Page 27 of Stuck With the Smokejumper

He almost smiles, doesn't stop singing, and I decide I'm not going to point out how much I like it.

We stay out here for song after song, easy in a way that surprises me a little, given how aware I am of every point where he's touching me. When the band finally announces they're taking a break, it feels like someone's turned the lights up too fast.

For a second neither of us moves to let go. But then we step apart. Beck doesn’t say anything, which I'm grateful for, because I genuinely don't know what I'd say back. Nolan appears, asking Beck about the turn he just did, and the ordinary noise of the night rushes back in to fill the space where the dance was moments ago.

I've always found Beck attractive. That's not breaking news. The problem is everything I've learned since he showed up on our floor a week ago. He's competent. Driven. Hardworking. Considerate. He answers Nolan's questions without once making him feel like the new guy. He fits in with people I love like he's been here longer than a week.

And he can dance. Really well. Honestly, what is there not to like at this point.This was easier when Beck was just my brother's ridiculously attractive friend who showed up for a few days every summer.

Reid finds the group a while later, looking mildly desperate. “I'm starving.”

“You ate before we came,” Tessa says.

“That was hours ago. I've been dancing. That burns calories.”

“You did the same four steps for two hours.”

“Strenuous ones.”

Dani checks her phone. “Pizza place closes soon. If we leave now we can still get an order in.”

That's all it takes. Reid moves toward the door, and the rest of us follow, gathering jackets and saying goodnight to the bartender, spilling out into the cool night air still ringing faintly with the sound of the band behind us.

The parking lot is quiet after the noise of the bar. The music fades to something muffled and distant behind the door.

Then, out past the ridge, the sky flashes.

Reid stops walking.

Another flash follows, silent, no thunder behind it. The air's gone still, the kind of quiet that shows up right before weather decides what it wants to do.

“Storm coming?” Nolan asks, glancing up.

Beck's watching the horizon. Something in his posture has changed, the easy loose-limbed guy from ten minutes ago replaced by someone paying very close attention. “Dry lightning.”

Reid's beside him now, looking at the same stretch of sky. Neither of them looks worried, exactly. But the joking is gone.

“Think it'll start something?” I ask.

Beck doesn't answer right away. He's still watching the ridge, waiting for the next flash. “We'll know tomorrow,” he says.

eight

Beck

Idrive the edge of the Pulaski into the ground, drag it back, and expose a strip of bare mineral soil where a minute ago there was duff and pine needles and everything else that would happily carry fire another twenty feet. Sweat runs into my eyes. I wipe it with the back of my glove, which does almost nothing, and keep moving down the line.

The lightning from last night found something to burn. Nobody spotted it until this morning, smoke rising thin and lazy over a ridge a few miles outside town, already five acres by the time the first resources rolled in. It's not a big fire. Not yet. The problem isn't what it is right now. It's what it could become if the wind that's supposed to show up this afternoon arrives before we finish tying in the line around it.

Catch it now, or chase it tomorrow. That's the job.

Around me, the crew works in the rhythm fire line work settles into once everyone's found their place and pace. Cut brush gets pulled clear. Slash gets tossed to the black side. Someone widens a section that's too narrow to hold. Somebody else calls out a root they nearly tripped over. It's not dramatic. It's just constant, methodical work, removing anything the fire could use to cross the line before it gets the chance.

Russ is a different man out here than the one who complains about being offered help with the grill. Calm. Fast on the radio. Three moves ahead of where the fire is.

“Beck. Reid. Strengthen that section past the rock outcrop. Fuels get heavier there.”

“Widen or reroute?” Reid asks.