“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.

Which didn’t really capture him.

So I joined crochet club. Sheer panic can really move things along. I went from full avoidance to full disclosure in a day. If Diana and Josie found the shift surprising, you’d never know. They jumped in whole hog, like we always sat around gabbing about boys.

“You didn’t!” my mom and Josie said at the same time when I told them I’d said yes.

I sighed. “I did. And then we slept together.”

“You what?” Diana shrieked.

“Actually slept,” I clarified. “For warmth. Because it was cold up there.”

“Like, he held you in his arms?” Josie asked.

I shook my head. “Like, we leaned against a super-uncomfortable brick wall, side by side, and dozed off sitting up.”

“So romantic,” Diana said.

I frowned. “Kind of the opposite. But I did wind up using his shoulder for a pillow.” Technically, you could probably argue that we’d snuggled.

“And now you’re going on a date,” Josie said.

I put my hands over my eyes. “Let’s not call it ‘a date.’ Let’s call it ‘a coworker assisting another coworker with a family issue.’”

“Sounds like a date to me,” Josie said, and then they slapped a high five.

I pressed my head into a sofa pillow. “I think I just ruined my life,” I said, all muffled.

“It can’t be as terrible as all that,” Diana said.

I sat up. “If the guys in the house find out about this, it will be the end of everything.”

“I think it’s very kind of you to help out your friend,” Diana said. “He can’t help it that he’s so dreamy. That’s not his fault.”

I shook my head. “What was I thinking?”

“I just don’t see what the big deal is,” Josie said. “Who cares who you like?”

“It’s breaking the rules. As a girl, you’ve got two choices. You’re either a virgin or a whore. And guess what sleeping with guys you work with makes you?”

They refused to answer that on principle.

“Not a virgin,” I finally said.

“Why does it have to be one or the other? Why can’t you just be a normal, complex human being?”

“Irrelevant. Those are the rules.”

“But you’re not sleeping with him,” Josie protested.

“But I want to!” I said. And then I slapped my hand over my mouth.

They stared at me. I stared at them.

Then I whispered, “Did I just say that out loud?”

“Who wouldn’t want to sleep with him?” Diana demanded. “He’s like human candy.”

Josie nodded and we all took another gander at his photo on my phone. “Irresistible.”

The way we were joking around about this was comforting in a way. We kept things light. We didn’t talk about the real risk that I was taking to do this—or why, knowing everything I knew, I would have even considered saying yes in the first place.

Something to ponder.

Going to this party could very well cost me my job. And yet I’d agreed to go.

That “yes” had just burbled up out of me.

Why? I’d stayed up half the night on that roof, wrestling with that question. The rookie thanked me at least twenty times before he fell asleep, and promised that no one would ever find out. Ever.

But I knew better. The fire department wasn’t a job, it was a small town. Everybody found out everything eventually.