Liam didn’t want the evening to end and had plied me with drink, not that I had complained, all the time trying to convince me that Jill and should ...give it a go. Persistent in his statements that we really didn’t know what we were missing, finally managed to drag myself away from his enthusiastic evangelism at around two in the morning. I poured myself into a Uber and just about possessing the self-discipline to drink a pint and a half of water, and take some dextrose, before snuggled into bed. The placement office had worked out for three-quarters of the class and all those guys were off to start a new career. I know of two who, after California, had re-thought the whole firefighter thing and were looking at other options. A fire science degree can be a stepping stone to specialization, such as inspection programs, safety officers, hazardous materials response and all sorts of things. One girl who California had disappointed said she was looking at expanding on our medical training. The date after that I got two kisses, the first a little lingering and the second our first real, romantic kiss. After that one she stood back and just looked at me for a good ten seconds.“I like you,” she said, as if she were surprised.“I like you, too,” I said, smiling.A month later, even though we had been out on a dozen dates and had spent hours trading gentle kisses, we didn’t refer to each other as “boyfriend” or “girlfriend” in any verbal way. Our co-workers at school knew we were going. Neither knew what to say to the other if sex talk wasn’t involved. Tyrone led Daisy into the elevator and then up to the apartment. When she entered the apartment she turned to Tyrone and said,“Daddy, you wanted me to wear something pretty. I don’t really have anything sexy to wear. But last year in school we had to wear uniforms. At the mall, lots of men seemed to like to look at us in them.”As she said that, she took off her rain coat and stood before him in her red headed glory. Tyrone’s.