Page 95 of Honeyfires

"Hi," she finally said, blinking up at me.

"Hi," I said.

We stayed like that for a long time, breathing, the room going slowly dark around us as the last of the evening light disappeared. Outside, the desert had started its night sounds, the kind of quiet that wasn't quiet at all once you'd lived in it long enough.

"For the record," she said eventually, her voice soft against my chest, "I knew someone was going to behave badly today."

I looked down at her. "You knew?"

"Not those two specifically. But there's always someone." She shrugged one shoulder. "What I didn't expect was how everyone else responded."

"Miller's face," I said.

"Miller's face," she agreed. "And Rodriguez already standing there before you'd finished talking." She paused. "And Stevens."

I went still. "Stevens?"

"He knocked on the truck window before you started the engine. You didn't see him?"

"I… no."

"He said he was sorry it happened at something that was supposed to be fun. That I was a real one. That he hoped we'd come back for the next one." She was quiet for a moment. "And then he left before it got awkward. He read the room."

"He really is getting better at that," I said. "It's almost alarming."

"He also told me the tournament bracket is unfinished, and he needs my official cornhole data to complete the records."

"Of course he does."

"I told him I'd send my stats in writing." She yawned, settling. "Library science. Gotta document everything."

Outside, the desert had gotten dark and enormous, the stars over San Jacinto absurd in their abundance. I lay there with my hand in Vera's hair and thought about Stevens on the roof of the brush truck with his good frisbee that had flames on it, and Miller at the end of the table all afternoon watching everything and saying almost nothing and being more present than people who talked twice as much, and Rodriguez not needing to be asked.

"Jackson's going to pretend this was all fine at the next shift," I said.

"Miller's going to pretend it never happened."

"Rodriguez is going to bring it up in a one-on-one and be extremely sensible about it."

"And Brandon," she said, "is going to show me the completed tournament bracket with my arc statistics annotated."

"Laminated," I said.

"Oh, definitely laminated." She pressed her lips to my chest. "Goodnight, Petra."

"Goodnight, baby."

She was asleep quickly, the way she always was, her breath evening out against my shoulder.

I lay awake a little longer. The crew had shown me who they were tonight, too. Not just the two who hadn't.

Mostly, I thought about that.

I'd Burn Every Bridge Twice

Chapter Seventeen

The dynamic at Station 19 shifted overnight, like a fault line had cracked straight through the bay floor, splitting everything I'd built with these men into jagged, irreparable pieces.