“A spot hasn’t opened.”
“I understand. But if one does. I’m interested.”
Cap takes a breath. Not a sigh, she’s too controlled for sighing, but a breath that carries weight.
“Kimball. You seem like a good kid.”
“I’m not a kid. I’m a firefighter.” It comes out sharper than I intend. Walsh makes a sound behind me that she covers with a cough. Torres goes very still.
Cap’s eyes narrow. Not angry. Assessing. She looks at me for a long time, long enough that I start to feel every inch of the gap between twenty-two and whatever she is, which is old enough to have earned every scar on her face and the right to call me whatever she wants.
“Fair enough,” she says. “You’re a firefighter who hasn’t started her first shift yet. My answer is the same. Report to Medina. Put in your time.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And stop bringing cookies.”
“No, ma’am.”
It’s out before my brain checks with my mouth. Walsh’s cough turns into something that is definitely not a cough. Torres looks at the ceiling. Cap stares at me.
Then, so fast I almost miss it, the corner of her mouth moves. Not a smile. Not even close to a smile. A tectonic event, something geological and barely perceptible, and then it’s gone and she’s turning and walking back into the station with her coffee.
“See you next week, Kimball,” Torres says, tucking the Tupperware more firmly under her arm.
“Those are for the whole crew.”
“I am the whole crew. The crew is me.” She pats the container. “Your grandma’s a genius. Tell her I said that.”
She follows Cap inside. Walsh lingers for a second, looking at me with an expression I’m starting to recognize from the people in this station, the expression that saysI can’t help you but I’m not not rooting for you.
“For what it’s worth,” Walsh says, “she didn’t say no as fast this time.”
Then she’s gone too, and I’m standing in the bay alone with the engine and the clean concrete and the sound of Torres’svoice inside, probably announcing to everyone that the cookies are hers and no one else can have any.
I walk out. I don't sit on the bench. I don't linger. I did what I came to do and I'll do it again next week and the week after that if I have to, and every week I'll bring Grandma Eloise's cookies and every Wednesday Cap will say no and every Wednesday the no will get a little slower.
Walsh noticed. She said Cap didn't say no as fast this time.
I pull out my phone. I want to tell someone. Not Keely, because Keely doesn't know the whole story. Not my parents, because they'd tell me to stop.
I open a new message and type Teague's name and my thumb hovers there and then I realize I don't have her number. I've been to Anthem three times. I've sat at her bar and told her things I haven't told my best friend and she gave me a Shirley Temple instead of oblivion and I don't have her number because I never asked because it didn't occur to me that I'd need it, and now I'm standing on the sidewalk two blocks from Station 11 wanting to tell a bartender about cookies and I can't.
I start walking toward home. Then I stop. Turn around. Walk to Anthem instead.
The closed sign is up but I can see her through the window, wiping down the bar. I knock. She looks up. Holds up a finger — one minute. Comes to the door.
"Cookies didn't work," I say.
"Shocking."
"She said no slower, though. That's progress."
"Sure."
I'm standing on the wrong side of a locked door and she's got a rag in her hand and the neon is off, which means I should go home.
"Can I have your number?" I say. "I was going to text you about the cookies and I realized I couldn't and then I walked here instead, which is probably weirder than texting."
