Page 18 of The Kiss

ALEX

Drink tea in a dark kitchen at midnight.

JANINE

So you're sitting alone in a firehouse kitchen drinking tea at midnight. That's what the hero does after the cape comes off?

ALEX

Pretty much.

JANINE

You know, I've heard a few things about what goes on in the bunk rooms of firehouses.

ALEX

Patently false. All of them.

JANINE

All of them? You didn't even ask which ones.

The conversation kept going. She caught me dodging a question about the crew and called it before I'd finished the sentence. I kept typing back before I'd decided what I was going to say, which was new.

I couldn't remember the last time talking to someone had felt this easy.

I leaned back in my chair and set the phone on the table.

No. The last time it was this easy was a few months before Cheryl handed me the divorce papers. Dinner, conversation, bed. I thought we were fine right up until the morning she told me we weren't.

You're a good man, Alex. Just not a good husband.

My phone buzzed against the table.

JANINE

I better go to bed. Have an early shift tomorrow.

ALEX

Good night, Janine.

JANINE

Good night, Captain Holloway.

I stopped for coffee on my way home from shift the next morning. I was halfway to my truck when someone called out behind me.

"Captain! Hey, Captain Holloway!"

I turned. A man about my age was crossing the parking lot, grinning, wearing a Bruins polo and carrying a laptop bag. It took me a second to place him, and then the face clicked. Dennis Ryan. A teammate from college, same line, two years of games and bus rides together. He'd stayed in the Bruins organization after I left and ended up working for them full-time.

"Thought that was you." He shook my hand. "God, it's been forever. You look good, man. You still look like you could play."

"I don't play."

"Yeah, I know." His grin dimmed by half a degree. "Heard you went into the fire service. Captain now, right? That's great. That's really great."