Page 21 of Stuck With the Smokejumper

“Thanks. I did.”

He passes things, I direct, and we move around each other in a kitchen that isn't ours like we've done it before. It's the same rhythm from Mercer's yesterday.

When the food is ready, all ten of us crowd around a table built for eight, extra chairs wedged in wherever they fit. Once we're all more or less seated, the lake comes up.

“So,” Annie says, passing a bowl of green beans down the table, “I hear somebody had trouble with the rope swing.”

Nolan groans into his plate. “We really don't have to tell this story.”

“Yes, we do,” Tessa says.

“It was one time.”

“It was fifteen minutes,” Trevor says.

“It was not fifteen minutes.”

“It felt like fifteen minutes,” Reid says. “For the rest of us.”

By the time the story's finished, Nolan had swung back and forth at least four times according to Cassidy, screamed something different every pass according to Tessa, none of which is true according to Nolan.

“How long are we going to talk about this?” he asks.

“Probably until September,” Tessa says.

Annie laughs so hard she has to set down her fork.

Reid isn't finished making his case, either. “And then they cheated us out of the noodle championship.”

“We won,” I say.

“Same thing.”

Russ looks between us. “Somebody explain the noodle championship.”

“They wouldn't let Reid and me be partners,” I say. “Something about us always winning.”

“So they gave her Beck instead,” Reid says, like this is a great injustice. “Which solved nothing.”

Annie glances at Beck with open curiosity, but nothing more than that. “Good instincts?”

“Good listener,” Beck says, nodding at me. “She called the direction. I just tried not to drop her.”

“Sounds like a solid partnership,” Russ says, and reaches for the potatoes, and that's the end of it. No look between him and Annie. Just dinner conversation moving on to the next thing.

I catch Beck watching Russ and Annie a little later, after Russ gets up to grab something from the counter and comes back holding the pepper Annie hadn't asked for yet, setting it beside her plate without a word. She doesn't even look up, just says thanks and keeps eating. Beck watches the whole exchange with an expression I haven't seen on him before, something quiet and a little far away.

That's when Beck stops eating and stares at something over my shoulder. “Is that you?”

I don't need to turn around to know which photo he's found. The refrigerator is covered in them. Years of crew photos, some curling at the edges. But there's only one that gets this reaction.

“Don't,” I say, which of course means everyone looks.

It's from my first summer at Blackpine. Eighteen years old, filthy from a full day of trail work, wearing a shirt two sizes too big that used to belong to Reid, my hair escaping a braid in every direction. I'm squinting at the camera like I resent its existence.

“You looked twelve,” Reid says.

“I did not look twelve.”