Page 88 of Honeyfires

"They're going to do something embarrassing," I said. "I just know it. I can feel it."

"Define embarrassing."

"I don't know yet. That's what makes it concerning."

She laughed, took the potato salad from me when I got out of the truck, and waited while I came around to her side. I looked at her in the afternoon light, at the red dress, the waves in her hair, the expression of someone who found me unreasonable in the best possible way, and felt that helplessness of being very in love with someone who was about to walk into a room full of people who were going to either embarrass me or embarrass themselves on my behalf.

"Stop staring," she said, already walking. "Or we'll be late."

"We're not late."

"We will be if you keep staring."

The barbecue was in full swing when we rounded the corner of the station to the back patio. The smell of grilling meat hit first, then the sounds; music from someone's Bluetooth speaker, the distant thwack of cornhole bags, three separate conversations happening at different volumes, the lawlessness between people who had been cooped up through an off-season and were enjoying being in the same place again.

I located my crew by triangulation, the way I always did: Rodriguez at the grill with the expression of a man who took barbecue seriously and would not be accepting unsolicited feedback about it; Miller at a picnic table, beer in hand, watching everything with that signature stillness because he had been watching things quietly for thirty years and found it more valuable than participating; Jackson in the middle of what appeared to be a heated cornhole dispute with two of the seasonals returning from a California assignment; and Stevens—

Stevens was on the roof of the brush truck.

"Why?" I said.

"There's a frisbee up there," Jackson called over without looking up from the cornhole dispute, which had reached the pointing-at-each-other stage. "He's been up there for twenty minutes. We've stopped asking."

"Stevens," I said calmly. "Get down. Now."

"I almost have it," Stevens called back, his arm extended toward something I couldn't see from the ground. "It went really far."

"It is not worth it."

"It's my good frisbee."

"There's no such—"

"It has flames on it."

I looked at Jackson. Jackson looked at me. We both looked at the roof of the brush truck.

"Stevens," Miller said, without raising his voice or looking up from his beer.

Stevens got down.

He landed in front of us covered in a fine layer of dirt and what appeared to be a stain of something I chose not to identify, and held up the frisbee with a triumphant grin.

"Got it," he said.

"Brandon," Vera said pleasantly, "that looks like a very nice frisbee."

Stevens looked at her. Looked at the frisbee. Looked back at her. He stood slightly straighter. "Thank you, Vera. It has flames on it."

"I can see that. Very appropriate for your line of work."

He pointed at her. "That's exactly what I thought when I bought it."

He walked away with his dignity somehow entirely intact, which was a gift he had likely been born with, and Vera turned to me with an expression that said see? Fine.

Rodriguez had appeared at our side during the roof incident, grill tongs in hand. He looked at Vera with that cool, calm assessment he gave everything at the station. "Welcome."

"Captain Rodriguez." She shook his hand, smiling brightly. "The grill smells incredible."