Page 55 of Falling For You

The drive back was quiet. Birdie fell asleep ten minutes in, her head against the window, her rock collection in a plastic bag on her lap. Andy was in the passenger seat. The desert scrolled past. Neither of us was filling the silence.

I glanced at her once. She was looking out the window, one hand resting on the console between us. I wanted to reach for it. I kept my hands on the wheel and let the want sit there.

We pulled up to the block just after noon. Andy carried Birdie inside while I started on the truck. She came back out and we worked through the pile together. Cooler, sleeping bags, the camp stove. When it was done, she picked up her duffel and slung it over her shoulder.

"Thanks for bringing me along," she said.

"Thanks for coming."

She smiled. Turned toward her house. Got three steps.

"Andy."

She stopped and turned. "Yeah?"

"See you at dinner tomorrow?"

She looked back at me and smiled. "Yeah. See you tomorrow."

I watched her cross the street.

Tomorrow couldn't come fast enough.

CHAPTER 23

The Kiss

WYATT

Andy came for dinner the next night. And the night after that. And every night after that.

The evenings were different after the camping trip. Andy stayed longer, laughed easier, let Birdie curl into her side on the couch.

On the nights Andy was working late, the house was quieter than it used to be. I'd catch myself listening for the door, waiting for her boots on the porch steps, and when the sound didn't come, it felt like something was missing.

"Is Andy coming?" Birdie would ask, every time the chair was empty. Like the evening couldn't start until she walked through the door.

On the days Andy was off and I was on shift, Barb took Birdie across the street to get her. I'd come home the next morning and Birdie would tell me everything. What Andy made for dinner, what they watched, how Andy let her stay up ten minutes past bedtime. She reported it like a debrief.

Some nights after Birdie was asleep and the house was quiet, I'd sit on the couch and wonder how long it would last. Whether one evening she'd stop showing up, because the good things in my life had a pattern of not lasting. My father left. Lillian was taken from me. And this was starting to feel like something I couldn't afford to lose. But I'd sit there thinking about it anyway. Whether there was something I could say, something I could do, that would turn the fourth plate into a real place at the table.

The call came in just before noon. Gas leak at a strip mall off Sahara. The restaurant owner had smelled it before opening, called it in, and we had the block evacuated within fifteen minutes. Standard procedure. Establish the perimeter, wait for Southwest Gas, keep everyone back until the readings clear.

Sergeant Elliot Handler showed up twenty minutes in with two units for traffic control. I was on the east side of the perimeter, directing a couple of restaurant employees to the staging area across the street, when he walked up to me.

"Pull the tape back thirty feet."

"We haven't cleared that zone yet, Sergeant."

"You've got the source isolated. There's no reason to keep the whole block shut down." He was already waving a delivery truck through. "I've got businesses losing money."

"We don't have readings back on the adjacent units."

"Then get your readings faster."

He walked past me to his officers and told them to adjust the barricade. Our captain came over. Handler talked past him the same way he talked past everyone. He addressed his own officers, reopened the lane, and treated the conversation like it was already over. Captain Thompson radioed dispatch to put the exchange on record.

Knox walked up after Handler left.