He caught me at the end of a twenty-four.
The shift had been busy. Two structures. A medical. A car wreck on the BQE at three in the morning that ate an hour and a half between extraction and clean-up. I hadn't sat down since the dinner before. My boots had been on long enough that I'd stopped registering them.
The crew was in the bay finishing the wash.
Shane was at the island.
He had his coffee in one hand and a paper towel in the other, handling the mug because it was hot enough to call hot. He set the towel down when I came through the door. He pushed the second mug across the island. Already poured. Cream and one sugar. He'd been pouring it for me at shift changes for four years before I'd gone north, and three weeks since I'd come back, and he had never once asked me how I took it.
"Ford."
"Captain."
"Don't."
"Shane."
"Sit."
I sat.
He drank his coffee. I drank mine. The kitchen was exactly where I'd left it the morning I'd taken the transfer to Hartsdale.
I wasn't.
I'd been finding that out for three weeks.
Shane set the mug down.
"Ford."
"Yeah."
"You told me three weeks ago to ask you again in a month."
"Yeah."
"I'm not waitin' the month."
He let it sit.
Shane could outwait a building. He could outwait me.
I scrubbed a hand down my face. Three days of stubble. I hadn't shaved on Monday. I hadn't shaved on Tuesday. I hadn't noticed until Shane, on the other side of the island, with the second mug already poured, that I'd also skipped this morning.
"I'm not alright, Shane."
"I know."
"You been watching."
"Been watching since you walked in three weeks ago."
I let out a breath.
"Talk to me," he said.
I looked at the coffee.
