Page 24

“I made him a house too.”

“You made him a house?”

“With Legos. It has a garage.”

“Does the hamster drive?”

“No.” He says it like I’m the ridiculous one, which, fair. “But if he ever learns, he’ll be ready.”

There’s my kid.

I shake my head, unable to stop grinning.

“Sounds like you two barely survived twenty-four hours without me.”

“We thrived,” Dottie says.

“I can see that.”

The hot water does exactly what I need it to do. By the time I shut it off, the smell of smoke has faded enough that I can’t pick it out anymore. I know it’ll still be there somewhere. It always is after a long shift, settling into the gear, the truck, and somehow lingering in places you wouldn’t expect. But ten uninterrupted minutes under hot water gets me close enough.

Close enough counts.

I pull on a clean T-shirt and a pair of basketball shorts and run a towel through my hair one last time. The shower helped. Just, not enough. My body’s still running on the ninety minutes of sleep the station let me steal, and every part of me is telling me to find the couch and stay there until my next shift.

I don’t tell my body it’s right. There’s a kid on the other side of this door who’s waited twenty-four hours for me, and he doesn’t get the tired version of his dad. He gets the present one. That’s the deal I made a long time ago, and it’s the one I never break.

The second I step into the hallway, the house comes at me all at once.

“Dad!”

Bo comes flying past my bedroom carrying three Lego bricks in one hand and Fluffy in the other.

I stop walking, and I dig up a grin from somewhere. It isn’t even hard. It’s him.

“Buddy.”

He skids to a halt and looks back at me.

“What?”

I point toward the hamster, keeping it light.

“You carrying him around again?”

Bo looks down at Fluffy like he’d completely forgotten he was there. He scratches the hamster behind the ears before holding him up for me to inspect. “I was showing him the kitchen.”

“You should probably put him back before he decides to explore without you.” I say it as gentle as I’ve got in me.

Bo’s whole face changes.

The light drops out of it. His shoulders fold in, the bricks sink to his side, and he nods, small, down at the floor.

“Okay,” he says. And he turns for his room with his head down and no bounce left in him, a boy who thought he was showing his dad something great and got told to put it away.

“Hey. Bo.”

He stops.