Page 5 of Honeyfires

The corner of her mouth went up. Just barely. "Good."

She gestured at my groceries. "Go put those away."

"Are you sending me to my room?"

"I'm giving you a task so your hands have something to do while your brain catches up." She tilted her head. "Rosie's. Seven. I'll be the one not wearing duct tape."

"That's a low bar."

"And yet." She looked at my boot.

I laughed. Real, unplanned, from somewhere lower than my throat. It felt strange. Tender at the edges.

"Yeah," I said. "Seven."

"Perfect." She turned and walked back down the hallway. Paused at the corner. Looked back, the way women only do in paintings and old movies and moments you need to survive. "Oh, and Petra?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm asking you out on a date, in case it wasn't clear."

"It wasn't, not entirely."

She smiled. "I'm glad we clarified, then."

The Mary Janes clicked around the corner and she was gone, and I stood there in the empty hallway holding my groceries.

I had been outwitted, Dewey Decimaled, told the color beige is actually the color of a dead bride or whatever, and roasted about my footwear by a woman with a strawberry on her bag, and I had laughed more in the last six minutes than I had in six months.

I was so completely, comprehensively screwed.

We Don't Talk About Flagstaff

Chapter Two

Two hours later, I was standing in front of my bathroom mirror, questioning every decision I'd ever made.

I'd showered more than once, though I was pretending I wasn't counting, and the smoke smell was still winning. Wildland firefighting left a particular kind of shadow on a person. It got into the seams of things, into the fiber and the weave, into the very grain of the skin. I understood this about fire. Fire was patient. It waited in the walls of things. I did not want to smell like one on a first date with a woman who smelled like vanilla and warm, sunlit pages.

My wardrobe offered limited assistance. Military surplus, work gear, band t-shirts. I owned approximately one civilian outfit that could work: dark jeans without any of the usual battle-damaged holes, and a black button-down I reserved for funerals and the one time I'd appeared in small claims court over a noise complaint at the station. It had performed adequately on both occasions.

The motorcycle jacket went back on. It wasn't exactly going to complement coquette, but it was armor, and I had a feeling I was going to need all of it.

I stared at myself in the mirror for a moment. Tattoos. Scars. Dark, purplish circles that had been there so long they felt like features. The jacket with its red embroidery. The boots.

I looked exactly like a Petra, apparently.

I chose to take that as a compliment and left before I could talk myself out of going.

Rosie's Diner sat on the corner of Main and Second, chrome and red vinyl, unchanged since before I could remember, a kind of monument to the idea that some things didn't have to change to stay worth keeping. The neon sign buzzed and flickered in the early evening, casting everything in a soft and post-sunset pinkish-purple hue, like the whole parking lot was being seen through a giant rose-colored glass.

I pulled up on my Harley as Vera was stepping out of a powder-blue vintage Beetle that looked so exactly right for her it was almost magical. She'd changed into a navy dress with tiny white flowers, a cream (or was it Antique Bridal Whisper?) cardigan, hair pinned up with a few pieces escaping around her pretty face. She looked like she'd been painted by someone who loved the 1950s and had very strong feelings about soft lighting.

It was profoundly unfair how attractive she was.

She waved when she spotted me, and I tried to do something normal with my face. I'm not certain I succeeded.

"Nice car," I said, pulling off my helmet. My hair came down in its usual dark chaos, a small weather event of its own.