The Grumpy Neighbor Wants the Size 22 Girl Upstairs, and the Walls Are Thin novel · Chapter 18 of 24

Chapter 18: Meet the Engine

The firehouse smelled like chili, floor wax and forty people talking at once.

Engine 21 held a family dinner one Wednesday a month, and Costa had skipped every one since last November.

He stood in the bay door with my hand in his and didn't move.

"We can go," I said.

"No."

"Your thumb is crushing my knuckles."

"Sorry."

"It's fine. I like it."

The truck gleamed in the middle of the bay, and long tables ran along the walls, covered in paper and foil pans.

A man with a white mustache turned from the stove, and the room got quiet in a wave.

"Karras," he said.

It was the old captain from the party.

"Cap."

"Took you long enough, you big idiot."

The captain crossed the floor and hugged him, hard, with a hand on the back of his head.

Costa's whole body shook once.

Then a young man pushed through the crowd on a bad leg, with a pretty woman behind him, and stopped three feet from us.

He was maybe twenty-four, with a flat nose and a fireman's shoulders.

"You didn't come," he said.

Costa went white.

"I know."

"I sent you a card. I sent you three."

"I know. I'm sorry."

"You carried me out of that building."

"Kid."

"I got married in June in a church with a hundred and ten people," the young man said. "And I kept a seat in the front row anyway."

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