Chapter 2
HUDSON
My head leaned against the window as the bus chewed up the miles.
The floor vibrated under my feet with the sound of the diesel engine reverberating through my head.
I was used to the sound and smells, but it still felt foreign.
Lush green trees were a stark contrast to the deserts I’d spent a lot of the last few years in.
Most people thought of a Navy SEAL as a frogman.
Technically, we were, but we didn’t spend all our time in the water. In fact, I kind of missed the water.
I wasn’t sure I was ready to be home in Camden, but I knew I was ready to say goodbye to the Navy.
I was stuck in an in-between place. Home wasn’t home.
The Navy had been my home for a long time, but it didn’t feel like it anymore.
Neither did Camden. I didn’t know where else to go.
Part of me was hoping by returning to the place I had grown up, I would be able to find some roots.
Some stability. Right now, it felt like standing on a skiff in the middle of the ocean with no paddles.
I was aimless with no one around to pull me in.
It was time to find out who Hudson Steele was.
Not Navy Lieutenant Commander Steele, just Hudson.
I had enlisted in the Navy before I even graduated high school.
I had exactly one week between graduation and basic.
Since then, I’d been a Navy man. I climbed through the ranks.
I managed to get into the SEALs soon after joining the Navy.
My next tour would have likely landed me behind a desk.
I couldn’t do it. I wanted to go out at my peak.
When it came time to re-up or retire, I chose retirement.
Now, here I was back home in Camden with a full bank account and no idea what I was going to do with the money I’d been saving all my adult life.
I kept thinking I would have a family one day.
Birthday after birthday came and went and I was still very single with no desire to try and find a woman to put up with my bullshit.
The driver of the Greyhound pulled to a stop at the bus stop. “Last stop!”
I stood, grabbed my rucksack, and walked off the bus with the handful of other people. I waited for my duffel to be unloaded and quickly slung it over one shoulder. Everything I owned was in the two bags. I had nothing but the clothes I wore and a few little trinkets.
I had never bothered collecting much of anything. If I died in combat, I didn’t want my brother and sister to have to go through my shit. What would be the point? It would just get donated or tossed.
I took a long, deep breath of the sea air. I could smell the fresh catches being loaded onto the docks. I smelled lobster. When I left to join the Navy, I’d been sick of lobster. Now, I couldn’t wait to sit down to a buttery Maine lobster dinner. But first, I needed a drink.
I walked the short distance to the Port Pub.
It was technically a family business, but it was really my sister’s.
When our parents died in an airplane crash together, the pub had been left to their three children.
I had no desire to run it. I was already in the Navy and building a career.
My little brother, Huxley, was all about boats and being on the water.
It was the middle child, Teresa, who dove into the business. Last I heard, it was doing very well.
The pub came into view. I stopped and took it in for a minute.
The business had been built from the ground up by my dad long before I was born.
My mother had been a waitress at the pub.
They flirted, fell in love, and had the three of us.
Losing them had sucked, but the only good thing about their death was they died together.
Neither had to go through life without the other.
It was tough on the three of us, but thankfully, we had each other. Kind of.
I crossed the street and pulled open the door of the pub.
The smell of beer and greasy food hit me.
It smelled like home. My sister was leaning on the bar with her elbows.
She was studying a sheet of paper. A few old men sat at the bar with mugs of beer in front of them.
There were a few other scattered customers at the tables.
This was always the slow part of the day.
I hoped like hell her business was doing a little better than this.
I walked up to the bar and dropped my bags on the floor next to the stool. “Can a guy get a beer?”
Teresa’s head popped up. I grinned when she saw me standing directly in front of her. “Hudson!”
She raced around the edge of the bar and threw her arms around me. I hugged her back. “This is a nice welcome.”
She pulled back and slugged my upper arm. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming today?”
“I wasn’t sure I was going to be coming straight home,” I said.
“Are you out?” she asked. “Like really out?”
“I am officially a civilian,” I said, shrugging. “I’m just Hudson Steele.”
She walked back around the bar and grabbed a chilled glass. I watched her fill it and slide it across the bar to me. “Did Huxley know you were coming home?”
“Nope.” I took a sip of the cold beer.
“I can’t believe you are actually here,” she said with a shake of her head. “I’ve been waiting for you to call. You can sleep on my couch.”
“I have an apartment,” I answered.
“What? How? When?”
“It’s just temporary,” I said. “A little one-bedroom.”
“Is it furnished?”
“Nope,” I answered. “Not yet. I’m not sure what I’m going to do.”
“Like you might not live here?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly.
She sighed and shook her head. “You are so worried about letting the grass grow under your feet. One of these days, you have to put down roots. You may as well do it here. This is where you belong. This is where your family is. Besides, you know you love it here.”
“I haven’t been here in two decades,” I reminded her.
“Which is why it’s time to come home,” she said. “Stay home. This is where you belong. We’re not getting any younger. One of these days we might all have families. They’d want us to be close.”
“We’ll see,” I replied. “I like what you’ve done to the place.”
“Very funny,” she said with a laugh.
“I’m serious,” I said and looked around. “I like that it’s the same but more modern. Mom and Dad would be proud. I like that you’ve kept all the pictures and stuff Dad collected.”
“Thank you. Are you going to take up your birthright?”
I smirked. “No. This place is all yours. You can keep it. I don’t want anything to do with the pub. I mean, I’ll help out if you need it, but I’m not here to step on your toes.”
“Still have that big fat nest egg?” she teased.
“I’m afraid to answer,” I said, laughing. “Are you going to hit me up for a loan?”
“Don’t be stingy,” she teased. “Besides, I don’t need your money. I know of a cute little cottage a couple miles out of town. It would be perfect for you.”
“Slow down,” I said.
“You aren’t going to find anything you can afford around here on the water,” she said. “And we both know you want to be on the water. You have to jump on it before one of those city people swoops in and tears it down. It’s ugly but you can make it beautiful.”
“I’m not sure I’m going to run right out and buy something,” I said.
“Don’t wait, or you’ll miss out.”
“Hudson?” someone called.
I turned around on the stool to see a guy I went to school with. His name was escaping me for the moment. “Hey,” I said with the usual friendliness.
“It’s me, Dave Barker.”
“Oh shit,” I said and put the name and face together. “You’re still around here?”
“Came back about three years ago,” he said. “Lost my job and had to go back to work with my dad on the boat.”
“Sorry to hear that,” I said. “Let me buy you a beer. We’ve got to catch up.”
The next hour was much the same. Guys I’d gone to school with all came over to welcome me back. There was a lot of back slapping and shouts. It was a little awkward. They were treating me like I was someone special. I didn’t feel special. I felt like an outsider.
My sister was making sure the drinks were flowing. The pub was quickly filling up as the locals got off work and made their way to the pub to get their cold beer before going home.
“I heard you were some badass,” Dave said with a chuckle. “Were you one of the guys out there taking out these assholes that keep bombing us and shit?”
I didn’t know who was bombing us. “I’ve been around,” I said without confessing to anything.
“Ah, he can’t talk about it,” Dave said. “Black ops and shit like that.”
I took a drink from my glass without confirming or denying anything.
“Are you back in town for good?” Dave asked.
“I don’t know,” I said, shrugging.
“Are you going into the family business?” he pressed.
“Which one?” someone joked.
I looked to Teresa for clarification. “They’re talking about Huxley’s boat business.”
“His what?” I asked.
I knew I’d been a dick. I didn’t keep up with them.
We usually exchanged a few texts here and there, but I didn’t come home on leave.
I never knew what to say to normal people.
I couldn’t talk about where I had been or where I was going.
No one wanted to hear about how well I shot or what it was like to parachute into an undisclosed location in the middle of the night.
I couldn’t talk about the guys we lost or got wounded.
“Huxley finally started his own business,” Teresa said. “He sells sailboats.”
“Here in town?” I asked.
“Mostly in town,” she said with a laugh. “Real estate is ridiculously expensive these days. They got a nice little setup.”
“They?” I asked.
“Oh, that’s the best part of the story,” she said. “Remember Natalie Sprite?”
“The mousy little girl that was always tagging along?” I joked.
“She’s not so mousy anymore,” Teresa answered. “She’s a nautical engineer. She designs the sailboats.”
“No kidding?” I asked. I was truly impressed.
“Yep, they usually come in here after work,” she said. “He’s going to be very happy to see you.”
I couldn’t believe my little brother had finally gotten to do what he had always talked about.
I supposed it was pretty cool he got to do it with his best friend.
That was assuming they were still friends.
I wondered if the relationship had finally progressed.
I wasn’t convinced they weren’t messing around back in school.
The crowd was getting bigger and people were pressing in around me. It seemed like everyone wanted to say something to me. People were asking questions about what I had done or where I had been. Teresa checked in on me often. I just kept reminding myself everyone in the pub was a friendly.
It was hard to let my guard down.