"Are you kiddin' me?"
"Wouldn't waste your time."
I dragged a hand down the side of my face. The stubble I hadn't shaved in two days rasped against my palm. "Okonkwo finally pulled the trigger."
"Okonkwo's grandson started kindergarten, and Okonkwo said the words, 'I'm done.' I was on shift the day he turned in the paperwork."
"Shane. Congratulations, brother. That's huge."
"Yeah." He let me have a second. "Thanks, Ford."
"Maya happy?"
Something gentled in his voice. "Maya's been calling me captain in front of the kids for the last week, and the kids think it's the funniest thing on earth."
I laughed. It surprised me. I hadn't done it in a while.
He let the laugh sit, not filling the silence the way most people would have. That was Shane—he'd known me for ten years and knew when not to talk.
"Hey, Ford."
I knew the change in his voice before he said the next thing. It was the voice he used at the back of the truck when he wanted you to listen and not interrupt.
"When you coming back?"
I didn't answer.
"That's not a question I'm gonna make you answer right now," he said. "But Walker's putting in his papers."
I sat up.
"Walker is?"
"Mhm."
"Why?"
"He met a girl in Portugal."
"He met a…"
"On vacation. May. Came back, told the crew, and put in his papers two weeks ago. Wedding's in April. He's moving over there."
"Walker is moving to Portugal?"
"Yep."
"To marry a girl he met on vacation?"
"Mhm."
"How the hell…"
"He won't shut up about her. He brought her picture to the firehouse and made the whole crew look at it like it was a casualty photo. I have never seen a man more in love and more confused about it in my life."
"You're one to talk. I saw you at 295 the month Maya broke up with you. You weren't sleeping. I'd run into you at shift change, and every time, you looked worse than the last."
He groaned. "Do you have to bring that up?"
