Chapter 8
Ash
The night air hits my face like a slap as I pull out of the bar's parking lot.
Cold. Clear. The kind of night where you can see every star if you get far enough from the streetlights. I don't look up. I keep my eyes on the road, my hands steady on the handlebars, my mind very carefully not thinking about the way Jason's ankle felt under my fingers.
Robin's warning echoes in my head from the porch conversation we just had. Don't fuck this up. He's not like your usual hookups. He actually cares.
I know. That's the problem.
The ride home takes fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes of dark roads and the rumble of the engine and nothing but my own thoughts for company.
I take the long way without meaning to—past the high school where I used to skip classes, past the park where I taught Robin to ride a bike after Dad forgot he'd promised to do it, past the diner where Mom used to take us for pancakes on Sunday mornings before everything fell apart.
Memory lane. Literally.
I don't know why I'm torturing myself like this. Maybe because the alternative is going back to that empty house and sitting in the silence and thinking about a lion who makes his own popcorn seasoning and looks at me like I'm worth wanting.
The grocery store appears on my right. Twenty-four hour fluorescent glow, parking lot mostly empty this late on a Thursday night. I should keep driving. I have food at home—probably. Protein bars, at least. Maybe some eggs that aren't expired.
I pull in anyway.
The automatic doors whoosh open and the bright lights make me squint after the darkness outside. Generic music plays from somewhere overhead, designed to fade into the background. A bored teenager is working the single open register, scrolling through her phone.
I grab a basket. Force of habit. Then I stand in the produce section and stare at the vegetables like they've personally offended me.
What do normal people buy at grocery stores?
In the military, food was handled. MREs in the field, mess halls on base, local restaurants when we were somewhere civilized enough to have them.
Before that, growing up, Robin and I lived on whatever we could scrounge—cereal eaten dry because we were out of milk, peanut butter sandwiches, the free lunch program at school that was often our only real meal of the day.
I never learned how to shop for one person. Never learned how to cook for myself. Never saw the point when it was just me rattling around in a house that's too big and too quiet.
I pick up a single apple. Put it in the basket. It looks lonely in there, small and red against the beige plastic.
Jason would know what to do with an apple. He'd probably turn it into something incredible—a tart, a sauce, some fancy thing with caramel and spices. He'd talk about it while he cooked, explaining the technique, his whole face lighting up the way it did when he was describing chocolate tempering.
I put the apple back.
The meat section is worse. Everything comes in family packs, bulk sizes, portions meant for multiple people. I stare at a package of chicken breasts—four in a pack, more than I'd eat in a week—and my chest goes tight.
This is pathetic. I'm an adult man who's survived combat zones and classified operations, and I'm having an existential crisis in the chicken aisle at eleven o'clock at night.
I grab a rotisserie chicken from the hot case. Pre-cooked, single serving if I stretch it, no effort required. Drop it in my basket next to nothing.
Bread. Eggs. Milk. A box of cereal that's mostly sugar. A six-pack of beer that I probably shouldn't drink alone but definitely will. The basket gets heavier, but it doesn't feel like real groceries. Not like something an actual adult would buy.
At the register, the teenage girl scans my items without looking at me. Chicken, bread, eggs, milk, cereal, beer. The saddest grocery haul in history.
"Twenty-three forty-seven," she says, already looking back at her phone.
I pay cash. Take my bags. Walk back out into the cold night air and load everything into my saddlebags, the rotisserie chicken warm against my leg the whole ride home.
The house is dark when I pull into the driveway. I
The plan was to have somewhere to come back to, somewhere that was mine. Three bedrooms, two bathrooms, detached garage with room for all my bikes. A real house. A grown-up house.
It's never felt like home.
I unlock the front door and step inside.
The air is stale. The living room has a couch I bought online without sitting on first, a TV I rarely watch, a coffee table with nothing on it.
No pictures on the walls. No plants. No signs that anyone actually lives here except for the combat boots by the door and the jacket on the hook.
The kitchen is worse. I put the groceries away—chicken in the fridge, bread on the counter, eggs and milk and beer in their designated spots—and the quiet presses in on me. No sounds except the hum of the refrigerator and the occasional car driving past.
This is my life. This is what I came home to.
I crack open a beer and lean against the counter, drinking it too fast. The cold slides down my throat and settles in my stomach, doing nothing to fill the ache that's been growing since I left the bar.
Jason's probably still up. Probably cleaning the popcorn bowl, putting away the leftover snacks, doing all the small domestic tasks that come naturally to him. Maybe he's thinking about me. Maybe he's not.
I pull out my phone. Stare at his contact. My thumb hovers over the message icon.
What would I even say? Thanks for letting me touch your ankle for two hours. Sorry I'm a mess. Please continue being patient with me while I figure out how to be a person.
I put the phone down.
The beer is gone faster than it should be. I grab another, carry it to the couch, sit without turning on any lights. The streetlight outside casts long shadows across the ceiling, shapes that shift and move with the occasional passing car.
Brennan would have known what to do.
The thought comes unbidden, unwanted. I shove it away but it doesn't go.
Brennan, who used to fill up spaces just by existing.
Who'd sprawl across whatever furniture was available like he owned it.
Who made even a tent in a combat zone feel like somewhere worth being.
Dead for two years and I still reach for him sometimes when I wake up from nightmares.
Jason isn't Brennan. Jason is softer, warmer, more openly affectionate. Brennan was all sharp edges and dark humor and intensity born from knowing every day might be your last. Jason bakes cookies and stress-cooks for his pack and lights up when he talks about motorcycle engines.
They're nothing alike. I don't know why my brain keeps trying to compare them.
Maybe because they're the only two people I've ever wanted to keep.
The second beer disappears. I should eat something—the chicken is right there in the fridge—but the thought of eating alone in this kitchen makes my stomach turn.
I think about the bar. The warmth, the noise, the constant presence of people who actually seem to like being around each other. Jason in the kitchen, always feeding someone. Robin sprawled on the couch complaining about work. Knox watching over his pack with that quiet intensity.
Pack. Family. Belonging.
I don't know what any of those words mean. Not really. My family was a disaster. Robin and I basically raised ourselves. The military was structured, purposeful, but you learned fast not to get too attached. People transferred. People died. The unit was a tool, not a family.
But that thing at the bar, with the popcorn and the horror movie and everyone piled onto couches together—that felt real. Felt like something I wanted, even though I didn't know how to ask for it. Even though I don't know if I'm allowed to want it.
Jason's pack. Not mine. I'm just the brother of someone adjacent, a visitor tolerated because Robin vouches for me.
Except Jason looked at me like I belonged there. Like he wanted me there.
And I want—
I don't let myself finish the thought.
The third beer is a mistake and I drink it anyway. Tomorrow is the gun range. Tomorrow I get to see Jason again, in a space that's mine, doing something I'm actually good at. Tomorrow I get to try again.
Tonight is just getting through until morning.
I fall asleep on the couch, too tired to make it to the bedroom, the beer bottles lined up on the coffee table.
Tomorrow I'll do better.
I have to.