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“I’ll call Brandi back later. She probably has more bad news about the store’s finances. Or worse: about the arson investigation.”
Jack winced. “I don’t know what the fire inspector is going to do. But if it comes down to blaming you for arson, I’ll try to talk some sense into him.”
“I don’t want you to get in trouble.”
“I won’t push too hard. But I’ll vouch for your character. You would never do that. Besides, what’s the point of starting a fire if you nearly kill yourself in the process?”
I shrugged. “Maybe they think I did that to make it seem real?”
“Doesn’t seem very smart to risk yourself like that.”
“Neither does running into a burning building to protect others,” I pointed out. “Yet some firefighters do that every chance they get.”
Jack gave me a half-smile. “At least I had protective equipment. And training.”
“Oh?” I teased. “Do they train you to not fall through the floor? Because they really ought to.”
“Cheers to that,” Liam said as he walked up. “I’m always telling this guy, hey, don’t go falling through floors. But he’s a bad listener.”
“Let us hope this is the only time he ever falls through a floor,” Mateo added behind him. He had an aluminum pie tin in his hand.
“The only time any of you fall through a floor,” I corrected. “What’ve you got there?”
“Key lime pie,” Mateo said, placing the pie in the middle of the table.
Liam scooched into the booth next to me. “It’s a tradition. Any time there’s a dangerous call during our shift, we get key lime pie the next day.”
“You eat an entire pie?” I asked.
Mateo dumped a handful of forks onto the table. “We usually have a slice each.”
“Last night’s fire calls for more pie than normal,” Liam said. “Go on, dig in. We can all share.”
Jack scooped out a big bite on his fork. “We’ve had practice, haven’t we?”
All of us chuckled. I felt my cheeks grow hot.
“Should we talk about it now?” Jack asked.
“We can wait, if you need some more time,” Mateo said. “We do not want to rush you.”
“For the first time in my life, I feel like I’m seeing everything with twenty-twenty vision,” Jack replied. “We all like Alyssa.”
Liam and Mateo both nodded.
“And Alyssa likes all three of us, to varying degrees.”
I gave an awkward smile and nodded.
“And she’s been with all three of us in the last week,” Liam said.
“When you phrase it like that, I sound like a slut!”
“You sound like a sexually free woman,” Liam replied.
Mateo swallowed a bite of pie and nodded. “You are merely the product of your circumstances.”
“What circumstances are those?” I asked.
