“Just my butt,” he said.

“I think I can reach the blanket,” I said, stretching my leg out sideways.

I managed to pinch it with my toes.

“You are amazing!” the rookie said, as I pulled it closer.

What we were going to do with the blanket, I didn’t know, since our arms were duct-taped at our sides. I pushed it toward the rookie until he was able to grab a corner of it with his fingers.

“Don’t you want it?” he asked.

“You take it,” I said.

“But you’re the girl.”

“But you’re the person in nothing but underwear.”

“I’m serious,” he said.

“I’m serious,” I said. “You’re way more naked than I am.”

In the silence that followed, I wondered if I could have phrased it better.

Then the rookie had a bizarre question. “Are you wearing a shirt?” he asked.

“What?”

“Like, a T-shirt?”

“What kind of a question is that?”

“Because I’m not. So they duct-taped me right to my skin.”

“That’s going to be a bitch to take off.”

“But I’m thinking you’re probably wearing a shirt of some kind. And maybe the tape is just on your shirt. Which means you might have a better chance at wriggling.”

At wriggling? “There’s no way we’re escaping. If there’s one thing these guys know, it’s duct tape.”

“But you might be able to work your way around to the pole to get closer to me.”

A beat. “Why would I want to do that?”

“For warmth,” the rookie said.

“Are you seriously proposing that we snuggle?”

I could almost see his frown. “I wasn’t going to call it that.”

“On our first night here? Do you realize we would never live that down? Do you have any idea how much crap those guys would give us if they came down in the morning and found us snuggled together?”

It hadn’t occurred to him. “I was just trying to think of ways to keep warm.”

“I’d rather freeze to death,” I said. “And trust me: so would you.”

When I was quiet for a minute, he said, “So, you’re saying no?”

“Let me put it to you this way, rookie,” I said. “Is there anybody else on this shift that you would offer to do that with?”

“Um…”

“Would you snuggle with Tiny? Or the captain? Or up against Case’s big belly?”

Now he was smiling—I could hear it in his voice. “You might be the only one I’d enjoy doing it with…”

“Exactly. That’s your answer, right there.”

“What is?”

“If you wouldn’t do it with DeStasio, you can’t do it with me.”

“Fair enough. Good tip.”

“Just pretend I’m a gross old dude.”

“I will do my best.”

I closed my eyes and leaned my head back against the metal pole. A dog barked. A car honked. We sat in silence for a while, biding our time and doing exactly what I hated doing most—sitting still. Alone with my thoughts was my least favorite place to be. If I had to be alone, I always had the radio going, or a book to read, or something else to distract me. Here, there were no distractions. I couldn’t even fall asleep. I had to just let my own consciousness gather around me like a thickening fog.

“Can I share something else with you?” the rookie asked after a while.

“Only if you have to.”

“I kind of need to pee,” he said.

I shook my head. “Going to be a long night, rookie.”

“It definitely is.”

The crew came out to free us at six thirty with blankets and hot coffee, just as the next crew was arriving for shift. I opened my eyes to a delighted crowd of firefighters standing around us, the captain announcing we’d gotten off easy. “In my day,” he told the crowd, “they stripped you down naked, greased you up with Crisco, and taped you to a backboard out in front of the house for all the neighbors to gawk at.”

“They did that to you, Captain?” Case asked.

“Buck naked,” the captain confirmed with pride. “Except they made a little splint for my johnson with tongue depressors and sterile gauze.”

“Well, that’s a visual you can’t unsee,” Six-Pack said.

“You’re welcome,” the captain said, and—again—I couldn’t tell if he was joking.

The moment they cut us loose, the rookie sprinted to the bushes to pee. I caught an accidental glimpse of his naked back before I looked away.

Too late. Those broad shoulders—and that little butt in those red boxer briefs—were burned permanently into my corneas. I blinked my eyes over and over on the drive home, trying to blot the image from my memory.

I left that first shift completely flummoxed. And it wasn’t the hazing, or the sleeping in the supply closet, or even the mental visual of the captain’s johnson in a splint made of tongue depressors.

It was the rookie.

I’d just spent an entire night with the guy, and he hadn’t done even one annoying thing. He hadn’t farted, or hocked a loogie, or even snored. The worst thing he’d done was try to come up with ways to keep me warm in the cold night air. I already suspected he was easygoing, and then last night he couldn’t seem to stop being considerate, and now, as of first thing in the morning, I knew for certain that he had an adorable butt.

Disaster.

I needed some flaws on this guy, stat.

Otherwise—seriously—I was in trouble.

Eleven

WHEN I GOT back to Diana’s after shift, it was eight in the morning, and I was exhausted. In many different ways.

Diana was having coffee at her kitchen table with a friend—a cute African American lady with poofy hair, maybe ten years older than me. Their cups were full, with steam rising, and they both cradled the mugs in their palms, savoring the warmth. They looked up and smiled when I walked in.

Diana had changed her patch to a blue-and-white gingham.

“Meet my friend Josie,” Diana said. “She owns the yarn shop next door, and she reviews movies on her blog.”

I had the weirdest feeling they’d just been talking about me.

It’s strange to say, but it surprised me for Diana to have a friend. I’d created an idea of her in my head as a lonely old lady, isolated in her house, making pottery all day with her eye patch on. Like, if I’d been mad at her for ten years, the rest of the world must have been, too.

I lifted my hand. “Hello.”

But Josie was already plunking her coffee down on the table and scooting back her chair and launching into an excited jog—almost a prance—to come over to me. She held her arms out and up, and her whole face was a smile. “OMG!” she said. “It’s you!”

Getting a good look at her, I suddenly wondered if she might be a little bit pregnant. Just a hunch. I had a knack for spotting pregnant people. Though, if she was, it was only barely.

I didn’t ask.

Then she was hugging me—tight, and with no hesitation, the way you’d hug a dear friend, even though we’d never met before.