“Did you know your grandpa is doing my naming ceremony?”
“Yes. We’ll be there.” Chaska wouldn’t miss it.
“How is everything with you? You sound down.”
He did? “We’re moving ahead with the system design for this NASA project, and I’ve been putting in a lot of extra hours. We got toned out today for a fatality.”
“Oh, no. What happened?”
He hadn’t planned on telling her, but some part of him needed to talk about it, especially with the woman who held his heart. “A teenage kid was goofing around with some of his friends, slipped on some loose rock, and fell more than a hundred feet. His mother was waiting by the ambulance when we got down. It was … a rough scene.”
“Oh, God, Chaska. I’m so sorry—for her, for that kid, for all of you.”
“Thanks.”
She listened while he shared his grief, his sense of helplessness, her understanding helping to smooth away his roughest edges.
“I know you think you did nothing, but you brought him down, you returned him to his family. There was nothing more anyone could do.”
They talked until Naomi’s cell phone battery was almost gone.
“I miss you so much. See you in two weeks,” she said. “I love you.”
“Tecíhila. I love you, too.”
Megs satat the front of the ops room, clipboard in hand. She’d called a budget meeting and had some equipment concerns to discuss with them. That was all fine and good, but it was making Chaska miss his phone time with Naomi.
“Mitch Ahearn. Chaska Belcourt … is brooding.”
Chaska’s temper flashed. “I amnotbrooding.”
“Correction. Chaska Belcourt is broodingandcantankerous.”
Laughter.
Chaska forced his teeth together. No one here deserved his anger.
Hawke leaned in, put a big hand on his shoulder. “You miss her.”
That was an understatement. “Yeah.”
“When are you going to see her again?”
“Two weeks. Her folks are holding a naming ceremony for her, and my grandfather will be running the show.”
Hawke gave him a sympathetic nod. “Those two months when Vicki was back in Chicago—damn, I just about fell apart. I wound up drinking at Knockers with Hank, of all people, trying to give me relationship advice.”
Okay, that was pretty bad. “Advice fromHank?”
Hank was famous locally for blowing up his own house while trying to extract hash oil from marijuana using butane.
At least Chaska hadn’t fallen that far.
Megs’ voice intruded. “Eric Hawke … is trying to cheer up Belcourt. Aw, that’s sweet.”
Megs could be such a pain in the ass.
When roll call was done, they got down to business.