Chapter 13 #2
Something about the blunt honesty made Ghost pause.
And before he realized it, his feet were moving, carrying him over to take the offered mug.
It was warm on his hands and smelled better than the sludge in the coffee pot at the bunkhouse.
He took an experimental sip and had to admit, it was really good.
Boone poured a second mug for himself and sat back in the chair. “I didn’t plan to stay either,” he said after a while. “Just needed to check a box for the judge. But sometimes you find the place that fits, even when you didn’t know you were looking.”
Ghost watched the steam rise from the mug. “This isn’t that place.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. But running doesn’t solve the problem when the problem is you. There’s nowhere to go that’ll feel any different than here. The walls are in your head, man.”
Those words had settled into his bones like splinters. He’d stayed for the coffee, sitting with Boone in silence until the sun peaked over the mountains. When Boone stood, stretched, and gathered his mug and thermos, Ghost had tried to hand the blue mug back.
“Keep it,” Boone had said. “It’s yours now.”
His. It was the first thing that had truly belonged to him since he’d lost his freedom, his identity, and everything else that had ever mattered.
He’d stayed.
And the mug had been his constant through every shift, through the years when he built his security systems and patrols and maintained the careful walls around himself.
But now it was gone, and he felt exposed. Like the one tangible thing anchoring him to this life had snapped, and now the same restlessness crawled up his spine. The same itch to vanish. To be just what his name promised—a ghost, untethered, unknown.
Except this time, he knew Boone was right. The problem wasn’t Valor Ridge. It wasn’t even the damn blue mug.
The problem was him.
He looked down at his phone. It was late—nearly midnight. Too late to call anyone. But his fingers moved anyway, scrolling through his sparse contacts until he found her name.
Naomi.
His thumb hovered over the call button. What the hell would he even say? Sorry to bother you, but I’m having an existential crisis over a broken coffee mug, and I can’t breathe in my own skin?
That would go over well.
He set the phone down, disgusted with himself, and rubbed his hands over his face. Pathetic. Getting worked up over ceramic and memories. There was a case to focus on. Missing women. A pattern. Real problems, not this... whatever this was.
He had always prided himself on being self-sufficient. Needing no one. But tonight, the emptiness echoed. He stood up abruptly, startling Cinder, who backed away a step, ears perked in question.
He needed—
What? Company? A drink? A fight?
No. He needed to hear another human voice. Just for a minute. Just to make sure he was still tethered to the world.
He reached for the phone again.
This was stupid. It was late. She wouldn’t want to hear from him, not after that near-miss in the truck. But his thumb pressed the call button anyway, and he held his breath as it rang.
Once. Twice. Three times.
“Hello?” Her voice was sleep-rough, wary.
He almost hung up. “It’s Ghost.”
A rustle of sheets. “What’s wrong? Did something happen with the case?”
He could picture her sitting up in bed, black hair loose around her shoulders, lights off, staring into the dark with her phone against her cheek.
“No.” He swallowed, throat dry. “I just—”
What? What did he want?
“I… broke something.”
Silence stretched between them.
“Is this a metaphor, or are we talking about actual property damage?” she asked finally.
He huffed a sound that wasn’t quite a laugh. “A mug. Just a stupid blue mug. Old, ugly. But I...” He trailed off, unable to find the words.
“But it mattered,” she finished for him.
The simplicity of it hit him like a punch.
“Yeah.” He stared at the silent monitors and mentally replayed the moment it shattered. “It’s stupid to give a damn about something so fragile, something that can’t last.”
“Not stupid at all,” she murmured. “My first year of middle school, my cousin, Mary Rose, gave me this hideous pink stuffed bunny for my birthday. At the ripe old age of eleven, I was too grown-up for toys. I was so embarrassed, I kept it under my bed. But every time I had a bad day, I’d pull it out and see its dumb face and—somehow—it helped.
Then Mary Rose disappeared, and I went looking for my bunny, but one of the dogs had found it under the bed and ripped it apart while I was at school.
I was devastated. Inconsolable.” Her voice thickened.
“All these years later, it still hurts to think about.”
He didn’t reply, but the phantom ache in his ribs eased.
“Sometimes the small, stupid stuff is important,” she added. “Doesn’t have to make sense. Loss is loss. It leaves a hole.”
He didn’t reply because he honestly didn’t know what to say.
“What was special about this mug?” she asked.
He closed his eyes and leaned back in the chair. The question was simple enough, but the answer was tangled up in things he didn’t talk about. He rarely spoke of his time inside, of the months after his release when he’d felt like he was still living in a cell, just one with invisible bars.
“It was the first thing that was mine,” he said at last. “When I came to the Ridge, I had nothing. My clothes, my shoes, the book I was reading, and even the duffel bag I was using were all borrowed. Then Boone gave me that mug and told me it was mine, and for the first time in eight years, I had…” He trailed off, unable to articulate it.
“An anchor?” she suggested.
“Yeah.”
“And now it’s gone.”
“Yeah.”
“And you’re sitting in the dark, aren’t you? Beating yourself up over feeling something about a broken mug?”
He almost smiled. “You some kind of psychic, Fury?” He realized too late he’d said his private nickname for her out loud. He waited, breath snagged in his throat, for her to react, but she didn’t.
“Nope. Just good at reading people.” The sound of her shifting came through the phone. “If you want, I can swing by with a new mug tomorrow. Bet I have at least six blue ones.”
“No, keep them.” He didn’t want another one. He wanted—
This, realized.
The comfort of her voice in the dark.
Even though they had lapsed into silence, just having this connection open between them soothed every ragged edge inside him, and he wasn’t ready for the call to end. He scrambled for something more to say.
“Why does your family call you Rabbit?”
She laughed softly. “Oh, well, that’s—”
“Sorry,” he interrupted, already regretting the question. “I heard Julius call you that at the casino and assumed that’s why Mary Rose got you the stuffed rabbit. Too personal. Forget I asked.”
“No, it’s okay,” she said quickly. “You assumed right. And it’s not like a big secret or anything. Just one of those family things, like how some people have silly names for grandparents, you know?”
He didn’t know. That kind of family life was so alien to him, he couldn’t even picture it. He’d never had childhood nicknames that weren’t cruel. Never had inside jokes or family traditions.
“It’s silly,” Naomi continued when he didn’t respond.
“When I was little, I was quiet. Shy. I’d hide behind my grandma whenever someone new came over, and if they tried to talk to me, I’d bolt.
And I was fast. Like, really fast. Nobody could catch me.
One of grandma’s friends called me a little rabbit, and it just stuck. ”
Ghost’s throat tightened. The image of a little Naomi darting through yards to avoid getting her hair braided hit him unexpectedly hard. He could almost see it—a miniature version of her zipping between houses, laughing, wild and free.
“Your family sounds... real,” he said, unsure how else to put it.
“Real messy, maybe,” she replied with a soft laugh. “But yeah. We’re loud and chaotic and drive each other crazy, but we’re there when it counts. Most of us, anyway.” A pause. “You never had that, did you?”
“No.”
“I’m sorry.”
The apology should have pissed him off. Coming from anyone else, he thought it probably would have.
But somehow, coming from Naomi, it felt genuine. Like she wasn’t just going through the motions of sympathy, but actually felt the absence in his life.
“Don’t need it,” he said, but without heat. “Can’t miss what you never had.”
“Bullshit,” she replied immediately. “Everyone needs connection. It’s hardwired into us.”
He shifted in his chair, uncomfortable with how easily she cut through his defenses. “Speak for yourself.”
“I am. And for you too.” Her voice softened. “I’m not saying you need to suddenly become a social butterfly or start hugging strangers. But you called me, Ghost. At midnight. Because something broke, and it mattered, and you needed someone to hear that.”
She was right. He had called her. Without planning, without strategy. Just reached for the phone because, in that moment, her voice was the only thing that made sense.
“I shouldn’t have bothered you,” he said.
“You didn’t bother me.” A pause, then: “I’m glad you called.”
He closed his eyes, letting those words sink in, and they sat together in silence for several comfortable seconds.
“Hey, Owen?”
He blinked, startled by the use of his actual name. “Yeah?”
“I’m talking to Craig Foster first thing tomorrow morning. If you can get the time off from the ranch, I’d…” She hesitated. “I’d like for you to be there with me.”
For a moment, he couldn’t speak. She wanted him there. Not because she needed protection or because she was scared, but because she’d chosen him.
“What time?” he managed, his voice coming out rougher than he wanted.
“Eight. I want to catch him at his office before he starts his day.”
He nodded, forgetting for a second that she couldn’t see him. “I’ll be there.”
Another silence stretched.
He cleared his throat. “Guess I should let you sleep.”
“Not tired,” she said softly.
“Me neither.”
He didn’t want to hang up. Not yet.
But eventually, she said, “Good night, Ghost.”
He almost wished she’d said his real name again, but that was greedy. “Good night, Naomi.”
He waited until the line went dead, then kept holding the phone anyway.
Cinder sighed heavily, and for the first time, he realized her head rested on his knee.
She wasn’t the cuddling kind of dog, usually preferring to keep her distance.
But now she was pressed close, as if sensing his need for connection.
He set the phone down and rested his hand on her head.
Her fur was warm and soft under his fingers as she stroked her ear.
Her tail swished on the floor.
The Hub was still dark, still silent except for the hum of the servers… but it didn’t feel like a cage anymore.