Page 2 of Burning Up with the Mountain Man Firefighter

He reaches the door and stops. His hand goes to the push bar, and the door moves half an inch before the stack catches it. He pushes harder. The crates shift, glass jars rattling inside the cardboard, but the door doesn’t open.

He turns and looks at me. “How long has this exit been blocked?”

“I don’t use that door.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

His voice is the same pitch, the same volume, the same measured delivery he’s used for everything else. But something underneath it changes. I can hear it the way I hear a fragrance note shift when the temperature is wrong. A tightening. A wire pulled taut somewhere behind his words.

“A few months,” I say. “Maybe longer.”

He holds my gaze for one beat past comfortable. Then he turns back to the clipboard and writes. His pen moves longer on this one than it did for the extinguisher.

He moves to the workbench. My workbench, where the wax is still warm, the fragrance oil sitting three inches from the pilot flame. My hair tie is draped over the corner because I pulled my hair up twenty minutes ago without thinking about where I set it down. His gaze tracks from the oil bottle to the flame to the distance between them, and his jaw tightens by a degree so small, I almost miss it.

“Flammable materials need to be stored a minimum of three feet from any ignition source,” he says. “Your fragrance oils are within reach of the pilot.”

“I need them within reach. That’s how the pour works.”

“Then you need a separate storage station with a ventilated cabinet and a transfer protocol.”

He says transfer protocol the way I’d say fragrance load. Fluently, without thinking about it. This is his language, and he speaks it the way I speak mine, and the recognition of that does something unexpected to the base of my throat.

He checks the ventilation above the melting station, and I watch him register the inadequate airflow before he writes it up. Each one gets the same treatment. Observation, notation, flat delivery. No lecture, no warning, no condescension. He gives every line item the same weight, and by the time he reaches the end of the circuit and arrives back at the door where he started, I’ve stopped stirring. I’m just watching him.

He tears the top sheet off the clipboard and holds it out to me without meeting my eyes. “You have seventy-two hours to address the violations. I’ll schedule a re-inspection after that window.”

I take the paper. His fingers don’t touch mine on the transfer. I’m aware of that. Aware of the care he takes to make sure they don’t.

“Thank you, Lieutenant.”

“Graham,” he says. Then his jaw resets, and he’s out the door before the bell finishes ringing.

I stand in my workshop holding the violations list and listening to his footsteps cross the courtyard cobblestones. They’re even and steady, the same rhythm start to finish, and they don’t slow down.

I look at the paper.

He cited four violations. Every one of them includes the specific code, the corrective action, the equipment required, and the manufacturer recommendation. The extinguisher entry lists the exact model number for the Class B unit I need, the rated capacity, and the correct mounting height. The ventilation note includes the CFM specification for a workshop my size and the name of the hardware store in town that carries the right fan.

He didn’t just cite me. He told me how to fix everything.

I fold the paper and set it on the workbench next to the amber blend. The pilot flame is still burning, low and steady. My hands smell like beeswax and smoke. The wax in the pot has cooled past the pour window while I wasn’t paying attention, and I’ll have to reheat the whole batch.

I haven’t lost a pour window in two years.

I reach for the temperature dial and start over.

2

GRAHAM

The inspection report is filed by six p.m.

I type it at the station desk with the bay doors open and the evening air coming in off the ridge. Four violations, each one coded and cross-referenced, corrective actions itemized, seventy-two-hour compliance window noted at the top of the form. Standard language, standard format.

I’ve filed a hundred of these. The process is clean and specific. When I finish, I close the file and set the clipboard in the outbox for Holt to review in the morning.

Done.