Page 66 of A Favor Owed

He holds my hand as he drives.

“Hey, you know, your place might not be there anymore.” He says it gently, but it’s jarring nonetheless. It doesn’t seem real.

“Yeah,” I say. “Right. I know.”

He squeezes my hand and doesn’t say anything else about it.

As we get closer to Dos Torres, the ravaging path of the fire is visible everywhere. Large swaths of land along the freeway are charred black. The air smells heavily of smoke, though not nearly as bad as when we’d left.

“They got this contained fast,” says Brady, surveying the landscape as we drive. “This could have burned for weeks if the winds hadn’t died down.”

There are still barricades up at the entrance to my street. “What’s the address?” asks the firefighter on duty. He looks at his clipboard when I give him Lizette’s house number. He shakes his head. “There was extensive damage to that property, ma’am, I’m sorry to say. Don’t go near the structure, okay?”

I nod, unable to say anything.

“Do you want to go?” asks Brady.

I nod again. Brady drives slowly down the street, avoiding debris. The house next to Lizette’s and the house across the street are burned to the ground, as though the wind had pushed the fire along randomly. Lizette’s is still standing, but it’s charred in places and the windows are broken. Water is everywhere. I look at my apartment. The roof is gone and half of it has caved in.

“That’s from the firehoses,” says Brady in a low voice. “It wasn’t fit to live in, Ange.”

I swallow back a sob and brush tears away from my eyes. There’s nothing to salvage.

“We should go,” I choke out.

He turns the car around, and we head to his apartment. I text Lizette with shaking hands.Are you okay? Your house is still standing.

She texts back,I was there this morning. I’m fine, a little worse for wear. I guess you saw the apartment is gone. Do you have somewhere to go?

By now I’m shaking too much to type. I just close my eyes and lean back against the headrest, feeling numb and sick to my stomach. I don’t even realize we’re not driving anymore until Brady opens my door for me.

“You okay, Ange?”

I will myself to get it together and get out of the car. I grab my backpack and tote, but Brady takes them from me. “Let’s get you upstairs.”

Once we’re in his apartment, I lie down on the sofa and close my eyes.

“Your hands are cold,” he says, warming them between his. “You need to eat something and rest, okay?”

I fall asleep on his sofa as soon as we’ve finished lunch. When I wake up, the room is dimly lit and there’s a blanket covering me. My head rests on a pillow on Brady’s lap, and his hand lightly strokes my hair while he watches a baseball game on low volume. I sit up slowly.

“Hey, princess,” he says, muting the game. “You feeling okay?”

It strikes me suddenly that my home is gone. It was a total piece of shit, but I found it by myself, made it livable, kept it clean, and paid the rent with my own money that I earned at my own job. Most of my clothes are gone. Most of the few things I brought from home are gone. The tomatoes and geraniums I planted and cared for through the endless desert summer are gone. I didn’t have much, but now I pretty much have nothing.

“Yeah,” I say, not entirely sure what to say or do. I want to curl up and cry somewhere, but I don’t have my own space to do that anymore.

To my surprise, Brady wraps his arms around me, pulls me onto his lap, and holds me against his chest. I’m not used to that kind of spontaneous affection, and I feel stiff and awkward at first. But then I let myself relax into him, aided by his Brady smell, and warmth, and strong arms.

“Stay here with me,” he says.

“I don’t really have a choice at the moment.”

“I mean, like, don’t go crazy looking for another place right now.”

“It’s a little soon to move in together, wouldn’t you say?”

I feel his sigh against my hair. “We’ve got that dead end ahead of us. I kind of want to enjoy the ride as much as possible, you know?”

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