Page 76 of Igniting Her

“Didn’t ask you to.”

“I’m not asking anyone to take sides.”

“Good. We already did that badly enough without your help.”

The soda arrived. Mo turned the glass once between his palms and left it where it was.

“What you did at Mirador was wrong,” he said.

Ellie gave him a flat look. “The department sent you to improve morale?”

“Cassie’s withdrawal order was right. You knew it. You broke it anyway, and for six minutes every person on that ridge had to build the fireground around getting you back.”

“I know.”

“I know you know.” Mo’s voice gentled without losing weight. “That’s why I’m saying the next part.”

Ellie waited.

“She was right to remove you from her command.”

The old wound opened with embarrassing ease. Ellie took a drink to keep it inside.

“She was wrong to make you believe that was all she was doing.”

Ellie set the bottle down.

Mo looked toward the photographs on the wall. A trawler leaned into white water beneath a sky the color of steel. “Jules Calloway was on Cassie’s first crew after she made captain. Brilliant firefighter. Fast in a building, fearless on a roof, and impossible to keep out of an argument she thought she could win.”

“I’ve heard three adjectives.”

“That’s three more than Cassie ever let us give you.”

Ellie let the rebuke stand.

“Jules was magnetic,” Mo continued. “Some people walk into a room and expect it to hold them. She did. The rest of us adjusted around her and pretended we hadn’t. Cassie was new to the bars, still acting like she had to earn them again every morning. Jules never treated her authority like it was fragile. She challenged her when it mattered and trusted her without making a show of either one.”

The description found familiar places despite itself. Ellie stared at the water gathering beneath Mo’s glass.

“Were they together?” she asked.

“No.”

The speed of the answer surprised her.

Mo rubbed one thumb along the edge of the bar. “They were worse than together. They loved each other and never said it. Not to each other. Not where anyone could hear.”

“You can’t know that.”

“I watched them long enough.” He met her eyes. “Some things don’t have to be named to become the center of a room.”

Ellie thought of Cassie at her apartment door with one hand open. Every command an apology. Three seconds of rigid silence after the truth.

“Did Jules know?”

“Probably. Knowing isn’t the same as hearing.”

The baseball game changed innings. Someone at the other end of the bar fed money into the jukebox, and a guitar began beneath the conversations. Mo waited until it settled.