had been standing in a parking lot examining helicopter components for an hour—devotion, not enthusiasm, being the goal.

Vera had brought two dozen. They disappeared in minutes.

Stevens held a fourth cookie up with genuine admiration. "What's in these?"

"Brown butter. Takes an extra ten minutes, but it changes everything."

"Can you teach me?"

"I could teach anyone in this room."

A room full of firefighters processed this offer in silence.

"Baking afternoon," Jackson said out of nowhere. "Day off. Your place."

"Absolutely not," I said immediately.

"Alves." Rodriguez.

"You want my entire crew at her apartment."

"Please?" Stevens.

"I think it builds team cohesion," Jackson said, straight-faced.

"I think it would be fun," Vera said. She was perched on the edge of the apparatus bay table with a snickerdoodle, the picture of a woman who had already decided this was happening and was watching me arrive at the same conclusion.

"It would be fun," Miller said.

Every head turned.

Miller did not endorse optional social activities.

"Miller," I said.

He shrugged. "Brown butter's how my grandmother made them. Her mother's recipe. Everybody thought she was wrong."

"People always think the extra step isn't worth it," Vera said.

"They're not paying attention."

"Exactly." She held his gaze. "What was her name?"

Miller didn't talk about personal things. Miller was a sealed container. "Anna," he said. "Mostly in her handwriting. Hard to read."

"I work with old handwriting constantly," Vera said. "Bring it in sometime. I'll help you transcribe it."

He looked at her for a long moment and nodded. Then he reached out and took a fourth snickerdoodle.

I sat back in my chair and watched my crew. Stevens texting Vera the adjusted ratios for chocolate chip brown butter before she'd even finished her cookie. Jackson deep in a third-book dispute about the crime series they'd apparently both been reading. Rodriguez discussing municipal library funding with an expression I'd never seen on him at a budget meeting. Miller eating his snickerdoodle and watching Vera the way someone watched something they hadn't expected to find themselves grateful for.

I didn't have a word for what I was feeling. Pride was part of it. Something warmer and harder to name was the rest. The knowledge that the person you'd chosen had walked into the center of your life and fit there, without effort, without pretense, like she'd always been meant for that exact space.