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"Jordan."

"...not to."

Erin looked at me. I bit my lip to keep from laughing. "Go get your backpack, bug. Time to go."

"Thank you," I said to Erin. "As always, you're superwoman."

"Don't mention it." She turned to Hazel. "Same time tomorrow, bug."

Hazel talked about hockey the whole drive home, through dinner, through brushing her teeth, and into bed, where she was still going when I pulled the blanket up to her chin.

"Coach says my backward crossovers are getting better but they're still not fast enough for the tournament, and the tournament is in December, Mama, and December is soon."

"December is three months away."

"That's soon."

She was six years old and hockey was her whole world. Her team was entering the Bruins Holiday Tournament, and she wanted to be ready more than she'd ever wanted anything.

"You're going to get there, bug."

"What if I don't?"

"Then you'll be the best at something else instead. But you're going to get there."

She yawned. Her eyes were already closing. "Can we go to a Bruins game? A real one?"

"Those tickets are really hard to get."

"But can we try?"

"We can try."

She fell asleep between one word and the next, her mouth still half-open around whatever she was about to say. I watched her for a minute in the glow of the nightlight. Then I turned off the lamp and pulled the door halfway shut.

I moved through the apartment checking locks, pulling curtains. The routine I ran every night. I stopped at the mantel in the living room.

The mantel was crowded the way I liked it. Hazel as a baby. The two of us on her first day of school. Hazel on my mother's lap, both of them laughing. My parents on their wedding day. And tucked between the frames, the souvenirs I'd carried home from my gap year: a tile from Lisbon, a tiny brass Eiffel Tower, a painted wooden cat from a market in Prague, and a snow globe from Edinburgh with the castle sealed under glass.

I picked it up.

The gap year was my father's idea. His graduation present to me was a year before college to go see the world. I'd never been outside Ohio, so he put me on a plane to London. By the time I came home I'd been through twelve countries and couldn't stop talking about going back. I told myself that after college I'd save up and do it again to see everything I'd missed and take my time.

Then Hazel came along, and she became the plan.

I set the snow globe down and watched the glitter swirl around the tiny castle.

Hazel was almost old enough now to appreciate a trip like that. Maybe we could make it our thing. Save up, pick a place, go see it together.

I watched the snow settle around Edinburgh Castle and thought about the stranger at midnight. The tall one, a few years older than me, who studied the castle like he'd come a long way to see it. He smiled first, and his hand came up to my face before the crowd pulled us apart.

I wondered where he was now, and who he'd become.

CHAPTER 2

Fire Captain

ALEX