Chapter 8 #2
I grinned despite myself, tension I didn't know I was carrying releasing from my shoulders like someone had cut the strings. "Yes, ma'am. I'm in the service myself. Just passing through town. And yes, I'd like a place to stay—especially with an armed guard as fierce as you."
She finally looked up, lowering her glasses to study me properly over the rims. Her eyes were sharp, missing nothing, cataloging everything about me in seconds. "Are you now?"
"Army," I said. "Engineering and security work. Currently on leave."
She nodded slowly, like that explained something she'd been wondering about, then went back to her needlework.
"You Mama P?" I asked.
"I am." She set her needles down in her lap, arthritic fingers carefully arranging the yarn like it mattered how it lay. "And you look like you've had a long day, soldier."
"That's one way to put it, ma'am."
"How long you need a room?"
I hesitated, thinking. "A week. Maybe more."
She grunted, needles moving again with practiced efficiency, the clicking sound rhythmic and soothing.
"I can tell my regular I'm hosting a soldier boy.
They'll understand. People always make room for soldiers around here.
" She paused, glancing up again, eyes narrowing slightly. "You sure you only want a week?"
I thought about it. Three weeks of leave. Three weeks of nothing stretching ahead of me, empty and waiting and threatening to swallow me whole—or three weeks in Charleston with Sophie. With a friend. With someone who remembered who I used to be before I forgot.
"Three weeks," I said. "If it wouldn't be too much trouble."
She laughed—a full, rich sound that filled the room and made the space feel warmer, more alive, like laughter had that power.
"As long as you don't mind real Charleston cooking and can help carry in the groceries, I'll give you a deal.
Save me having to keep that vacancy light lit. Electricity's expensive these days."
"Deal," I said, already planning to pay her full price because something told me she needed it more than she'd admit and I had money I didn't know what to do with, anyway.
"Good." She picked up her needles again, wool sliding through her fingers like water. "I already know my name. What's yours?"
"Wyatt Dane." I stepped forward, offering my hand.
She looked at it for a moment, considering, then set her needles down and took it—her grip surprisingly strong, calloused from years of work I could only guess at. "Dane, you say?"
"Yes, ma'am. From Valentine, Texas."
She studied me for a long moment, head tilted slightly, like she was trying to place something.
Her eyes narrowed, thoughtful, searching my face for .
.. what? Recognition? Resemblance? Something flickered in her expression—surprise, maybe, or confirmation—then she seemed to shake it off and went back to her needlework.
"Leftover bread pudding in the fridge," she said. "Still warm. Room key's in the top drawer in the kitchen. Second door on the left down the hall."
I nodded, turning toward what I assumed was the kitchen, when she spoke again.
"You got Venmo?"
I paused, turning back. "Yes, ma'am."
"Good. We'll settle up tomorrow." She didn't look up this time, needles clicking softly. "I've got an eye for misfits. Been doing this long enough to spot them. You don't seem like a misfit. Am I wrong?"
I grinned. "Not the bad kind. But I'm still a soldier. We're all a little broken."
She laughed again, the sound even richer this time, full of something that might have been understanding.
"I've got war stories that just might rival yours, young man.
Remind me to tell you about Khe Sanh sometime.
Three nurses and two bottles of hooch!" Then she shooed me away with one hand, still not looking up.
"Go on. Plenty of hot water. There's a laundry service I can call when you need it.
Just leave your dirties in the basket outside your door. "
I headed toward the kitchen, then stopped at the doorway, hand on the frame. "You want me to lock the front door, ma'am?"
She looked up slowly, eyes twinkling with something that might have been amusement or might have been a test she wanted to see if I'd pass. "If it'll make you feel better, sure."
It was definitely a test. I could feel it in the weight of her gaze, the slight curve of her mouth, the way she waited for my answer like it mattered more than it should.
"I'll leave it unlocked," I said. "For the adventure of it."
She chuckled, nodding approval like I'd passed something important, something she'd been measuring. "Goodnight, Wyatt Dane. Breakfast's on the table at eight sharp. Don't be late. I don't hold food."
"Yes, ma'am. Wouldn't dream of it."
I found the bread pudding in the fridge—still warm, somehow, like it had been waiting specifically for me—and scooped a generous helping into a ceramic bowl I found in the cabinet.
Found the key in the top drawer while the microwave hummed, counted down sixty seconds in green digital numbers that glowed in the dim kitchen.
When it beeped, I grabbed the bowl—steam rising, carrying the scent of cinnamon and vanilla and something I couldn't name but recognized as home—and headed down the narrow hallway toward the only room with a brass number on it.
As I turned the corner, Mama P's voice drifted after me, softer now but no less certain, weighted with something that felt like prophecy.
"Welcome to Charleston, Wyatt Dane." A pause, needles clicking in rhythm. "This city's got a way of showing you what you need. Pay attention."
I stopped, glancing back toward the front room, but she was already focused on her needlework again, silhouetted against the window, the vacancy sign casting strange shadows across the wall behind her like something out of a painting.
For the first time in a long time—maybe years, maybe longer—I felt myself relax. Really relax. The tension in my shoulders easing, the weight in my chest lightening just enough to breathe deeper, to remember what it felt like to exist without armor.
The room was small. Cozy. A queen bed with a faded quilt in blues and greens, hand-stitched with care by someone who understood that beauty lived in details.
A nightstand with a lamp and a water-stained paperback someone had left behind—Steinbeck, looked like.
A window overlooking the street, curtains drawn but light filtering through from the streetlamp outside, casting everything in soft amber.
Nothing fancy. Nothing trying to impress.
Perfect.
I sat on the edge of the bed and ate the bread pudding slowly, savoring each bite.
It was delicious—rich and sweet with a hint of rum and maybe bourbon, caramel notes mixing with vanilla, the kind of thing someone's grandmother made and refused to share the recipe for because it was family and family meant secrets worth keeping.
My phone sat heavy in my pocket, pressing against my thigh like a reminder.
I pulled it out, staring at the screen. I had her number now. We'd exchanged them at the bar, casual and easy like no time had passed at all, like twelve years was nothing more than a pause in a conversation we'd always meant to continue.
Before I could overthink it, before I could talk myself out of it or decide I was being stupid or remember all the reasons this was a bad idea, I typed: Coffee at 9?
I hit send before the doubt could catch up.
The reply came almost immediately, phone buzzing in my hand like her answer had been waiting just as impatiently as I had.
Yes. I'll pick the place.
My heart jumped. Just a little. Just enough to notice. Just enough to make me smile at my phone like an idiot who'd forgotten how to be careful with hope.
I set it down on the nightstand, finished the bread pudding—scraping the bowl clean because it was too good to waste and because I'd been raised better than to leave food behind—and got ready for bed.
The shower was hot, the water pressure better than expected for a building this old.
I stood under it longer than necessary, letting the day wash off me in steam and heat, watching the water circle the drain and take some of the heaviness with it, carrying away dust and sweat and the weight of everything I'd carried today.
When I finally crawled into bed, exhaustion hit me all at once—bone-deep, the kind that came from emotional weight more than physical exertion, from a day that had asked too much and somehow given back more.
But when I closed my eyes, it wasn't my mother's vacant smile I saw. It wasn't the ranch I couldn't visit or the coyotes I'd killed or the card in my wallet with an address I didn't understand and a meeting I was avoiding because I didn't know what it would cost me.
It was Sophie.
Except the memories were different now. Not just the past—summers at the pool, nights under the stars, the way she used to laugh at my terrible jokes and throw pebbles at my window when she couldn't sleep—but something new.
Something present. Something that felt like it belonged to both of us instead of just me carrying it alone.
Present-day Sophie. The woman on the dock with soft copper hair and curves that made me suddenly, acutely aware I had hands and a pulse and desires I'd buried under missions and discipline.
Eyes that still looked at me like I mattered, like the years apart hadn't erased whatever connection we'd had, like maybe we could build something new on the foundation of who we used to be.
Present-day me. Standing beside her. Talking. Laughing. Walking through Charleston like we'd never been apart, like the years had folded up and disappeared, like we could just pick up where we left off and pretend the distance had never happened.
The images blurred together—past and present overlapping until I couldn't tell which was which anymore and didn't care because they both felt real.
Her laugh sounding the same but richer, layered with experiences I didn't know yet.
Her smile familiar but new, shaped by years I hadn't been there to witness.
The way she looked at me—like she was seeing both versions at once and deciding they were both worth knowing, both worth keeping.
And for the first time in longer than I could remember, I felt something I'd forgotten existed.
Home.
Not a place. Not Valentine or the ranch or anywhere on a map you could point to and say "there."
Just ... home. The feeling. The sense that I was exactly where I was supposed to be, with exactly who I was supposed to be with, like the universe had been working toward this moment for twelve years and had finally gotten it right.
And something else, too. Something fragile and dangerous that I wasn't ready to name yet but could feel growing in my chest like a seed that had been dormant too long.
Hope.
I let myself sink into it as sleep pulled me under, pulling me down into dreams where the past and present danced together and Sophie's laugh echoed through both, familiar and new and mine again.