Page 36 of Stuck With the Smokejumper

When we finally pull back, I ask, “Did you get it?”

He blinks. “Get what?”

“The dirt on my face.”

He studies my face. “I think I made it worse.”

His hands, it turns out, hadn't been much cleaner than mine after an afternoon of climbing around a mining site. I can only imagine what I look like now.

“You're supposed to fix problems, not create new ones.”

“In my defense, I was distracted.”

I laugh, and he laughs too. For a minute it's just that, easy and light, the same way most things between us have been the past few weeks. But underneath the laughter, something more serious settles. We both know it.

“We should probably talk about Reid.”

Beck sobers. “Yeah.”

“Not because I need his permission or want his blessing. It's not about that. But he should hear this from us. Before he hears it from Tessa. Or figures it out on his own.”

Beck nods, thinking it over. “He's never told me to stay away from you. Not even a joke about it. Doesn't mean I know how he's going to feel about this, though.”

“No,” I agree. “It doesn't.”

Maybe Reid won't care at all. Maybe he'll be surprised, or a little strange about it for a few days. Maybe he'll be completely fine and we're worrying over nothing. I genuinely don't know. From the look on Beck's face, neither does he.

“I'll talk to him,” Beck says.

“You don't have to do it alone.”

“He's my friend. And I kissed you.” Beck says it simply, like there's nothing else to consider. “I’ll tell him.”

We sit here a while longer, the valley stretched out below us, quiet except for wind and birds and the occasional distant shout from Nolan discovering something new down in the ghost town. Eventually we'll have to walk back down, rejoin the group, pretend for the rest of the afternoon that nothing's changed.

But something has. Beck kissed me. I kissed him back. And soon, one way or another, my brother and everyone else is going to find out.

twelve

Beck

Chairs go over backward at once. Nolan lunges across the table and comes up with nothing. Tessa's already got a spoon in her hand, pleased with herself, which tells me she probably had it before the round even started. Cassidy's got another. Trevor's got his too, calm about it, already several moves ahead of the rest of us. I grab mine off the table without much drama, and Ivy's got hers a half second later, her hand closing around it just as Dani's fingers land on the last one.

That leaves Reid without one.

“How,” Reid says, staring at the empty space where a spoon used to be, “does that keep happening?”

“You're slow,” Tessa says.

“I am not slow.”

“You're something.”

Nolan looks around the table at everyone. “Is it always this violent?”

“You've never played with this crew,” Ivy says, gathering the cards back up.

I've played a fair amount of Spoons in my life, in bunkrooms with people just as exhausted and just as competitive as this table, but I've never seen a group commit to it quite like this. Dani accuses Cassidy of grabbing early. Cassidy denies it, though her face is doing most of the confessing for her. Reid demands a rematch on principle. Ivy deals again like none of this is unusual.