Page 42 of Falling for My Grumpy Fireman

"Home," I say.

"Your home has fourteen stairs," Tater says. "I counted once. Drunk. Point stands."

"I'll sleep on the couch."

"Your couch has a sheet over it and a family of wasps in the wall behind it."

"Then the firehouse."

"Chief already said no. Something about liability and also about you being, quote, a mule with a haircut."

Debbie holds up fingers and starts folding them down. "Tater's on rotation. I've got the twins. Home health out of County is booked three weeks solid, I called twice and cried once, didn't work."

The room goes still.

Everybody looks at Nellie.

Not fast. Not obvious. Like sunflowers finding the light, one head at a time, until she's standing there in my flannel with three people staring at her and a fight breaking out on her face.

"No," she says.

Nobody argues. That's the genius of it. They wait.

"I'm a travel nurse. The whole point of me is that I don't"

"One floor," Debbie says. "The cottage. No stairs."

"I have a contract"

"Which you work three shifts a week, and I make the schedule."

"He doesn't want"

"He does," Tater says.

I open my mouth to defend myself and cannot locate one true word to do it with.

Nellie looks at me. First time she's looked straight at me since the doorway. Her jaw's set and her arms are crossed and she is losing an argument with herself right out loud where everybody can watch.

"I have the certifications," she says finally, to the room, in the voice she uses on Dwayne Pruitt. "The cottage is one floor. It's a wound-care problem, that's all it is."

"Your contract's up in eight weeks," Debbie says. Gentle. Like she's sorry to do the math out loud.

"I can count." Nellie's jaw sets harder. "I'll call the agency in the morning. Four-week extension. The floor's short and they know it. They'll approve it in a day."

Debbie's mouth falls open. She puts a hand flat on her own chest.

"Deborah Sue Monroe," she says, to nobody. "You just watched that woman renew."

"For the leg," Nellie says. "Don't make it a thing."

"Wouldn't dream of it."

I study the ceiling tiles like there's going to be a test. Because if I look at her right now, everybody in this room is going to know exactly what my face is doing, and I'm too doped to stop it.

Four weeks.

She doesn't stay. Anywhere. For anybody. She told me so with iced tea dripping off my lap.