“Enjoy it, okay? And I’m talking about whatever,” she pauses, a little smirk gracing her lips, “self-careyou decide to partake in.” Her emphasis on “self-care” makes my eyes widen.
“Ava!”
She laughs, her head tilting back, making Evee wave her arms and let out a little giggle too. “Maybe I just meant washing your hair or taking a long bath with a face mask. Get your mind out of the gutter.”
I shake my head, meeting them at the door and leaning in to give Evee a kiss on the cheek, knowing that Ava is ready to get going, so they can be at least fifteen minutes early to the 6:30 p.m. swim class.
“I’m sure you have a lot ofmaterialyou could pull from for that self-care too, after last night and all. Your new friend cleans up pretty nicely, if you ask me.” She winks before turning to open the front door of our house before I have time to come up with something to say back to that.
The whiplash from the last five minutes is enough to make my head hurt, but I should be used to it by now with Ava and her inability to let anyone around her be in any sort of pain. Always needing to be the one to make sure everyone in her presence is okay.
With such a busy day, I’ve barely had time to think about last night.
I’ve been running around like a chicken with its head cut off since accidentally snoozing my alarm one too many times, barely making it to Hey Honey’s by the start of my shift where there was absolutely no downtime. There was a steady, manageable flow for the entirety of the day that I honestly didn’t even notice Reagan didn’t show until it was already an hour past when she was supposed to be there.
“Have fun, Mama!” Ava yells over her shoulder, as she heads down the driveway.
The duplex we rent is owned by a leasing company, all the houses in our little neighborhood having been divided into side-by-side units available for rent and walking distance from Hey Honey’s, and we’re lucky to have our own driveway for the car we share.
“But not too much fun!” she adds.
“Enough, Ava!” I yell, but I feel the heat in my cheeks, and I can’t help but grin as she buckles Evee into her car seat. Ava rounds the car, getting into the driver’s seat and blowing me a kiss as she backs the car out. It isn’t until I watch her turn the corner out of our neighborhood that I close the door.
“A night to myself,” I repeat to myself.
It has been a while since I had someself-care.
CHAPTER 13
JACK
“Those werethe only two stops in this building, so we’ll head to the duplexes across the street to finish up,” Anderson says, as we hop back into one of the station’s pickup trucks. We’ve finished seven of our stops tonight, and all seven have been compliant with their fire safety regulations. So far, all of the local businesses had the proper smoke alarms and functional and maintained sprinklers.
I don’t mention to Anderson how familiar I am with this particular building, seeing as though I was just here last night. I didn’t realize the building that Lenny’s and Hey Honey’s is in was on our list for stops tonight.
To be completely honest, both times my mind was as far away from anything having to do with my job as possible.
As I tune out Anderson’s need to narrate everything he’s thinking to fill the silence between us, my mind wanders to what—orwho—made it so easy to forget the things that usually take up so much space in my brain.
For reasons unbeknownst to me, Rumi has a way of becoming my sole focus when my mind drifts, like she can quiet my mind when she’s not even here.
When I think of her, I don’t think about how lonely I feel in the station without Bennett, or how my heart races when someone turns on the kitchen’s gas stove. I don’t think about how my stomach drops when we get a call, scared that I’ll have to gear up and rush into a fire, or how I’m already nervous to come back for my next shift when this one hasn’t even ended.
Thinking of her has a way of blurring everything else, and my thoughts only focus on her.
And I can’t decide if that’s a good thing or a very,verybad thing.
When we stopped at Lenny’s to do our inspection, I recognized Emmett behind the bar. He’s not a man of many words or someone who cares for small-talk, which I greatly appreciate. It made mine and Anderson’s inspection quick and painless, aside from the strength it took to stop glancing over at the side of the bar where Rumi and I sat the night before, as if she would be there with her messy braid and her freshwater eyes.
We gave Lenny’s the stamp of approval before walking down to the pizza place, the only other of the four businesses in the building that were open after 6 p.m.
Emmett owns the entire building, so I figured if Lenny’s was good to go for the fire inspection, the rest would be. We were in and out of the pizza place in a few minutes, but we will still need to circle back to the bookstore and Hey Honey’s tomorrow morning before our shift ends, just to be safe.
The tires of the truck hum against the darkening road as we pass identical duplexes, trimmed lawns, and matching driveways under the soft streetlight. The evening sky is painted in soft purples and pinks, and the cool May air seeps in through the opened windows of the station’s pickup truck.
Anderson slows to a stop. “I figured we can start here and work our way back toward the entrance of the neighborhood.The members of the crew on for tomorrow can start here and work down the other way.”
I give him a nod, grabbing my clipboard and stepping onto the road.
