Page 62 of Into the Fire

Neither of us moved for a while. The music was over. We were only running thirty minutes late. It was worth it.

Dante lay stretched crosswise with his head on my stomach, taking up two-thirds of a bed that had held one man for five years.

“I’ve solved it,” he said. “We’re the stars of a romcom.”

“We’re not.”

“I’ve reviewed the evidence.” He held up a hand and counted the proof. “Reunion after years apart. Hostility concealing feelings. Forced proximity, courtesy of the federal government. Baggage.” He folded a finger for each one. “You cooked me dinner. I stayed over. Now I have a toothbrush here, and I ran out of fingers.”

“There’s no meet-cute.”

He tipped his head back to look at me. “You know the terminology.”

“You made me watch a hundred of them.”

“I’ve got it. We jumped out of an airplane together. That works.”

“That’s not a meet-cute.”

“But you checked my harness.”

“That was my job.”

“It was very intimate.”

“You were wearing eighty pounds of equipment.”

“I felt something,” he said. “I bet you did too.”

I looked at the ceiling. He was warm and heavy on my stomach. “Your movies have poisoned your brain,” I said.

“My movies are honest about their intentions. Your record collection has spent thirty years telling you love is a catastrophe, and you still keep listening to it.” He patted my ribs. “Time to diversify.”

Dante got up first. I stayed where I was for a minute and watched him move through my bedroom.

He didn’t ask where anything was. He got clean socks out of the second drawer, and he took the gray flannel off its hanger, two down from mine. He found his phone on the charger without looking for it.

I got dressed. Dante walked down the hall, and I heard the refrigerator, the rattle of a spoon, and the travel mug’s lid snapping on.

The porch was cool. The sunlight hadn’t come over the ridge yet. I sat down on the bench and pulled on my boots.

After a second, Dante sat beside me and pulled on his.

Chapter sixteen

Dante

We came down the spur at seven-thirty, Boone’s truck first and mine behind it, close enough together that anybody watching the gate got the entire story in one look.

Everybody watched the gate. It was a small federal facility with one road in.

Boone parked in his spot. I parked next to Shep’s lemon-yellow truck.

Marty stood in the Operations doorway with a stack of paper and his glasses up. He looked at the clock through the window behind him. Then he looked at Boone and then at me.

“Traffic,” I said and smiled.

Marty leaned slightly to see past us down the county road, which lay empty to the tree line.