“That’s everything, yes,” Kirk said. “We’ll be in touch with Firefighter Rourke regarding our findings.”
I looked at the table. At the three of them. “I love Dane Rourke, and I understand why you needed to see us, and I hope the information I’ve given you today is useful to you.”
I collected Sable’s lead and walked back toward the door. Eight ceiling panels. Four steps.
I pushed through it.
Porto’s Stromboliwas four blocks south of the arena and eleven from the RFD main office. Sable walked close. She’d been reading me since we left the chamber, not a full alert but the careful half-attention she used when something was running underneath my surface that hadn’t peaked yet. She bumped her head against my knee twice on the first block. A check. I reached down and touched her ear briefly, and she settled back into her heel.
Dane held my hand as we walked along the sidewalk. His thumb moved in slow arcs across my knuckles. I concentrated on the pressure and counted the cracks in the pavement and worked out that if Porto’s was too full or too loud, I could easily circle the block to the entrance on the side street for some peace.
It wasn’t too full.
It was quiet.
The hostess took us to a corner booth at the back. Sable went under the table without instruction and laid her head on my foot. I sat with my back to the wall and Dane sat across from me.
“I’d like the chicken and roasted red pepper stromboli. No onion. Extra mozzarella. The dough baked crisp instead of soft if that’s possible. I know it depends on your process, but if there’s an option for that, I’d appreciate it. Marinara on the side in a separate dish. Not poured over. Not touching.” I paused. “And a water with no ice. Room temperature if you have it. The ice here changes the mineral taste of the water, and I’d rather drink it without.”
The server looked at me for a single beat. “Sure. Absolutely. No problem.”
“Thank you.”
After Dane gave his own order in his usual unhurried way, the server left, and the ambient noise settled back into a pattern I could manage. Voices, dishes, a hiss of steam from the kitchen, a low rumble of music that stayed below the threshold of intrusive. I aligned the saltshaker with the edge of my napkin.
Sable whined once from under the table. Low and soft. Not distress. Recognition. She was telling me she knew I was still buzzing and that she was there. At some point, she’d shifted sideways until part of her body rested against Dane’s boot too, as if she’d quietly decided he belonged in her perimeter.
I looked at Dane across the table. He looked back.
“Are you okay?” he asked and seemed shaky, as if he’d been worried about me.
“Yes. I mean, I will be,” I said, and he squeezed my hand. “I told them that you are trustworthy and that the fire had nothing to do with why I love you. I told them I wasn’t incapacitated. I told them the difference between autism and the inability tounderstand your own feelings.” I lined the pepper shaker up next to the salt. “The HR woman implied—carefully, professionally—that I might have formed an attachment to you due to proximity trauma and a compromised state of judgment. She didn’t say it directly. But that was the implication.”
“What did you do?” Dane asked.
“I made three accurate and well-structured points.” I paused. “I think she understood them.”
He leaned forward.
“Chip.”
“Yeah.”
“You didn’t have to go in there and fight for us.”
“Yes, I did.” The correction came easily, without heat. “Because the alternative was letting someone build an inaccurate picture of who you are. And what we are.” I looked at him steadily. “You’re not someone who takes advantage of people.”
He was quiet for a moment, then his thumbs moved across the backs of my hands.
“For what it’s worth,” he said softly. “You’re the most capable person I know.”
I processed that.
“That’s statistically improbable,” I said. “You know a significant number of people.”
He laughed out loud, and two people at the nearest table glanced over, but I didn’t look at them because I was looking at Dane, cataloging the laugh for the file I kept on all its variations.
“Maybe,” he said. “Still true though.”
