Page 118 of The Best Shot

“Good. I’ll confirm on my end. Go celebrate. You earned this.”

“Thank you.”

“Thank me when you win something with the photos. Talk soon.”

The call ended.

Antarctica.

I said it aloud again to the empty room.

The apartment had been quiet for a week now. The spare room door stood open the way CeeCee had left it, and one yellow hanger still hooked over the closet rod.

We’d moved her on Saturday. Denise and I hauled boxes while CeeCee directed from the couch, one hand on her belly because nobody was letting her carry anything heavier than a pillow. Her new place was small and landlord-beige, with a yard barely bigger than a bath towel, but she’d stood in the middle of the kitchen staring at the cabinets like she couldn’t believe they were hers to fill.

I stayed for pizza, but left before it got dark. Sat in her driveway a full minute before I made myself pull off.

Now this.

I’d been working toward something like this for most of my adult life. The kind of assignment that could change a career. Months in a place most people would never see, with enough time to get it right.

My mind started moving before the rest of me could catch up.

Medical clearance. Gear. The 400mm needed servicing. Cold-weather equipment that wouldn’t fail me halfway through. What to do with the apartment. Hale could⁠—

I stopped.

Hale.

Six months on the ice with six weeks to be ready.

My phone was still in my hand, the brief open on the screen. A photograph stretched across it, white land and hard blue sky, so clean and distant it made the rest of my life feel small and loud.

Saying yes had been instinct.

Hale was the part that came after.

I grabbed my keys. I’d figure out what to say when I saw him.

He was at the stove when I came through the mudroom.

“Fair warning,” he said. “I cooked like I was only feeding myself tonight.”

I dropped my bag by the door and slipped off my shoes. “Meaning?”

“Meaning meat and heat. C’mere. Taste.”

He held out the spoon.

I leaned in and got tomato, garlic, smoke, too much red pepper. “It’s good.”

“Yeah?” He looked at me properly then, and the corner of his mouth lifted. “Well, hello. That look isn’t for my pasta sauce.”

He set the spoon down and turned the heat off under the pans. “Good news?”

“Stupidly good. I⁠—”

“Wait.”