Squinting into the sun, I walked out of the Midnight Sun’s Hotshot Crew house at 10:45 p.m. I’d never known a more fitting name for a hotshot team in my life. We’d lived here the last seven years—as soon as I’d been accepted to the University of Alaska—but the sunlight situation in late July still caught me off guard from time to time. Guess my brain always diverted back to Colorado. “Damn, that was a long one, Riv,” Bishop said, swinging his arm over my shoulder and squeezing. He’d done the same thing after every fire we’d ever been on together. I knew he hated that I’d followed him into this life. What the fuck did he think I was going to do? Let my big brother follow in our dad’s footsteps and not tag along? Hell no. As soon as I was old enough, I’d applied, worked my ass off through college getting my degree in forestry, and now here we were. “I’m just glad it’s over. It was getting dicey there for a while.”
