Things You Save in a Fire(46)

I waited.

And so did he.

Finally, I asked, “What’s the favor?”

“So I don’t want to piss off my sister Shannon—’cause, trust me, you never want to piss off Shannon,” he said. “And I’m scrolling through my phone trying to think of somebody to ask to this thing when something shocking occurs to me.”

“What?”

“You’re a female.”

“Oh, no.”

“Yes. Yes, you are.”

I put my hands out like I was trying to soothe an unpredictable animal. “I am a female, that’s true. But I’m not that kind of female.”

“What kind?”

The kind who gets dressed up. The kind who goes on dates. “The kind who’d say yes to that.”

“We wouldn’t have to stay very long. Just long enough to distract my mom.”

“There’s no way I can go with you. That party will be lousy with firefighters.”

“But all from Boston. Not from Lillian. My dad doesn’t know these guys.”

“He knows Captain Murphy.”

“True,” the rookie conceded. “But Captain Murphy already RSVP’d no.”

I shook my head. “It would be all kinds of suicide—career, personal, emotional…”

“We wouldn’t tell anybody who you are. You’d just be a mystery girl I brought with me.”

“We’d get caught.”

“I’d make sure that didn’t happen.”

“Rookie,” I said, shaking my head, “don’t ask me.”

“You can say no if you want to,” he said. “But I have to ask.”

“Don’t do it, man,” I said.

He did it anyway.

He turned to me with that heartbreaking face of his and settled his eyes right on mine and leaned in just a little, with his voice something close to a whisper, like he was letting me in on some terrific secret opportunity, and he said, “Cassie, I’m begging you. Please. Will you come with me to my parents’ anniversary party?”

The only possible answer was no.

But it was already too late.

Against every single ounce of all my better judgment, I met his eyes and said, “Yes.”





Sixteen


SAYING YES CHANGED everything.

When you are all about saying no, one yes is a big deal. It paves the way for other yesses to follow. Yes to dessert. Yes to a late-afternoon nap. The next time Diana and Josie invited me to crochet club, in fact, I said yes.

“Do I have to crochet?” I asked, wrinkling my nose, all judgy.

“Yes,” Josie said, just as Diana said, “No.”

I’d been avoiding them the whole time. Declining all their invitations for coffee, and tea, and fish tacos. Scurrying up the stairs as soon as they got themselves settled with their yarn and started cajoling me to join them—but then listening from my room at the pleasant murmur of their voices down in the living room, and the rhythm of conversation punctuated with bursts of laughter.

I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but it was a very small house. Honestly, the conversations they had were probably more unguarded and forthcoming without me there than they would have been with me in the room. Without meaning to, I’d learned a lot about both of them.

Josie, for example, was married to a guy who traveled so much, Diana had decided he was a spy. I think his name was Marcus, but Diana only ever called him Double Oh Seven. Diana, for her part, had a little crush on a twenty-seven-year-old guy who worked in the meat department of the grocery store. They called him the Butcher. Josie was indeed pregnant, as I’d suspected, and as happy as that was, it was stressful, too, because it turned out she’d been trying to have a baby for over six years—and she’d had three miscarriages, all of them late, at least midway through. So now, even though she was past her first trimester—well into her second, and starting to show for real—each passing week made her more nervous.

They talked about that a lot: how not to be nervous about being nervous.

Through it all, they cracked a lot of jokes. The sounds of them laughing rose up the staircase like bubbles. They had a great time. Which made me resent them in a way, because it made my retreat to my room seem not just practical, but sad.

I’d been trying to keep myself safe. I’d been trying to take long runs, and eat healthy, and learn parkour, and apply for grants for my firehouse. I had a whole strategy for restabilizing my life.

Then I went and said yes to the rookie.

Which blew my whole strategy apart.

Now, not only had I said yes to going with the rookie to that party—so all rules were off—even worse, I was going to have to actually go.

I really, really needed someone to talk to.

The anniversary party was happening. Soon. And it was more than I could handle alone.

So one night I broke my boycott of crochet club, and I shuffled downstairs in my socks—which felt like both a great defeat and a delightful victory all at once. I felt shy approaching them, like I’d rejected them for so long that they might hold a grudge. But of course they didn’t. They made me warm tea, and huddled around me to get the whole scoop, and I wound up telling them everything—and even, in the end, taking them to the Lillian FD website to show them the rookie’s picture.