Page 43 of How to Fan the Flames

“No trying to be brave for the room.”

His mouth tilts. “I thought I wasn’t supposed to prove anything.”

“You listened.”

“I do that occasionally.”

I reach for the mask, then stop.

I look at his face.

He looks back at me, still breathing a little harder than usual, his expression narrowing with suspicion.

“What?” he asks.

“The beard has to go.”

The silence that follows is one of the most satisfying things that has happened to me all week.

AJ blinks. “I’m sorry?”

“The beard. It has to go.”

His hand rises automatically to his jaw, protective as a parent at sports day. “For what?”

“For a proper seal on the mask.”

“I thought you said I wasn’t doing anything live.”

“You’re not.”

“So we don’t need a proper seal.”

“We do if I’m fitting you properly.”

“But it’s only familiarisation.”

“And I’m familiarising you with the fact that facial hair and breathing apparatus don’t get along.”

He stares at me.

I stare back.

The beard is neatly kept. I’ll give him that. Short, shaped, deliberate. It has the same copper brown colour as his hair. It’s the sort of beard a man maintains when he wants to look like he reads serious newspapers, drinks his coffee black and has never once panicked because he sent a text with the wrong tone.

It suits him.

That is not relevant.

“I feel,” he says carefully, “that this was not made clear in the preparatory documents.”

“Did the preparatory documents tell you to bring a toothbrush?”

“No.”

“Are you planning to stop brushing your teeth for two weeks?”

“That feels like a false equivalence.”