“Slept with Tyler?” I said, swallowing. I crossed my arms, fidgeted, and made weird noises with my throat while I tried to find a way to change the subject. Normally I wouldn’t mind finding an abrasive, too-truthful answer for such an inappropriate question, but sobriety was a confusing time for me. “Have you?”

Wick turned to his daughter and put a cigarette in his mouth, holding it between his chapped lips.

Now Jojo was fidgeting and shifting uncomfortably. She stood upright. “I don’t think this is a suitable conversation for the workplace.”

“Damn it, Jojo! Now I’m going to have to shoot my favorite smoking buddy, because we all know I can’t kick his ass!”

Jojo rolled her eyes and turned on her heels, walking around the corner toward her desk.

Wick waited for me to put on my coat and then led me to the back alley. A small steel storage building behind the magazine’s main steel building created a cubby between the drive and us. A concrete pad provided parking spots for Wick and Jojo, but beyond that was a pasture full of snow and the intermittent rock poking through before a landscape full of Blue Spruce and Aspen trees.

“That fire station up the road … is that the hotshot station?”

“And the city’s second station. But some of the guys who work there are seasonal hotshots—like Tyler and Zeke. During fire season they live out at the Alpine barracks.”

“What is a seasonal hotshot?”

“During fire season, they eat, sleep, and travel around the country fighting fires. Three to six months of the year.”

“Oh,” I said, wondering if Tyler was already gone.

Wick sparked the white paper and tobacco and took a puff, then handed me the lighter so I could do the same with one of my father’s stale leftovers. The pack had three somewhat mashed cigarettes left, and I had just thirty-four dollars of the money Finley had left for me. Prices weren’t something I had paid attention to, but I was sure I couldn’t afford cigarettes before my first paycheck.

“Does nine hundred a week mean you pay me every week, or were you just talking wages?” I asked, rubbing my head. I could feel a headache coming on.

“Every week. Just like my bar staff.”

“So … on Friday?”

“Friday.”

Seconds after Wick answered, I heard boots crunching against snow. Zeke and Tyler rounded the corner, already smoking and carrying on conversation. They both looked happy but unsurprised to see me, and then both took a turn shaking Wick’s hand.

“Taylor!” Wick said. He noticed his street clothes the same time I did. “You must be off today.”

I frowned, wondering if Wick was trying to be funny or he’d just gotten Tyler’s name wrong.

“I heard you finally found someone to put up with your shit, Wick,” Tyler said.