I'm on the second floor running equipment checks when I hear her voice. I know it too well by now.
I go to the railing and look down. She's in the bay with Gran, tin in her hands, wearing a sweater the color of good red wine and jeans tucked into boots. She's talking to Torresand Kim like she's known them for years. She hasn't. It's been about forty-five fucking seconds.
Torres is already leaning against the engine with his arms crossed, wearing the look I've spent months trying not to have. Gran watches Lily work the room like a proud mama, and I watch Gran watch her, and none of this is helping.
Lily says something I can't hear. Torres laughs. Kim laughs. Martinez, who doesn't laugh at anything that isn't a pension joke, makes a sound adjacent to laughter. She holds out the tin and they descend on it like she's trained them.
She stands there smiling, completely at home in a firehouse full of strangers on a Saturday morning. Like she belongs anywhere she decides to be.
I go back to the equipment check.
"Cal! Your girl's looking for ya!" Torres shouts from below.
Your girl. Motherfucker.
"She's not my..." I start, leaning over the railing, but Lily has already looked up. The smile she gives me from thirty feet below exists for the sole purpose of undoing me. Of making me forget the rest of my sentence.
I give up. I walk down the stairs with her watching me the whole way, that smile not going anywhere. I take the muffin Torres holds up, give Gran a hug and thanks, and try not to watch Lily charm my whole squad.
She's moved on to Talia and Zuri now, her whole body animated as the twins give hints on how to tell them apart. No one can tell them apart except me. The three of us always work shifts together and they're my closest friends here.
Identical twins who love being identical and messingwith people, currently sporting matching short butterfly locs. I know way too much about women's hair and makeup since those two never shut up.
I take another muffin and go to hide in the Chief's office. Chief is off on weekends, so the office is quiet and has a door that closes. I sit in his chair and eat my muffin, looking at the duty roster, enjoying my reprieve.
That's when the door opens. Lily leans in the doorway, taking in the sight of me in the Chief's chair with my muffin like I'm a puzzle.
"Are you hiding?"
"I'm doing paperwork," I say, not looking up.
"There are no papers before you."
"I'm thinking about paperwork."
She walks in without being invited, sits in the chair across the desk, the one for people receiving bad news, and watches me with that patient amusement until I want to do something stupid.
"You have a very flirty squad."
"Really?" Just what I needed.
"Torres was flirting with me," she says, like she's reporting on the weather.
"Torres flirts with everyone." I take another bite of muffin. Blueberry. Very good. "It's a nervous tic."
It isn't. Torres does not have a nervous tic. Torres saw her and did exactly what any man with functioning eyes would do, and the jealousy running hot through me isn't something I recognize.
I don't get jealous. I don't have the right to get jealous. And yet here I am, chewing a muffin with slightly more force than necessary.
"Kim was flirting with me," she adds.
"Kim is married."
"I know, she told me." Lily tilts her head. "Then kept flirting."
I take another bite. Gran's baking deserves my full attention, and that's exactly what I'm giving it. That's my story. I'm sticking to it.
Lily reaches across the desk and her eyes pin me in place. My God, she is beautiful. When will it stop taking my breath away?
