Page 57 of Honeyfires

It was how the dark used to get in, but with her holding me, her golden hair and golden soul, I felt… illuminated.

"Vera, I'm disgusting," I tried saying.

"You're home." Her arms tightened. "I just need one minute with my favorite girl. Okay?"

Favorite girl.

I stopped arguing and wrapped my arms around her. Let the tension drain out through my shoulders. Let myself be held by someone who didn't care that I smelled like smoke and ash and a family's lost Sunday mornings.

"We lost two structures," I heard myself say. "One of them was a house. Everyone got out. The family, the dog, everything breathing. But the house—" I stopped.

She pulled back to look at me. "Everyone got out?"

"Yeah."

"Then you did your job." Her hands came up to cup my face, thumbs moving over my cheekbones the way she always did, a gesture I had not yet found an adequate response to except to stand very still and feel it. "You saved lives. That's what matters."

"I know," I said.

"Do you?"

"I'm getting there."

She studied my face for a moment, apparently satisfied with my progress. "Go shower. I'll warm up the soup."

Twenty minutes later, I emerged clean, damp-haired, in fresh clothes that smelled like laundry detergent. She'd set the table. She'd lit one candle, the small cedar one from her windowsill, and put it between our bowls like a continuation of the dinner we hadn't gotten to finish.

I sat down across from her and didn't say anything for a moment.

"What?" she asked.

"You lit a candle."

"We didn't get to finish our dinner." She shrugged one shoulder, very casual, very Vera. "Seemed like the thing to do."

I love you, I thought, right there over the soup. I love you and I've been trying to say it, and I don't know why I keep failing to.

"Thank you," I said. "For waiting up. For this."

She reached across the table and linked her fingers with mine. "I'll always wait up for you."

We developed a system after that.

Fire emoji when dispatch called. She'd respond with be safe, never when will you be back, because she understood I couldn't promise that. Fires didn't run on schedules, and I couldn't give her timelines I didn't have.

Water droplet when it was contained. Danger mostly past, still work to do, but the worst of it over.

Heart when I was heading home.

She always responded within seconds.

I'll put coffee on. Making your favorite. Can't wait to see you.

It was an extremely simple system. It was also, I was aware, one of the most intimate things anyone had ever done for me.

A few weeks into the routine, I was repacking my gear bag at the station when something fluttered out of the inside pocket. A small square of pink, folded once. Vera's handwriting. She must have tucked it in on some morning when I'd been half-awake and not paying attention, which was most mornings, because she had a way of moving through my apartment that made paying attention difficult.

Be safe. I lo — I'll see you soon.