CHAPTER 11

NICK

With zero chance of finding even a broom closet to rent in Lily Valley, I checked the bylaws and confirmed that there was nothing in them to say a member in good standing could not sleep in the firehall. It’s not like it was going to be a sacrifice for me. The Lily Valley hall had a shower, a small but full kitchen, a giant screen TV and wifi. There was also an airy space above the truck bay that was home to exercise equipment (never used, Murray told me) and storage shelves. The heavy-duty hooks in the exterior wall suggested that the space was used to practice high-angle rescues, over the pony wall, into the truck bay. Smart.

The loft ran the entire width of the hall, a good forty feet wide and at least ten feet deep. It wasn’t that much less space than my downtown condo and, with a little Marie Kondo-izing, had all I needed to make a home until something better opened up in the village.

And it wasn’t like I wasn’t used to sleeping on a cot or a couch. What I hadn’t shared with Murray was that since I wasn’t living full-time in any of those family homes growing up, once we all hit our teens, I bounced from couch to couch, not bedroom to bedroom, since nobody thought that it was worth having a bedroom for a part-time resident. Dylan was always good enough to let me crash in...