Page 4 of Stuck With the Smokejumper

I look toward the common room. Reid slept through getting kicked, conversations, footsteps, cabinet doors, a coffee grinder, and music coming from a speaker in the kitchen. But bacon hits a skillet, and the dead rise.

Reid pushes himself upright, hair sticking up on one side, and squints toward the kitchen.

Ivy stares at him. “Seriously?”

Reid rubs a hand over his face. “What?”

“I tripped over you and you didn't so much as twitch.” Ivy crosses her arms. “Even Tessa tried to wake you.”

Tessa points a spatula at him from the stove. “I kicked you. Twice.”

His eyebrows go up. “Is that why my leg hurts? I thought it was just a cramp.”

I laugh into my coffee.

Reid untangles himself from the sleeping bag and gets to his feet. “Is the bacon ready?”

Ivy makes a sound somewhere between a laugh and a groan. “Unbelievable.”

I've known Reid for six years. I've watched him wake instantly to a radio call in the middle of the night and be completely alert before his feet hit the floor. I've also watched three grown men attempt to wake him after he'd been asleep for less than an hour. They failed. Apparently, they should have tried fried pork.

Reid wanders into the kitchen and reaches toward the plate of bacon beside the stove.

Tessa smacks the back of his hand with the spatula. “That's for everybody.”

“I am part of everybody.”

“You haven't done anything.”

“I woke up.”

“Congratulations.”

He waits until she turns back toward the stove, then takes a piece anyway.

The crew house is a different place than the one we arrived at six hours ago. Early morning sunlight streams through the windows. Coffee is brewing. Somebody opened the back door, letting cool morning air into a kitchen already warm from the stove.

People drift in and out wearing shorts, T-shirts, pajamas, and whatever else they found first. A guy I don't recognize who appears to be fresh out of high school comes into the kitchen, looking about as awake as Reid did five minutes ago.

Ivy catches my glance. “That's Nolan. First summer.”

Nolan lifts his head in greeting. “Hey.”

“Beck.” I nod toward Reid. “That's Reid.”

Reid raises a piece of bacon. “Welcome to Blackpine.”

Nolan looks at him. “I've been here three weeks.”

“Then I'm a little late.”

Another guy leans in the doorway, still holding a mug. “That's Trevor,” Ivy says.

Nolan pours himself a bowl of cereal and takes the open seat at the table. Dani claimed a chair near the window and is drinking coffee. The cat is stretched across the patch of sunlight at her feet.

Dani looks down at the cat. “Did Tessa feed you?”

“Yes,” Tessa says. “But she tried to recruit Ivy first.”