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Epilogue
Danny brought him home last night running a fever and barely able to talk. By morning the fever was down, but the pain had crept in overnight. She got meds and water into him. Talked him into a few bites of toast. He was out again before she’d finished tucking him back in.
The second time Lucy checked, he was awake. Actually awake. On his back, right arm on a pillow he’d put there himself, left hand pressed to his forehead.
“Hey,” he said, voice rough.
“You gave yourself a headache. You actually gave yourself a headache.”
“It’s fine.”
“It is not fine. You had a brain injury. You don’t get to have headaches.”
“My shoulder hurts worse than my head. I’m fine.”
“That is not the point and you know it.”
He went quiet. Gave her the look she’d seen maybe three times in ten years—Matt Hartfield, sheepish. She would have enjoyed it more if she weren’t furious with him.
“There was an elevator rescue,” he said. “They sent Ben in. I had to.”
The why doesn’t make it acceptable.
“Okay,” she said. “I’m still going to be annoyed about it.”
He gave her half a smile. The one that meant she’d already won and he wasn’t going to fight it.
“Can you get my wrist brace?”
“You’re unbelievable.” She went to the closet. “I’m bringing more water.”
Josh called Ben from the driveway to let him in. He came to give Ben a ride home after Ben drove Matt’s car back from HQ.
“How’s Matt?”
“Resting. Lucy’s with him.”
A rerun of last night’s Sailors game was on. Ben grabbed Josh an iced tea from the fridge and they watched it for a while without talking.
“Yesterday’s still in my head,” Josh said.
Their lead off hitter was at bat. Small guy, sweet swing.
“You went up there. And he was on the radio. And I was on the lobby floor and I was—I was scared. The whole time. And then I heard you two talking. In the middle of all of it. Like it was nothing.”
He slapped one into the gap. Double.
“I kept thinking about it on the drive home. What it would’ve been like if something went wrong. And then I kept coming back to the same thing—it wasn’t going to. Not with Matt on the other end.”
“Yeah,” Ben said. “Some things don’t change.”
Ben knocked.
“Yeah.”
He slid the door open. Matt was sitting up in bed, working through a slow shoulder stretch, a brace on his right wrist.
“How’s your headache?”
“Not you, too.”
“Well, Lucy took Josh for ice cream. Pretty sure she’s mad at both of us.”
“What did you do?”
“Got dispatched to your building.”
Matt chuckled. “Yeah. That’d do it.”
“She’s bringing ice cream back, at least.”
“Yeah. Listen—yesterday.”
He’d wondered if Matt would bring it up.
“It felt right.”
“It did.”
“The radio. I needed that.”
“Figured you might,” he said. “So. You want anything?”
“Yeah. Make sure she gets mint.”
Danny got home from work and straight into dinner prep.
“If that’s how you handle garlic, I’m worried about my car,” Lucy said from the stove.
His car now, since she upgraded last month. Title and everything.
“The garlic is fine. The car is fine. The brakes were squeaking and I got them fixed.”
“Dude. You’re crushing it, not mincing it,” Josh said, halfway through what had to be the tenth zucchini. His cuts were annoyingly perfect.
“I’m the only one here who worked a full day and this is what I get.”
“Rough day for you,” Ben said.
“You know what? I don’t even need your truck anymore. You owe me the bar incident.”
“No,” Ben said.
“I’m the one getting covered up. I think I’ve earned something too,” Josh said.
“We don’t talk about the bar incident,” Matt said, wheeling in slow from the hallway. He looked better than last night, which wasn’t saying much.
“Come on,” Danny said. “It’s been four years.”
“We don’t talk about the bar incident,” he repeated.
“Lucy,” Josh said. “We’re ice cream buddies now. You have to tell me.”
“They don’t talk about the bar incident, Josh,” Lucy said, cheerful. “Ben, come stir this.”
“I provided the ingredients.”
“Your sister provided the ingredients.”
Ben argued with Lucy about whether bringing zucchini counted as cooking. Matt was drinking his water. All three of them had forgotten Danny and Josh existed.
“We’re never gonna get this story, are we,” Danny said.
“Not from this crowd,” Josh said.
Lucy put them to work finishing prep. Ben eventually got pulled into cooking. They set the table, sat down, and ate.
“Matt,” Ben said. “Josh was in your lobby yesterday.”
“Huh.”
“I was running triage downstairs while you were on the speakers.”
“Guess those tutoring sessions weren’t a complete waste of time after all,” Matt said, and went back to his food.
“‘Not a complete waste.’ I’m framing that.” Josh grinned.
His cousin would never say it, but Danny knew that face. Matt was proud as hell.
Matt was on the porch with Lucy, close enough that her arm was warm against his. The yard was going dark. His headache had let go sometime after dinner.
“I need to figure out something for Wood’s baby,” he said.
“What are you thinking?”
“I don’t know. What do you get a newborn?”
“You’ve gotten baby gifts before.”
“Not recently.”
He heard it a second after he said it. Four years of not thinking about babies at all, and Lucy sitting right next to him.
“Seems like everyone’s having kids,” she said.
Not just Wood. Her friends, their friends, everyone around them heading into that part of their lives.
“Yeah,” he said.
They’d been here before. Not here exactly. They’d been moving toward it, and then his body changed and the conversation stopped and neither of them picked it back up.
“I’m not asking for anything,” Lucy said. “You know that.”
“I know.”
“I just don’t want us to never talk about it again.”
He turned his hand over on his leg, palm up. She took it.
“We’re talking about it,” he said.
Her head found his shoulder. His hand was still stiff. He squeezed hers anyway.
Lucy went inside first. Matt stayed another minute, then wheeled himself in.
Danny was on the couch, mid-story. Josh on the floor near Ben, shoulder against his knee. Lucy at the other end. Matt parked near the hallway. Something about a guy being stuck.
“They didn’t check on him?” Lucy said.
“We were in the other room watching the data. His session looked like a long exploration pause.”
“So what happened?” Josh said.
“Someone finally asked why one tester had zero inputs for two hours straight. QA walks over. He’s snoring.”
They all laughed.
“And I thought our job was weird,” Ben said, catching Matt’s eye.
“Our job is cool,” he said.
Josh was already into another story. A kid who locked himself in a bathroom and wouldn’t come out until he got to hit the siren. Told like a true EMT.
Matt looked around the room.
Ben watched Josh the way he did when he thought nobody noticed. Lucy swatted Ben’s arm, all too delighted with herself. Danny was egging Josh on for more details.
His people. In his house. On a Friday night.
I could get used to this.
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