Page 23 of The Fire Line

“She has low standards tonight.”

“I can still take it back,” Della said.

Priya immediately handed over the wine she had brought. “Happy birthday.”

Jay was laughing when movement near the doors caught his attention.

Harris had seemingly decided that arriving late was acceptable as long as he did it looking like that.

Clean jeans. Blue chambray with the sleeves pushed back from his forearms. Hair still damp at the temples. Without the dust and sweat Jay had come to associate with him, the hard line of his jaw stood out more clearly.

Apparently washing the man only clarified the problem.

Harris went straight to Della and hugged her with one arm before handing her a small wrapped box. She opened it immediately, despite having spent the evening telling everyone else that presents could wait, and drew out a narrow silver bracelet.

Her face changed.

She touched Harris’s cheek. He looked predictably uncomfortable with the attention and, less predictably, pleased beneath it.

Jay turned back to his beer before Harris caught him watching.

Dinner stretched well past the point when anyone needed more food. Walt made a speech despite Della’s prohibition against speeches; Evan followed on the grounds that Walt had already destroyed the rule; Elise said considerably less and made Della cry anyway.

Harris sat near the end of the table with a beer in his hand. He spoke when someone addressed him, listened when they didn’t, and leaned down each time one of the twins appeared beside him with information requiring immediate adult attention.

Jay had seen him in enough settings by now to recognize the difference. Harris wasn’t exactly relaxed—Jay was beginning to suspect the man had been born with his shoulders half-braced for impact—but around his family he stopped guarding every silence. Nobody tried to coax more out of him. They seemed to know which refusals meant no and which meant ask me again when I’ve finished being difficult.

When Walt began telling a story about fourteen-year-old Harris attempting to ride a yearling bareback and landing in a water trough, Harris laughed before the objection seemed to catch up with him.

Jay smiled into his beer.

Harris looked across the table at exactly the wrong moment.

Caught, Jay lifted his bottle toward him. Harris shook his head, still faintly smiling, before turning back to Walt.

Perfectly normal interaction.

Somehow it stayed with Jay anyway.

After dinner, somebody turned the music louder. The twins spun until gravity won. Walt danced with Della while she laughed into his shoulder, and Evan and Elise were repeatedly separated by their daughters only to find each other again a few minutes later.

Jay stayed near the doors with Priya and Eli.

“You’re not dancing?” Priya asked.

“I’m preserving everyone else’s dignity.”

“You’ve been tapping your foot for ten minutes.”

Jay glanced down to discover that his foot was, in fact, in rhythm. “That’s because I have poor circulation.”

Della appeared in front of him with one hand extended. Priya smiled into her drink.

Jay pointed an accusing finger at Priya. “You arranged this.”

“I didn’t even have to.”

Della kept waiting. “Come on, honey. No cameras, if that’s what you’re worried about.”