Chapter 7-Honor
Work flew by today.
It’s the first time in—hell, I don’t even know how long—that I feel something close to lightness.
Like I’m not dragging the entire goddamn world behind me by the throat.
Maybe it’s the spring air.
Barvale’s always been greener than I remember, but today it’s blooming like the whole town’s waking up.
The breeze is warmer, the flowers are pushing through the thawed earth, and the air smells sweeter.
Even the rolls I had with my coffee for lunch from Bear Claw Bakery tasted better today.
But maybe it’s something else.
Something I don’t quite have words for.
My demons are quieter today.
Not gone.
They never are.
But subdued. Resting, maybe.
People don’t talk enough about what happens after.
After war. After blood.
After survival becomes a job and morality’s a blurred line in someone else’s agenda.
I served my time. Special ops. Official deployments, classified ones.
And yeah, I took a few contracts after—jobs Hope and our mom never knew about. Still don’t.
And they don’t need to.
I did my research. Made sure I wasn’t on the wrong side of anything. But even when you believe in the mission, the violence stains.
Leaves its mark.
Like soot in your lungs you can’t cough out.
You come back, and everyone wants you to just pick up where you left off.
Be the guy you were before. Smile more.
Go to barbecues. Date again.
But I’m not the guy I was. I don’t know if I ever will be.
Which is why I came back to Barvale. For good, this time.
After spending Thanksgiving here and scaring the hell out of everyone with my silence and my short fuse, I figured it was time to try.
Not just visit, but be here. Root myself.
Thanks to Hope and Miles, I’ve got a job, a place to stay. A rhythm. Something real to pour myself into.
And it’s helping. Bit by bit, I feel the edge smoothing. The fire cooling.
But if I’m being honest—and hell, what’s the point of lying in my own damn head?—it’s not just the job. Not just the fresh air or the peace of small-town life.
It’s her.
Rosalind Carrera.
Sure, Hope introduced us a few months after I moved back.
I thought she was joking at first—setting me up with some petite, wide-eyed friend of hers who looked like she’d never seen a combat boot, let alone a battlefield.
But Rosalind isn’t soft.
Not in the way that makes you dismiss her.
She’s quiet, yeah. Thoughtful.
She watches people like she’s trying to understand them fully before she speaks.
And when she speaks?
It’s like warmth soaking into cold bones. I don’t even know what the hell she says half the time.
I just know I listen.
There’s something about her that makes the chaos in my head go still. That makes me feel seen—but not judged.
She’s light and calm and herself.
No masks. No game. No pity.
Just her.
And now, for the first time in longer than I want to admit, I’m looking forward to something. Someone.
She’s in my head more than she should be.
Just a friend of my sister’s. A woman I barely know.
But the way she looks at me—like she knows something I don’t—sticks with me.
It’s scary. Wanting like this.
Because I don’t know if I deserve a happy ending. I don’t know if I’m even capable of one.
But I want it. I want her.
And that want—it’s growing.
Every time I see her.
Every time she walks into a room and my chest gets tight in the strangest, most terrifyingly good way.
Every time she glances at me with those big blue eyes and I feel something stir deep inside my ribs—something ancient, primal, hungry—I know.
Something’s happening. Something real.
And I don’t think it’s just in my head.