Page 44 of Stuck With the Smokejumper

“Could only be a week.”

“I know.”

He doesn't push it further. Reid's known me long enough to read what I'm not saying, and long enough to know Ivy's part of it, and long enough not to make a joke out of something that clearly isn't one right now.

I find Ivy still in the kitchen, drying the last of the dishes on her own. I don't lead with anything dramatic. I just tell her.

“Russ got a call from Elk Ridge. They need help on a fire out there. Granite Creek. He asked me and Reid to go.”

She sets the towel down slowly. “When?”

“Tomorrow afternoon.”

“How long?”

“At least a week. Could be longer. Maybe two.”

She's quiet, processing it the way I imagine she's processed this kind of news before, watching Reid pack a bag and disappear for the fire season.

“Okay.” She says it evenly. Too evenly, like she's practiced staying calm about this kind of news.

I don't push it. I let it go for now, and we rejoin the rest of the house like nothing's changed, even though something has.

Dessert gets demolished. Nolan argues with Tessa about cake donuts versus Krispy Kreme, a debate that's been simmering since I arrived in Timber Creek and shows no sign of resolving tonight either.

Ivy ends up beside me on the couch, close enough our knees touch. Her hand finds mine. Nobody in the room even glances over. Last week, holding her hand in a room full of people still felt like something new. Tonight it's just what we do. I'm already dreading how much I'll miss it.

The storm arrives during the drive back to the crew house, first a few fat drops against the windshield, then a steady, serious rain by the time we're pulling in. Everyone scatters for the door at a run, laughing, half-soaked, shoes squeaking on the porch boards.

Ivy doesn't run with us.

I notice after I'm inside, shaking water out of my hair, and glance back through the screen door to see her still out there, standing at the porch rail, watching the rain come down in sheets over the yard.

I give her a few minutes. Whatever she needs space for, I don’t want to take it from her. Eventually, I go out to the porch anyway.

She doesn't look over when I step up beside her. The rain's loud enough that talking would mean raising my voice, so for a while neither of us tries. We just stand here and watch it fall.

“Do you want to be alone?” I finally ask.

“No. Not if it's you with me.”

I wasn't ready for what those words would do to me. I don't say anything back right away. I'm not sure I trust my voice.

We stay quiet a while longer before she speaks again. “I've done this before. Watched Reid leave. Sometimes he calls every night. Sometimes I don't hear anything for four or five days. I know it doesn't mean anything's wrong. It just means he's busy, or there's no signal, or he forgot his phone is even in his bag.”

“So you're an expert,” I say, mostly to see if I can get a smile out of her.

It works, a little. “At pretending not to worry.”

I think about the calm way she took the news in the kitchen, and I understand it a little differently now. She wasn't unbothered. She was practiced. She's spent years learning how to ask the necessary questions and accept whatever answers she gets, learning not to make someone feel guilty for going and doing the job they're trained and hired for. That doesn't mean it doesn't cost her something.

“But this feels different,” she says.

She looks at me when she says it. Doesn't explain further. Doesn't have to. I know I'm the difference.

“I don't really want to go,” I say, and it surprises me a little, hearing it out loud.

She glances over, genuinely surprised. “But you love your job.”