Page 53 of Stuck With the Smokejumper

“Poorly. Which is how he ended up losing the pie-eating contest against Cassidy, which he has since described as the worst decision of his entire life.”

“I saw the aftermath.”

“You missed the lefse,” she says, her voice a little wistful. “Norwegian potato flatbread. Warm, butter, cinnamon sugar. It's my favorite thing at the festival. I wanted you to try it.”

“There's always next year,” I say, the words out before I've really thought about what they might mean.

I hear noises in the background. A door, voices, the layered noise of a lot of people in one room. “Where are you right now?”

“The Grangers'.”

Of course. Sunday. I'd lost track of what day it is.

“Is that Beck?” Annie's voice, distant but unmistakable.

Ivy laughs. “You've been made.”

“Put him on speaker!” That's Tessa.

There's a shuffle, and then I'm not talking to Ivy anymore. I'm talking to everyone.

“Beck!” Annie's voice comes through clear now. “Are you eating enough out there?”

“Eating fine, Annie.”

“He says that,” Reid calls from somewhere behind me, audible enough to get pulled into this too. “He's been living on protein bars and stubbornness.”

“That's not entirely inaccurate,” I admit.

“Hi, Beck!” That's Cassidy.

“Congratulations on the pie thing,” I say.

“Thank you,” Cassidy says, with the calm satisfaction of someone still riding a well-earned victory.

“It was close,” Nolan's voice cuts in, aggrieved. “I want that on record.”

“The record shows you lost by a significant margin,” Trevor says.

“Nobody asked you, Trevor.”

For a solid minute it's just noise, warm and chaotic, half a dozen conversations happening at once through a single speaker, Russ's voice cutting through eventually to ask how the assignment's going, whether Elk Ridge is treating us right. I answer what I can. For a few minutes, the distance between Granite Creek and Timber Creek doesn't feel like several hundred miles at all.

Eventually Ivy's voice comes back, closer now, like she's stepped somewhere quieter.

“Sorry about that.”

“Don't be.”

“You should know better than to call during Sunday dinner.”

“Clearly.”

I tell her what I've learned in the last hour, that Elk Ridge expects to need us through the workweek, that if things hold steady we should be released Friday.

“Friday?” she says.

“That's the plan.”