Singe by Ruby McNally

Terry Klink, the oldest guy on rotation and a grandfather of three, want frozen burgers, the pre-spiced kind. The candidate is too smart to make any requests. Eli laughs, writing down the Hot Pocket flavor he knows the kid likes anyway. When he gets to Addie though, she shakes her head.
    “I better come with you. Last time you bought the pasta that tastes like cardboard.” Addie eyes him benignly over her bottle of water. I dare you to say one single thing , her expression seems to communicate.
    Eli’s no dummy. He feels his eyebrows go up, surprised and pleased. “Well, come on then, princess,” he tells her, angling his head toward the doorway. “God forbid we get the wrong noodles.”
    “God forbid,” Addie echoes, heading past him in that direction. Eli tries not to sneak a look at her ass and mostly fails. Even in her station pants, navy blue twill and cargo pockets, it’s—fuck, it is a good ass. The next thing he tries not to do is imagine bending her over. “I’m driving.”
    Her car’s just as random and messy as her house is. Addie tosses a gym bag and her phone charger into the back before he gets in, then hooks a hand over the back of the camo-covered passenger seat as she backs out of her parking spot. “I meant it, you know,” she tells him, pulling out into traffic. On the radio is noisy girl-pop, Kelly Clarkson or Pink or something, Eli doesn’t know. “I legit do not trust you with the food of my ancestors. I’m not, like, trying to get you alone.”
    “You’re trying to get me alone a little bit,” Eli says. The hair at the nape of her ponytail has frizzed up into baby curls, cherubic and heavy against her neck. He wants to lay his hand there as she drives.
    Addie shoots him a glance over the rims of her sunglasses, an oversized plasticky pair that must have set her back all of five bucks. “Well, if I was ,” she says finally, turning the radio up a few bumps. “I sure didn’t have to try that hard, now did I?”
    Eli laughs. She has him there.
    He follows her bobbing ponytail through the Price Chopper as she instructs him what to put in their cart, this variety of apples and not that one, ground turkey instead of beef. As promised, she points out which kind of pasta is the right kind—“Oh God, not that one, Eli, you might as well be eating paper”—then holds court in judgmental silence while he tries to select an appropriate brand of soy sauce. “Do what you feel,” she says when he tries to ask for advice. She swapped out her work boots with keds for the trip, the low-cut kind that show off her ankles. That, plus her curly hair, plus the rolled up uniform pants, and she looks like Shirley Temple’s older, darker sister. Eli is well on his way to having a full-blown crush.
    “You guys cops?” asks the checkout woman, obviously trying to place their station uniforms.
    Eli shakes his head, exchanging glances with Addie. Every firefighter he knows loves this question. “Nope,” he says lightly. “Firefighters.” The line of people behind them, previously wary, lights up on cue, lots of nice to see you ’s and thanks for your service ’s. Everyone loves a hose monkey. He and Addie trip out the door triumphantly, with a twenty percent discount.
    Back in the car though, Addie clams up. Eli watches her fuss with her presets before she puts the car in gear, head ducked down away from him. She seems shy all of a sudden, maybe tense, her shoulders drawn up around her pretty ears. She’s switching stations too fast for Eli to catch a single bar of music.
    “Ready to head back?” he asks finally, yanking once on the end of her ponytail.
    Addie bites her lip. Then she shakes her head.
    Eli’s heart does a weird thing inside his chest, unfamiliar. He grins to cover, leans in. “Come here, you,” he says, getting a hand on the back of her curly head and pulling her across the gearshift for a long, wet kiss. She’s not wearing the perfume today, and her skin smells warm and