Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
brADEN
The phone was heavy in my hand, weighed down with portent. I thumbed the button, and her voice filled the truck cab for what felt like the hundredth time.
“Braden, it’s Tessa. I’m calling to let you know I’ll be presenting at the town council meeting about the conservation center...” Then, at the end, that pause I’d tried to interpret over and over. Was it hesitation or professional courtesy? “I hope to see you there. Okay, then. Bye.”
Click.
That was it. No anger. No pleading. Just a calm, even tone from a woman I used to know.
No mention that she hadn’t taken the job, which said everything.
Her voice was the sound of a world moving on.
The finality of it was a blade in my gut.
I could have handled her rage. I could have tried to mend her tears.
But her composure was a closed door, the lock clicked neatly into place.
I was parked at a scenic overlook on the north side of the island, a place that usually calmed the noise in my head. Tonight, the placid water and the sinking, orange-streaked sun offered no comfort. They were just a backdrop to the wreckage in my chest.
The stillness was suffocating. I needed something real and solid to cut through the fog of my own bullshit.
Brenna would be gentle and loving, but that hadn’t worked at the bonfire.
I thought of Ben, whose world was stripped of pretense.
A world of sirens and pressure bandages, of tangible problems that couldn’t be rationalized away.
I started the truck. Pulling back onto the road, I headed toward the fire station
I found Ben in the apparatus bay, the cavernous garage smelling of diesel and rubber from the tires. He stood by the open side of the ambulance, methodically checking the contents of a blue canvas aid bag.
I leaned against the cold chrome bumper of the fire engine and tried to arrange my face into something casual. “Slow shift?”
Ben didn’t look up. He pointed a finger at a row of neatly organized sterile dressings, counting under his breath. He finished his count, made a note on a clipboard, and then moved to the next pouch. “It’s never slow. Just less hectic sometimes.”
The hum of the bay’s large fan filled the space between us as I watched him work. He had fought his demons and won while I was just discovering the size of my own.
He snapped a latch shut on the bag and finally turned to face me. His gaze was direct, the way it always was, seeing more than I wanted him to. “You look like hell, Braden. What is it?”
There it was. No pretense, no dancing around. His directness was both a relief and an indictment.
“I heard from Tessa, and I could use a sounding board.”
Nodding, he waited.
I caught him up. “I know I need to do something, but I’m frozen. Every time I think about going to that city council meeting tonight and talking to her, all I can picture is the look on her face. The disappointment. I’ll just make it worse.” The rationalization sounded pathetic even to my own ears.
Ben listened with his arms crossed over his chest. He wasn’t a man for platitudes or easy comfort, and I didn’t get any now. “So she didn’t say whether she’s staying or if this is her final speech before leaving?”
I shook my head. “But isn’t it obvious? If she were staying, wouldn’t she tell me? No way, man. This was her plan all along—get the conservation center going before turning it over to others. She's got no reason to stay.”
“So you’re going to let your fear make the decision for her?” The question was devoid of judgment, which somehow made it worse.
I opened my mouth to argue, to defend myself, but he wasn’t finished.
“This isn’t about your bruised ego, Braden.
This isn’t about you winning her back, whatever that means.
She told you about her dream on the deck of your boat months ago.
She’s walking into a fight for that dream tonight.
A public one.” He stepped closer, his eyes holding mine.
“You two have a shitload of history, and it ended in heartbreak for you. Something you can’t forget.
” He held out a placating hand. “And I’m not saying you should, so lower your hackles.
I wasn’t much of a brother back when you guys broke up after she left for college.
I was nose-deep in whiskey at Salty’s most of the time.
But even then, I could see the effect it had on you.
I’m trying to be a better brother now and give you some real advice you might not enjoy hearing.
Maybe you need to take a step back from all the relationship shit and history to really see clearly here. ”
“What do you mean?” I was laser-focused on his words. This was practically a dissertation from my eldest brother.
“Forget about being Tessa’s boyfriend. Are you man enough to support her dream even if you’re not in it? She’s going to be in that room, possibly facing down a crowd of opposition. Are you going to be the guy who had her back, or the one who hid because he was afraid of getting his feelings hurt?”
Each word landed like a punch to my sternum. But he wasn’t done. He delivered the final blow with devastating precision.
“Dad walked away when things got hard. He chose himself over all of us. He ran from the fight. Is that who you are?”
The comparison was a lit match tossed on gasoline. Raw, hot anger flared in my chest, a reflex against the searing truth of his words. “Don’t you dare compare me to him.”
Ben didn’t flinch. His expression remained maddeningly calm.
“The circumstances are different, but the motivation’s the same.
He ran because he was scared and a coward.
You’re running because you’re scared of Tessa making the same choice as last time.
You’re choosing to protect your own feelings over showing up for someone you supposedly love. Tell me how that’s different.”
“It’s not the same!” I shot back, taking a step toward him, my hands clenching into fists.
“What if the council sees me and it sours them on the whole deal? Makes Tessa guilty by association because I’m a Coleridge.
My presence could be the thing that makes her lose.
” My arguments sounded desperate, flimsy attempts to build a shield against the truth.
Ben stared at me, unflinching. “That’s her call to make.
Not yours. You don’t get to decide what she can and can’t handle.
You don’t get to protect her from yourself.
That’s the most arrogant bullshit I’ve ever heard.
All you get to do is show up. You show up, you sit in that room, and you let her know she’s not alone.
Then you let her decide what to do with that.
You let her decide if she wants to stay or tell you to go to hell.
You give her the choice. Hell, I’m gonna call everyone in the family to lend their support.
Because what she’s trying to build here is important for the community. ”
“Goddammit, Ben.”
Finally, his resolve softened, and a smile raised his lips.
“I love you. I’ve hardly ever told you that, so I am now.
You might not like what I’m saying, Braden, but I’m not the type for soft, flowery language.
That’s Brenna. Yet you came to me. So here’s what it comes down to.
You’re not a boy anymore. It’s time to see if you’re a man. ”
When I returned, my cottage was just as I’d left it.
The books on the shelves were aligned by height and subject.
The clean, sharp lines of the furniture I’d chosen with such care now felt like bars of a cage I had designed myself.
For years, this place had been my sanctuary, a symbol of the control and success I had cultivated.
Now, it felt like a monument to a man who had prioritized order over heart.
I stood in the center of the living room, the echo of Ben’s tough-love words chasing me. I closed my eyes and confronted the two paths branching in front of me. The two futures I could choose in this exact moment.
The first was the path I’d been following.
It was quiet and safe. I could open a beer from my perfectly calibrated kegerator, put on some classic rock, and pretend it was just another Tuesday.
I’d follow the news of the town hall online, a spectator to the most important moment in Tessa’s professional life.
If she won, I’d feel a hollow pang of something that wasn’t quite pride because I’d had no part in it.
If she lost, I’d feel a distant, impotent hollowness because I had chosen comfort over character.
Then there was the other path. It was terrifying.
I pictured myself walking into the town hall.
The fluorescent lights, the rows of unforgiving plastic chairs, the sea of faces.
I saw myself searching the room for her, and the moment her eyes would land on mine.
I saw the flicker of surprise, followed by…
what? Annoyance? Pity? Cool dismissal? I closed my eyes as I experienced the cold dread of that public failure, of her turning away in a final, undeniable rejection in front of the entire town. It was an acute, gut-wrenching pain.
My eyes opened as other faces started to appear in my mind. My siblings.
I saw Eli, who had spent a decade running from the kind of love that might break him, finally grabbing hold of Jules with both hands, terrified yet unwilling to let her go.
Austin, my quiet, haunted brother, had lived in a tomb of his own making for years.
I saw him standing in his kitchen, letting Iris and her relentless sunshine in, choosing to live again.
Harper, burdened with the weight of the entire resort, had bet our family’s legacy on Chase Ashworth, trusting him not just with our home but with her heart and her son.
I even saw Ben, the man who had just dismantled my entire sense of self at the fire station.
He had clawed his way back from a reckless youth and rebuilt his life into something honorable.
They had all been braver than me. I was Braden Coleridge, the one who always had a plan, the one who always won. But I’d been playing on easy mode. The moment I faced a genuine, high-stakes loss, I folded.
The fear of Tessa’s rejection was still there, a cold knot in my stomach. But another fear rose to meet it, larger and more monstrous. Becoming a man I couldn’t respect. Looking in the mirror and seeing my father’s ghost staring back—defined not by what he’d built but by what he’d abandoned.
This wasn’t about winning Tessa back. It was about earning the right to be a man who deserved her in the first place.
The paralysis that had gripped me for days finally broke, and a steady resolve washed over me. I walked into my bedroom and stripped off my clothes. I stepped into the shower and stood under the hot spray, letting the water wash away not the fear, but the indecision. The fear was part of the price.
Dressed in a clean towel, I walked to my closet and chose my clothes with a new sense of purpose.
Not a suit, which would have been for show.
Not a casual T-shirt, which would have been disrespectful.
I pulled on a pair of slacks and a crisp, white button-down shirt—the clothes of a serious man ready to stand his ground.
I returned to the kitchen, picked up my keys from the cool granite countertop.
I opened the door and stepped into the evening air without looking back.
It was time to step into the ring.