“Six hours is a long time to stand in one spot . . .” Liam muses gruffly. “Let alone ten.”
I don’t tell him Stephen’s upped my hours to twelve while we work through this busy period. Liam is bound to disapprove, and the last thing I need is him turning up at my work in uniform and demanding to speak to my boss. He’s protective, both my best friends are.
“We can’t all be chasing down bad guys and finding stolen goods, and I do move.” I demonstrate how I twist at the waist while typing various commands into the laser cutter and 3d printer, and how I move my head left to right repeatedly while watching the conveyer belt.
The company I work for, Hunter Healthcare, makes component parts for various medical equipment, and our biggest contractor is the local hospital in Edmonson. It’s not exciting work, but it is work, and I’ve been at the company for nine years.
Ten years of service will get me a food hamper.
That’s worth wasting your life for, right?
Liam plucks the lemon slice from his glass and hands it to me.
“Thanks.”
I fold it in half before sucking on it. The sourness perks me up and pushes me away from the negativity I’m sliding towards. So what, I don’t like my job? Loads of people don’t, but it pays well, and all other aspects of my life are fulfilled. I pop the semi-circle of lemon into my mouth and use it to smile at Liam, who cocks his head and studies me like I’m an interesting specimen or a puzzle he’s trying to work out.
I’m painfully bland, but sometimes he looks at me like I’m the most fascinating thing he’s seen. I spit the lemon as delicately as I can into a napkin while avoiding Liam’s eyes.
“Suited you.”
I snort and kick him under the table. Everything he says is delivered with a straight face, and I’ve told him several times he’d make a fortune as a poker player. It’s his voice that gives him away, the added vibration when he’s angry or concerned. It’s a bassline growl. When Tyler Bennet took a disliking to me at school after I showed up with the same coat as him, it only took two words from Liam to stop it escalating.
“Back. Off.”
But delivered with a growl of thunder, they terrified Tyler.
He didn’t come near me again.
The front door swings open, and in swaggers my other best friend. His cheeks are flushed, his eyes are bright, and he’s smiling ear to ear. When the customers take notice of hisdramatic entrance, they don’t cower, some look intrigued, while others greet Ryker with a wave or a head tilt. He beams at Sharon and tells her she’s looking beautiful, before saying hello to a few other people he knows in the place. Ryker is Mr popular, has been since I first met him. He could hang out with anyone, but he chooses to hang out with me.
He comes over to the table bringing a whiff of smoke—not cigarette smoke, but woodsmoke. Up close, I see the soot on his ears and lining the shape of his clean-shaven jaw. The whites of his eyes are red from irritation, but they crinkle with his smile and I know he’s okay.
“Where’s the fire?” he says, in reference to me texting them both that I needed to see them urgently, and also because he likes making stupid puns and jokes. Ryker is wearing his uniform too, brown Kevlar trousers held up with suspenders that dig into his muscular shoulders, and a brown T-shirt that obscenely cups his chest. Black steel-toe-cap boots, and neon yellow reflective strips on the bottom of his trousers complete the look. He’s drawing the eyes of a few women, and one guy at the bar who gawps at his back.
He’s a firefighter, and he gets these tongue-lolling-out looks a lot. Ryker shuffles into the booth and sits down with a huff. He throws his arm over the back of my part of the seat, not making contact but getting comfortable. It doesn’t bother me, never has. The smell of smoke makes me sneeze, though.
“Sorry,” he chuckles. “Forgot how sensitive your cute button nose is.”
“Anyone hurt?” Liam asks.
Ryker shakes his head. “Barn fire, Samson’s place. It was full of hay when it went up so it was a hell of a blaze. The barn’s completely gone, and the hay kept relighting as we tried to put it out. It’s still smoking now. They make for some dramatic pictures, but everyone’s fine.”
Liam frowns. “Suspects?”
“Samson said he saw a group of kids leaving the scene on their bikes, couldn’t say whether it was five or four, and didn’t recognise any of them. It fits with the evidence we found at the scene—footprints in the mud, one had theFortnitelogo.”
“Adults playFortnitetoo,” I say.
Ryker snorts as leans his weight on me. “Oh, I know . . . I do believe I have more points than you.”
“You cheat.”
“I would never.” He places his hand to his chest like he’s wounded by my accusation, then laughs. “So come on, what’s up?”
“The sky,” I say.
He groans as he tips forward and bashes his forehead to the table. “That was awful.”
