Page 20 of Stuck With the Smokejumper

Everyone starts arguing at once about whether the teams were fair. I barely register it. Ivy is still on my shoulders, hands raised in victory.

Then she seems to remember where she is. “Oh.”

I crouch. Her hands settle onto my shoulders, and she slides down behind me, one hand briefly brushing my back before her feet find the lake bottom. Then she's gone, joining Tessa and Dani in an argument over whether Dani's lost noodle should've ended the round before she hit the water.

I head toward Reid.

He splashes me. “Cheater.”

“Sore loser.”

“You inherited my teammate.”

“Sounds like a personal problem.”

By late afternoon, we're packing everything back into the vehicles. Nolan is hungry again. Nobody understands how. I carry one end of a cooler up the trail while Reid takes the other. Behind us, the others gather towels and bags.

Reid looks toward the lake. “Not a bad place to get stuck for a few weeks.”

“No.” It really isn't. I glance back. Ivy and Tessa are shaking sand from a blanket while Dani tries to fit three towels into an already full bag.

Tonight I'll be sleeping down the hall from Ivy. Tomorrow too. Maybe for the rest of the summer.

That's new.

five

Ivy

The Grangers' kitchen is full by the time we walk in, just like every Sunday. Tessa heads straight for the cabinet with the water glasses. Dani has her head in the refrigerator before she's even said hello to anyone. Reid and Trevor disappear toward the porch to grab extra chairs, and Cassidy scoops a stack of plates off the counter like she's done it thirty times, because she has.

“Where does this go?” Nolan is standing in the middle of the kitchen holding a bowl of rolls like it might detonate.

Three people answer at once. He looks more confused than before he asked.

Annie is at the stove, wooden spoon in hand, giving directions to no one in particular and everyone at once. “Someone needs to tell Russ the corn is almost ready.”

“I heard you,” Russ calls through the screen door. “I have ears.”

“You normally have selective ears.”

Reid reaches for a piece of bread on the cutting board.

Annie doesn't even look over. “Reid Sawyer, if that bread is gone before dinner, you're eating outside with the dog.”

He puts it back.

Sunday dinner at Russ and Annie Granger's has marked the unofficial start of every Blackpine workweek for as many summers as I can remember. Fire assignments and emergencies are the only things that get you out of it. Everything else waits until Monday.

Beck stands just inside the doorway, and for the first time since he showed up on our floor yesterday morning, he looks like he doesn't know what to do with himself.

I hand him a stack of napkins. “Table. Russ likes them folded, but nobody does it.”

He looks at the napkins, then at me. “Got it.”

Watching him figure out the house is strange. Beck's the kind of person who walks into a burning forest and knows where to put his hands. Here, he doesn't know which cupboard holds the glasses, doesn't know Russ hates being offered help with the grill, doesn't know which chair at the table wobbles if you lean the wrong way. He's on Nolan's level tonight. But it doesn't last long. By the time I glance back over, someone's put him on corn duty, and he's figured out how Annie wants it stacked on the serving plate.

I'm carrying a casserole dish out of the oven when I realize I don't have anywhere to set it. Beck reaches past me and slides a trivet onto the counter. “You looked like you needed that about two seconds ago.”