Chapter 9 #3
The bar doesn’t quiet down when I go upstairs.
The music is still there, muted through the floorboards, bass thumping low and steady like a second heartbeat under my feet, laughter and voices bleeding through in waves as the night carries on without me, because places like this don’t stop just because one man reaches his limit.
I shut my door behind me, lean back against it for a second, and let out a slow breath. My body is tired, but my head is worse.
The dull sting in my ass cheek reminds me of the blade, but it’s nothing compared to the pressure sitting in my chest and the weight that’s been building all day, stacking piece by piece until it feels like I’m carrying something I can’t set down.
Ruby.
That damn parking lot.
The way she looked at me as if I wasn’t already broken beyond fixing.
My decision to fly home, back to a place I don’t belong anymore.
I drag a hand down my face and push off the door, moving through the apartment in the same controlled rhythm I started the morning with, except now everything feels heavier, slower, like I’m walking through something thick.
I strip off my cut, toss it over the chair, and turn on the shower hot enough to burn.
Steam beads on the mirror until my reflection disappears.
The heat rinses off sweat, grime, and the stink of the bar, but it doesn’t touch the rest of it.
That never washes off. I stay under longer than I need to, head tipped forward, hands braced on the tile, letting the heat beat down on the back of my neck like it can knock something loose inside me.
Eventually, I shut it off, dry myself, and get dressed without thinking.
Sleep comes in pieces. The kind where you close your eyes and the dark fills up with faces and sounds, and you wake up already tense as if you’ve been fighting in your dreams.
When my alarm drags me out, it feels like I never really went under.
The airport is smaller than the ones I’m used to. Quieter, less rushed and chaotic, with none of that constant push of bodies moving in every direction.
Mercy Lake, Minnesota, feels different the second I step off the plane.
The air is cooler and cleaner, not heavy like New Orleans with no wet heat clinging to your skin, no sour mix of booze and piss baked into the sidewalk.
It smells like trees and pavement that haven’t been drowned in last night’s bad decisions.
This place breathes slower, as if it’s got time and isn’t running from anything.
I adjust my bag over my shoulder and walk through the small terminal, boots echoing faintly against polished floors, eyes taking in the familiar without letting it hit too deep.
Everything I left behind is still sitting where I dropped it, or close enough that my body recognizes it before my head can argue.
I step outside, the crisp air hitting my face, and pull my phone from my pocket. There’s only one number I dial, and it rings twice.
“Yeah?” his voice comes through, steady, familiar.
I don’t say anything for a second, then take a breath. “Hey, brother. I’m at the airport. Could use a ride.”
There’s a pause.
Just a beat as my brother processes the fact that I’m back in our hometown. I can hear a warm smile in his voice as he says, “On my way,” before the line goes dead.
I lean against the metal railing near the pickup area, watching two cars roll in and out, engines idling, people greeting each other with smiles and easy conversation.
It feels… distant. As if I’m watching something I don’t quite belong to anymore. Truth is, I don’t.
Thirty minutes later, a truck I’d recognize anywhere pulls up with my brother behind the wheel. He hasn’t changed much. Still looks the same way—solid, confident, easy in his own skin in a way I never really was. I toss my bag into the truck bed, open the passenger door, and slide into the cab.
“Damn,” he says, looking me over with a half grin. “Didn’t think you’d actually show.”
I huff out a breath that might pass for a laugh. “Didn’t either.”
“Good to see you, man,” he mutters.
“You too.”
He puts the truck in gear. The drive starts quietly. Not uncomfortable but… easy. The kind of silence that doesn’t need filling.
“So,” he says after a minute, pulling out onto the road, “Mom and Dad know you’re here?”
“No.”
He glances at me, one brow lifting slightly. “Figured.”
I look out the window, watching the trees blur past, the familiar stretch of road leading back into a life I walked away from years ago. “Didn’t want to say anything,” I add. “In case I didn’t make it.”
He nods once, not pushing for more of an explanation.
“Mom’s gonna be so fuckin’ happy,” he says instead, a hint of amusement in his voice.
“Yeah,” I mutter.
We talk about simple things after that. His job, the shop, people I used to know, who stayed, who left, and who settled into lives that look nothing like mine. He doesn’t bring up the past nor mention anything I don’t want to touch, and I appreciate that more than I can say.
It’s not long before my childhood home comes into view, frozen in time. The home I used to walk out of, thinking I had everything figured out.
My ribs seem to close in around my heart, but I don’t let it show. We pull up, and the engine cuts, letting silence settle heavy in the cab.
“You ready?” Dean asks.
No.
“Yeah.” I follow my brother up the steps and stroll inside the house.
The aroma hits me first. Mom’s cooking—butter, pepper, bacon fat, and something sweet underneath it all that I can’t place until it cracks open my ribs. Home. The radio is playing softly in the kitchen. “Blue Bayou” drifts through the air, slow and warm, wrapping around the room as Mom sings along.
We make our way into the kitchen to find Mom at the counter, her back to us, cutting biscuits and laying them into a buttered cast-iron skillet.
“Hey, Mom.” My voice is rougher than I expected.
Mom stills for a beat, then turns, and her eyes find mine. “Sweetheart…” The word is soft, full of something I don’t deserve because I’ve avoided coming home for so long.
Mom moves fast after that, crossing the kitchen and pulling me into her arms as if she’s afraid I might disappear if she doesn’t hold on tight enough. I wrap my arms around her.
“Look at you,” she murmurs, pulling back just enough to cup my face, her eyes scanning every inch of me. “You’re here.”
“Yeah.”
She smiles, bright and warm, the kind that used to fix everything when I was a kid.
“Where’s Dad?” I ask.
She laughs softly. “He’s out in the garage, working on that old truck like always.” She squeezes my arm. “Go on,” she says, still smiling. “Go see him.”
I nod and head through the back door, stepping out into the yard.
The garage is open, and I can hear the old man before I see him—tools clinking, metal shifting, the low mutter of a man working through something with his hands.
When I step inside, Dad is under the hood, grease on his hands, shoulders hunched.
“Need a hand, old man?” I say.
Dad doesn’t jump at the sound of my voice. He reaches out, palm open. “Hand me that half-inch socket over there.”
I can’t help the smile that creeps across my face. Closing the distance, I stride over to his toolbox, grab the socket, and pass it to him. He finally glances up, eyes meeting mine for a second—same eyes as mine, just older, more worn, but steady.
“Good to have you home, son,” he says.
I’m not convinced being home is a good thing yet, so I say nothing. My throat is tight anyway, like the words would come out wrong if I tried.
Dad nods once, because my silence says everything it needs to. And for a few more minutes, that quiet hangs over us while we pass tools and tighten bolts, falling into something familiar without needing to talk about it.
“How’s life?” he eventually asks.
“Good.”
It’s a lie, and we both know it, but he doesn’t call me on it. He studies me for a second longer than necessary. Something in his gaze is sharper than his words. “Mm.” That’s all he says, but it lands. Because he sees it, sees me, even if he doesn’t acknowledge it.
My brother strolls into the garage and leans against the truck. “Mom says, ‘Wash up. Breakfast is ready.’ ”
My old man grunts, wiping his hands on a rag. “Don’t need to tell me twice.”
We head inside, and the second we step through the back door, warmth hits me first. Not the kind that comes from weather, but the kind built into a home after years of meals, arguments, laughter, and people moving through the same rooms until the walls start holding onto all of it.
The kitchen is louder now.
Plates clink. Grease pops in a skillet. The radio’s low voice is still playing somewhere near the windowsill. My mom hums under her breath as she moves between the stove and the counter, like she owns every inch of the room, because she does.
She has biscuits stacked in a towel-lined basket, eggs in a big serving bowl, bacon draining on paper towels, sausage links piled high, and a skillet of gravy sitting on the back burner thick enough to stand a spoon in.
My stomach tightens before it growls. Mom hears it. She turns, one brow lifting, eyes warm and sharp at the same time. “Don’t tell me they don’t feed you in New Orleans.”
My brother snorts as he moves past me to wash his hands at the sink. “Look at him, Ma. He’s built like a damn refrigerator. Somebody’s feeding him.”
I give him a look.
He grins.
Same grin he had when we were kids, and he knew he was about to get away with something.
Mom points a butter knife at both of us. “Language at my table.”
My old man steps in behind me, still wiping grease from under his nails with the rag. “Woman, I’ve heard you cuss at that oven worse than either one of them.”
She doesn’t even glance at him. “That oven earned it.”
Dad’s mouth twitches, not quite a smile, but close enough.
I stand there a second, watching the ease of it, the rhythm, and the way they fit around each other without thinking.