“Yes?”
“The probationary period is three months. You’ve done two weeks. That’s a start, not a finish. Stay focused.”
“Yes, Captain.”
She nods. Takes her coffee. Walks out.
I stand in the kitchen, dish towel in hand, and I think about Dorothy Haines and her replaced hip and Leonard’s unsalted steps and Hayes saying my patient rapport is good and Cap saying stay focused and the seat at the lunch table that opened up because Drew moved over without being asked.
Two weeks. Eleven weeks to go. The coffee’s brewing and the mugs are set out and I know who drinks what and when and I’m starting to learn the sound of this station from the inside, which is different from the sirens I grew up hearing, quieter, warmer, the sound of people who trust each other enough to rest in each other’s presence.
I belong here. I’ve always known I belong here.
Now they’re starting to know it too.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Teague
There's a toothbrush in my bathroom that isn't mine.
Purple. Extra soft. Still in the packaging when she left it on the sink three days ago, which means she bought it on the way over, which means she was planning to sleep here before she asked. I opened the packaging for her that night because she was already in my bed and couldn't be bothered to get up, and I put it in the cup next to my toothbrush and didn't think about it.
I'm thinking about it now.
The bar opens at four. I've got five hours of nothing and I'm standing in my bathroom looking at two toothbrushes in a cup, one black and one purple, side by side, and the image is doing something to my brain that I can't quite name and don't want to examine. No one has ever had a toothbrush here besides me. No one has ever asked and I never invited anyone to leave anything here either. And somehow Zoe got through those rules and now there's a toothbrush next to mine. A bright purple toothbrush.
The apartment has changed. Not all at once. Not in any way I agreed to. Zoe didn't ask permission to leave things here because Zoe doesn't operate in the permission economy. She operates in the assumption economy, where wanting to be somewhere means you bring what you need and if nobody tells you to take it back, it stays.
The sneakers are by the door. White, clean, lined up parallel to my boots with the toes pointing out. She does this every time. Takes them off, sets them down, adjusts them so they're even. I watched her do it last night and she didn't know I was watching because she was already talking about something Torres said during drills, hands moving, voice going, and her feet just did the thing on their own.
My boots are black and scuffed and the laces are frayed and they sit wherever I kick them off. Hers look like they belong in a display case. The two pairs side by side tell a story I didn't write or, technically, agree to.
There's a hoodie on the back of the chair. Gray, soft from years of washing. She wore it here one day and then it got warm and she took it off and draped it over the chair and it's been there since. I haven't moved it. I could have moved it. I could have folded it and put it by the door so she'd see it on her way out and take it with her. I left it on the chair.
I left it on the chair because the apartment looks different with her things in it and I don't hate it.
That's the part I'm sitting with. The not hating it. Three years I've lived here and the space has been exactly what I need: small, functional, mine. The couch, the records, the kitchen where I eat standing up because sitting at a table alone is a specific kind of quiet I'd rather skip. Everything in here existsbecause I chose it or because it was free and useful and didn't ask anything of me in return.
Zoe's things ask. Not out loud. The toothbrush asks if she's coming back. The sneakers ask if there's room. The hoodie asks if it can stay. And the answer to all three is yes and I said yes without saying anything, which is how Zoe gets in. She doesn't knock. She just walks through the door I didn't realize I left open.
I make coffee. My coffee, which she has told me repeatedly is terrible and which she drinks every time she's here, holding the mug with both hands because the apartment is drafty in the mornings and she runs cold. I pour one cup, then look at the mug rack and realize I've started reaching for two before catching myself.
One cup. She's not here. She's at the station. She texted me at 5:48 this morning:up. coffee. hayes is going to kill me today (extrication drills). tell me something good.
I texted back:the pretenders are working on new stuff according to a social media post.
She responded with fourteen exclamation points.
I drink my coffee at the counter. Standing. The hoodie is in my peripheral vision on the chair and the sneakers are by the door and the toothbrush is in the bathroom and I think about how routines work. How you build one, brick by brick, and then someone comes along and rearranges the bricks and you either fix it or you let it change.
I'm letting it change.
After coffee I shower and get dressed and check the bar inventory on my phone because I'm low on well vodka and thetonic order hasn't shipped yet. Anthem business. Real business. The contract is still in the office drawer, Carl's signature and mine, and the savings account is getting closer to the number I need and the bar is the thing that makes sense, the plan I built when everything else was formless and uncertain.
Anthem makes sense. Anthem has always made sense.
There's a phone charger plugged into the outlet by the bed. White cord, long, the kind you buy at the drugstore. She plugged it in one night and I watched her do it from the bathroom doorway and she looked up and said "Is this okay?" and I said "Yeah" and she said "Cool" and plugged it in and charger is still there. It doesn't even work on my phone and yet it's there. Because she's leaving the things she needs when she's here with me.
