44. Wes
WES
The bay doors stand wide open, carving rectangles of sharp Saturday sun onto the slick concrete floor.
It’s one of those PR days. Families drift through, a tide of strollers and sticky fingers.
Kids’ shrill laughter bounces off the engine enamel.
The air hums with the electric crackle of the radios and the low murmur of a dozen conversations.
It’s noise, but it’s our noise. Ordered chaos.
I wipe grease from a brass coupling, the metal cool and solid in my palm.
The rhythm of it is familiar, grounding.
Then they walk in. Jordyn’s hair is pulled back, a few loose strands catching the light.
She keeps a hand near Brody’s shoulder, a human anchor in the sea of people.
He has his headphones on, his gaze sweeping over the ladder truck, cataloguing every detail.
Tate spots them and breaks off from a group, that easy smile of his already in place.
I watch them for a second before turning back to the task at hand. Just a part of the weekend routine now.
I head for the coffee station in the back, the pot looking dangerously empty. A couple of volunteers are packing up a bake sale table nearby, their conversation a low buzz.
"…heard he called the school office," one of them says, her voice pitched just low enough to be gossip. "Asking about her work schedule. Real piece of work, apparently."
"Whose ex?" the other asks, folding a tablecloth.
"The new cafeteria lady. Jordyn. Apparently, he hasn’t been around in years."
I stop. The cheap ceramic mug in my hand feels weightless.
The sounds of the station—the whine of an air tool, a kid squealing as a siren chirps—recede into a distant hum.
Everything sharpens down to a single point.
I didn’t hear it from Tate. I didn’t hear it from Dean.
And I damn sure didn't hear it from her.
The knowledge lands sideways, a piece of glass under the skin.
I turn my head slowly, my eyes finding her across the bay.
She’s watching Brody trace the lettering on the side of the engine, a small, tired smile on her face.
She looks the same as she did five minutes ago, but now I see the load she’s hauling.
He’s not just a memory. He’s looming. A threat.
And she’s facing it alone. My jaw locks, a hard ache spreading up to my temples.
It’s not a hot, explosive anger. It’s cold.
A quiet, clarifying rage that settles deep in my bones.
Tate kneels, showing Brody how the Jaws of Life work, his voice a low, steady rumble that pierces through the surrounding chaos. The kid is completely locked in, his fingers tracing the cool, yellow metal of the tool. Safe. Engaged.
That’s my window.
I push off the workbench and cut a straight line across the bay.
People part without me having to ask. Jordyn stands near a corridor that leads to the offices, her arms wrapped around herself, watching them.
The noise drops off here, the crowd’s roar fading to a dull hum. I stop a few feet from her.
“You want to tell me what’s going on?”
Her head snaps toward me. Her eyes are sharp, her posture rigid. She’s a cornered animal pretending it’s just enjoying the view. “It’s nothing.”
“Doesn’t seem like nothing.” I keep my voice low, matter-of-fact. “Just tell me.”
A muscle in her jaw jumps. She takes a breath, the kind you take before you lie. “Brody’s father called. He saw the article. It’s handled.”
The words are clipped. Dismissive. She’s building a wall brick by brick and expecting me to just stand on the other side.
“Handled.” I repeat the word. It tastes like ash. “You think he just gets to show up?” The question isn't loud, but it’s sharp enough to cut. My hands clench at my sides. I feel the urge to throw something.
Her control finally cracks. Her eyes flash with a raw, desperate anger that mirrors my own.
“You don’t get it!”
Her words hang in the space between us, sharp and ringing.
For a second, the world is suspended. A radio squawks a dispatch code from the office down the hall.
Laughter spills from the main bay, a bright, distant sound.
I don’t move, don’t step closer. I feel the coiled tension in my shoulders and consciously force it down. Punching a wall won’t fix this.
I just watch her, the frantic energy crackling off her in waves. Her chin is up, defiant, but her eyes are a storm. The anger inside me shifts, finding a new gear. It’s not about me. It’s not about Tate or Dean. It’s about the shadow that just fell over her.
“Then help me understand.” The words are quiet. A challenge, not a command. They hold the line.
Her gaze drops from mine, landing on a scuff mark on the concrete floor. The fight drains out of her posture, leaving something brittle in its place. She pulls her arms tighter around her middle, a human shield.
“He doesn’t care about Brody,” she says, her voice low and stripped of its earlier fire. “Not really. He wants control.” She shakes her head, a tiny, almost imperceptible movement. “But if he pushes this… if he takes it somewhere legal… I could lose everything.”
The words don’t break, but they land like stones.
Everything. It’s not just about custody. It’s this life she’s starting to build. The job. The school that finally has the right resources. This place. Us. All of it is balanced on a knife’s edge, and he’s the one holding the handle.
I hear it for what it is. Not panic. Not a what-if spiral.
A cold, calculated risk assessment from someone who has been fighting losing battles her whole life.
She’s staring down the barrel of a gun she can’t afford to outrun.
My own simmering anger cools, hardening into something solid and sharp.
Something useful. This isn't a fistfight. This is a war. And she’s standing on the front lines by herself.
I take a step. It's a deliberate, quiet movement that closes the distance until I'm standing just in front of her.
Not touching. Not crowding. Just erasing the space she tries to keep between herself and the rest of the world.
The air is thick with unspoken fear, with the ghosts of past failures that follow her like shadows.
I can feel the frantic pulse of her anxiety radiating off her in waves, the way her breathing has gone shallow and careful, like she's afraid that taking up too much air might somehow give him more ammunition.
My gaze holds hers. It's a promise, not a threat. The kind of look that cuts through all the noise and bullshit and gets straight to the bone of things.
"You're not losing us."
The words are low, stripped of everything but raw certainty. No hesitation. No doubt. It's not a question. It's not some empty platitude meant to make her feel better for five minutes. It's a fact. As solid and unchanging as the steel beams holding up this station.
Over her shoulder, the life of the station continues in its familiar rhythm.
I can see Tate, his broad back to us, his dark hair falling into his eyes as he helps Brody into the driver's seat of the engine.
The kid's small hands grip the massive steering wheel like he's piloting a spaceship, his face a mask of intense concentration as Tate explains something about the gauges.
There's patience in every line of my brother's body, the kind of steady calm that comes from years of practice with kids who need the world to slow down just enough for them to catch up.
Brody's safe. He's grounded. He's exactly where he needs to be.
Across the bay, leaning against a support column with his arms crossed, Dean watches.
His expression is unreadable, but his eyes are fixed on us, assessing, calculating.
Taking in every word, every micro-expression, filing it all away in that tactical mind of his.
He already knows. Of course he knows. He's been ten steps ahead of this since the day they arrived, probably already running through contingencies and backup plans that none of us have even thought of yet.
The system holds. Tate is the anchor, the steady heartbeat that keeps everything centered. Dean is the strategist, the chess master who sees twelve moves ahead. And me? I'm the wall. The thing that doesn't bend, doesn't break, doesn't move when someone tries to push through it.
Why didn't I see it all before?
Jordyn's breath hitches. A single, sharp inhale that cuts through the ambient noise of the station.
Her eyes search mine, looking for the catch, the fine print, the inevitable disappointment that she's been conditioned to expect.
She's so used to fighting alone that she doesn't know what to do when someone steps into the trench with her, when backup actually shows up instead of melting away at the first sign of real trouble.
I don't offer a smile. I don't reach out to touch her, don't try to soften the edges with gestures that might feel like pity.
I just stand there, an immovable object planted firmly in her corner.
I let the silence do the work. Let it tell her that my word is as solid as the concrete under our feet, as reliable as the sunrise, as permanent as the scars on my knuckles from fights I've already won.
He doesn't get to undo this. He doesn't get to waltz back into their lives and burn down what she's building from the ashes of her old fears. Not while I'm standing here.
Not while any of us are standing here.