7. CJ
CJ
The rain rolled in after lunch.
Not a storm. Not even enough to justify an umbrella. Just that constant, mist-heavy drizzle Campbell River does so well, like the sky can’t be bothered to fully commit, but refuses to stop touching everything anyway.
This place breathes fog and salt air, like it needs to remind you who’s in charge.
It’s pushing six-thirty by the time the office empties. One by one, the lights click off as my staff head home, leaving the building to settle into its evening hum.
Eventually, it’s just me.
I lean back in my chair, rubbing my hands over my face, letting the quiet stretch too long. A dull ache settles behind my eyes, the kind that comes from too many hours and too little sleep. My chest feels tight, like the silence is pressing against my ribs.
My eyes drift to the file still sitting on my desk, the one from my conversation with Deck the other day.
We still haven’t passed it off to another security company. We thought about it, but something about it doesn’t sit right. It’s not clean. Not finished, so I’ve kept it.
My jaw tightens. A faint prickle crawls along the back of my neck, the kind of warning my body learned long before I ever listened to it.
Quietly, I’ve already got a couple of my guys digging into it. Another stack of paperwork waits beside it, but I can’t bring myself to open it.
Not tonight.
* * *
Outside, the bay is swallowed in grey. Mist hangs low over the water, blurring horizon and sky into the same dull steel sheet. Fishing boat lights cut through it slowly, ghosting their way home.
Most days, this view settles something in me. But it doesn’t tonight; tonight, I’m just plain old tired.
The water feels distant, unreachable. My shoulders stay tense, refusing to drop no matter how long I stare at the horizon.
My phone dings.
Deck.
Don’t forget. Thursday. Dating app profile review.
I groan out loud. “Fuck’s sake,” I say to no one.
A second message lands, and I scrub my palm down my face. I don’t have the energy for this shit right now.
Deck.
You are going to die alone because you refuse to let me help
Attached: GIF of an elderly man sitting alone on a park bench.
Deck.
BTW, that’s you, fucker.
CJ.
Lose my number, asshole.
Deck.
I love you too.
He’s a menace, but I can’t stop the faint laugh that slips out anyway. The laugh feels thin, barely there. It fades quickly, leaving the same quiet weight behind.
Eventually, I call it. Lock up and head out.
The building feels emptier on the way down, silence replacing the usual noise, the hum of people and phones and movement gone. Only the security desk remains active.
The guard looks up as I pass.
“Goodnight, CJ.”
“Night.”
Outside, the rain hits my face immediately. Cold. Clean. Exactly what I need.
I cross the car park toward my truck and stop. Something feels off. My pulse shifts, steady but sharper. My breathing slows automatically, the way it used to before stepping into unknown territory.
My eyes scan every dark corner of the car park. And then I see it.
A vehicle sits tucked into the far corner behind the building, half-hidden like someone chose the spot on purpose. I slow instinctively.
Staff car park. Not visitor hours.
Deck would call it my Yoda senses, but no, I just call it experience. The military doesn’t really leave you with the luxury of ignoring that feeling.
The windows are fogged from the inside, which means that someone’s in there.
I take another step.
Then stop again.
“This isn’t my problem,” I mutter, except my feet don’t listen. A familiar tension coils low in my stomach. My senses sharpen, picking up every sound, every shadow, every shift in the rain.
“Fuck.” I change direction towards the car.
The rain thickens as I cross the lot, soaking through my jacket, turning cold into something that settles under the skin.
The closer I get, the clearer it becomes.
A dark blue Toyota. Older model. Well cared for, but tired in the way vehicles get when they’ve done too many years and too many miles without stopping long enough to recover.
I stop beside the driver’s window and knock once, and the reaction is immediate.
Inside, the figure jerks upright like he’s been pulled from somewhere deeper than sleep. Fear flashes across his face before he can hide it.
I step back without thinking, palms slightly open, showing him I’m not a threat. I give him the space he needs.
A blanket shifts in his hands, slipping just below his chin as he stares at me through the glass.
Young. Mid-twenties, maybe. Light brown hair, messy, flattened on one side from sleep. Exhaustion carved into the shadows under his eyes, sharpening every feature into something too tired for his age.
Something tightens in my chest. It’s an old feeling, unwelcome but impossible to ignore.
I’ve seen that look before. In mirrors I didn’t like.
He lowers the window a few inches, cautious, like he’s bracing for impact.
And then I see his eyes properly. Hazel? No, not quite. Something stranger. Sand and honey shifting depending on the light. Gold one second, brown the next. My breath catches for a moment. Not enough to show, just enough to feel.
Long dark-blond hair, sun-lightened at the edges, falls across sharp cheekbones. A mouth set in a line that doesn’t know what to do with itself.
Then I notice the two silver rings under his lower lip. Snakebite piercings. Trouble, or armor? A strange pull settles low in my chest, quiet but insistent.
My gaze drops before I can stop it. And something about him lands wrong in my chest. He should be anywhere else. Anywhere warm. Laughing. Flirting. Making bad decisions at midnight with people who know his name.
Instead he’s here.
In a car.
Wrapped in a blanket like the world forgot to give him somewhere to land, and I hate that I notice how much I want to fix that.
“Sorry,” he says quickly. Voice rough with sleep. “I’ll move.”
My eyes flick past him and what I see in the back seat changes everything. My stomach drops. The picture forms instantly, painfully, and I hate how familiar it feels.
Duffel bag. Food. Blankets. Pillows.
Not travel, but surviving. And only just from what I can see.
“Where?” I ask before I can stop myself.
He blinks. “Huh?”
“Where are you moving to?”
Silence.
“I don’t know,” he says quietly. Truthfully, and that hits harder than anything rehearsed ever could.
“You from around here?” I ask.
He shakes his head.
“Family?”
Another shake.
“Friends? Anyone?”
Nothing. He tightens the blanket like it’s the only thing holding him together. A quiet ache settles beneath my sternum. I know that kind of grip. I’ve used it myself.
Deck’s voice drifts through my head like an unwanted echo.
You’re going to help him, aren’t you, Yoda? You can’t stop collecting strays.
I exhale through my nose.
“Look,” he says quickly, already retreating inward. “I don’t want trouble. I’ll go.”
He shifts, and the blanket slips, and that’s when I see them. The fading bruise along his jaw. Another mark half-hidden at his hairline. They are old damage. And they are the kind that doesn’t come from accident. Heat flashes through me, sharp and immediate. My jaw clenches before I can stop it.
He notices me noticing, and that is when his body changes instantly. I see it visibly tighten. He is shutting down, closing himself off, like a door slamming shut from the inside. My chest tightens. I recognize the shift, the retreat, the fear. I’ve seen it too many times.
That tells me more than the bruises do. This young man is used to being looked at like this. And I hate what it does to me.
* * *
“I have a spare room,” I say. The words leave before I can weigh them properly.
His head snaps up.
“What?”
Yeah. Brilliant, CJ.
“I’ve got a room,” I repeat, slower now. “Just for a few days.”
He stares at me like I’ve suggested something illegal.
“I don’t know you.”
“Fair.”
“You could be a serial killer.”
“Statistically?” I pause. “Unlikely.”
A small, surprised laugh slips out of him before he can stop it. It’s a real laugh, and the smile that goes with it flickers across his face and disappears again too fast. The sound hits harder than it should. Something warm flickers in my chest, brief but real.
But I saw it, and something in my chest tightens because of it.
“My name’s CJ.”
Silence again. Then, softer than everything else he’s said,
“Eli.”
The name lands differently. It’s simple. I find myself liking it.
“Are you hungry?” I ask.
He huffs a small laugh. “Is this normally how you recruit people?” nodding toward the building sign.
“No.”
A faint smile tugs at his mouth as I say,
“Usually there’s paperwork. Less food.”
That’s when it happens, the smile fully arrives. And I realize I’ve been wrong about him since the moment I saw him. He’s not just tired.
He’s beautiful in a way that looks like it’s been interrupted. The thought lands too quickly, too sharply. I push it down, but it stays.
“I’ve got a spare room,” I say again, quieter this time.
He studies the bay behind me as if it might answer for him.
“Are you serious?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
There it is. My throat tightens. The truth sits heavy behind my ribs, too complicated to say out loud.
That is the question that actually matters. I glance out over the water instead of him.
Because the answer isn’t simple enough to say out loud, and because someone once did this for me a long time ago when I didn’t deserve it. And, if I’m being honest, I don’t want him sleeping in a car in my parking lot like the world has nothing better to offer him.
But I don’t say any of that, so instead I say, “Because everyone needs somewhere safe to land.”
Silence stretches, and I watch his throat move as he swallows something down, and then he nods once.
“Okay.”
“Okay,” I echo.
He gets out, standing in the rain beside me. Close enough that I realize he’s shorter than I expected, sitting just under my chin. A quiet urge to shield him rises unexpectedly. I ignore it, but it doesn’t fade.
And that’s the moment it hits properly.
I don’t know this man. I don’t know what he is running from, whether he’s telling me the truth, or if letting him into my home is the dumbest idea I’ve made in years. Every lesson in the military drilled into me says to keep my distance, protect my space, don’t get involved.
But another voice, older, quieter and harder to ignore, keeps asking one simple question. My pulse shifts, steady but heavier. I know this feeling. It’s the one that shows up right before everything changes.
If I walk away, who else is going to stop?
I don’t have an answer to that; I only know I can’t leave this man here.
Alone.
So I grab his duffel from the back seat. “We’ll take my car. I’ll bring you back in the morning.”
I start walking to my truck, not giving him an option. I throw his duffel in the back seat and wait for him. He stands next to his car, and I can tell he is second- guessing himself.
“Eli. It’s okay. It’s just a room,” I say to him. His uncertainty hits me harder than I expect. My voice softens without permission.
I don’t want to spook him, so I speak quietly, softly but loud enough he can hear the genuine offer in my voice. He takes a step, then turns and grabs his bag off the front passenger seat, his keys, and phone, locking the car as he walks toward me.
I get in the truck, start it up, and turn the heater on. I give him a little smile when he climbs in, settling into the seat. I see him shiver, so I put the seat warmer on for him. A protective instinct settles low in my chest, quiet but firm.
I start the car and drive him home.
Because whatever this is…
It already stopped being about a spare room the second he said his name.