CHAPTER THREE
Wesley woke before the sun, the way he always did. The house held the kind of quiet that settled before anyone else stirred. The old clock ticked steadily in the hallway. From the kitchen came the faint sound of his mother moving around.
He sat on the edge of his bed and rubbed his hands together before reaching for his work boots.
Cool air drifted through the room. The faint sweetness of juniper came through his open window.
He liked mornings like this because everything felt steady and familiar.
Nothing asked more of him than showing up.
His mother was already at the stove when he stepped into the kitchen.
She glanced over with the soft expression she always seemed to carry in the early hours.
Before he had to ask, she handed him a mug of coffee.
Wes accepted it with a quiet nod and sat at the table while she moved around the kitchen.
“You’re up early,” his mother said.
“Same time as always,” Wes replied.
His mother smiled slightly as she turned back toward the stove. “Still early.”
Wes took a drink instead of arguing with her. They moved through the familiar morning routine without needing much conversation. When he finished his coffee, he stood and grabbed his jacket from the hook near the door.
“Drive safe,” his mother said.
“I will,” Wes replied.
He stepped outside into the cool morning air as the sky began to lighten. The road was mostly empty on his way to work. Wes enjoyed the quiet stretch before the day became loud and busy.
He liked the work itself too. Lifting and carrying made sense to him. So did measuring and fixing. Conversation was not always as simple. There was always something that needed to be done, and most of the time he saw it before anyone had to tell him.
The other guys teased him sometimes for being quiet. There was nothing mean behind it. They had worked with him long enough to understand that Wes listened more than he spoke. He usually noticed more than people realized.
Wes was carrying a stack of lumber toward the workbench when he heard Bee’s name behind him. The sound made him slow down without meaning to. He kept his attention on the boards in his arms.
“Bee moved back,” one of the guys said.
Another man answered, “Yeah. My sister showed me her moving video this morning.”
Wes did not turn around or ask questions. He shifted the lumber in his arms and continued toward the workbench. The words followed him anyway.
Bee was home. Wes had expected the news to mean less after all these years, but it did not. Whatever he had felt back then should have faded by now. The way his chest tightened told him it had not.
Old memories surfaced almost immediately. Wes remembered Bee laughing with her cousins near the basketball court. He remembered her sitting on Grandma’s porch with her legs swinging beneath the chair. He remembered the wind blowing her hair into her face while she tried to braid it.
Bee had always seemed comfortable in the middle of everything. Wes preferred the edges, where he could watch without drawing attention to himself. She was usually surrounded by cousins and friends. He was usually somewhere nearby.
He had liked her then, although he had never bothered giving the feeling a proper name. There had never been much point. Bee had her life, and Wes had his. Whatever he felt had belonged entirely to him. He had been content to leave it that way.
Wes had assumed the feeling had disappeared. Hearing her name made him wonder if it had only gone quiet.
During lunch, Wes sat in his truck with the windows rolled down. His food rested unopened beside him. The breeze carried the scent of warm earth and distant rain. For several minutes, he stared through the windshield while pretending he was not still thinking about the conversation from earlier.
Eventually, Wes pulled out his phone and searched for Bee’s page. It was easy to find. Her newest video sat at the top of the feed with a thumbnail showing her surrounded by boxes in her apartment.
Wes hesitated before tapping it. The slight shake in his hand annoyed him.
“Good morning,” Bee said through his phone. “It’s moving day. Finally.”
Wes leaned back against the seat while her voice filled the truck. She sounded familiar, but more sure of herself than he remembered. Speaking to an audience had become natural to her. He could hear it in the way she carried every word.
He watched as she showed the boxes, her empty apartment, and pieces of the life she was leaving behind. Bee talked about the city and her work. She explained how strange it felt to leave a place where she had built so much of her life.
Then she talked about home. Something in her expression changed as she looked into the camera.
“I want to reconnect with my family,” Bee said in the video. “I want to remember what it feels like to be part of something familiar.”
Wes watched the entire video without touching his lunch. When it ended, the truck became quiet again. He stared at the frozen image on his screen before locking his phone.
He was not sure which part bothered him more. He remembered her too easily. Hearing her voice had brought everything back just as quickly. He had spent years believing his feelings had become nothing more than an old memory. The video made that belief harder to hold onto.
Wes finally opened his lunch and ate before the break ended. He told himself that Bee being home did not change anything. By the time he climbed out of the truck and returned to work, he almost believed it.
Work ended late in the afternoon. Wes checked the handwritten list his mother had given him before he left. Milk, eggs, and bread were written in her familiar handwriting. Several other things followed, even though she knew he had bought the same groceries enough times to remember them.
The store parking lot was half full when he arrived. Wes pulled his old black hoodie over his head before stepping out of the truck. He headed inside with the list folded in his pocket. Cool air greeted him when the doors opened. Wes grabbed a basket and started through the familiar aisles.
He expected the errand to be as ordinary as it had been a hundred times before. Then he saw Bee near the produce section.
She stood with her phone held in front of her while she talked. A small smile softened her whole face. Her hair was pulled back loosely. A few strands fell around her cheeks. For a strange second, she looked almost exactly the way Wes remembered her.
Then Bee turned slightly, and he could see the years that had passed. She was older now and steadier somehow. Watching her through a phone screen earlier had done nothing to prepare him for seeing her only a few aisles away.
Wes stopped walking before he realized he had done it. His breath caught. He immediately felt ridiculous because Bee had not even noticed him.
He looked down at the grocery list and pretended to study his mother’s handwriting. Wes already knew what he needed. Suddenly, milk and eggs required his complete attention. So did the bread.
Bee laughed at something she said to her phone. Wes looked up before he could stop himself. The sound hit him harder than seeing her picture online because it carried the same warmth he remembered.
He looked away quickly and shifted the basket in his hand. Standing in the produce section and staring at her was not how he wanted Bee to notice him.
Wes moved toward another aisle before Bee could turn in his direction. He did not want to make her uncomfortable. He especially did not want their first interaction in years to involve him looking like he had forgotten how grocery stores worked.
He headed toward the refrigerated section and reached for the milk. It was the same brand his mother always bought. Wes still turned the carton in his hands and stared at the label as though it might suddenly say something different.
“Get it together,” Wes muttered.
An older man farther down the aisle glanced toward him. Wes immediately put the milk into his basket and continued shopping.
He checked the eggs next and opened the carton to make sure none were cracked. Having something ordinary to focus on helped. His thoughts still drifted toward the fact that Bee was only a few aisles away.
She probably did not remember him anyway. They had grown up around many of the same people and crossed paths plenty of times. Wes had never given her much reason to notice him. He was usually the quiet guy somewhere nearby while Bee was surrounded by people who knew how to keep up with her.
The thought did not surprise him. He had never expected anything from her then. He had no reason to start expecting something now.
Wes found the bread and crossed another item off his mother’s list. For several minutes, he managed to focus on shopping instead of wondering where Bee was in the store.
Then he turned the corner and saw her again near the end of the aisle. Bee still had her phone raised. Wes stopped himself before walking directly into whatever she was recording.
He glanced toward the other end of the aisle and noticed another way to reach the checkout lanes. Taking it would keep him from accidentally wandering through the background of her video.
Wes backed up and turned around. He immediately felt stupid for doing it. This was a grocery store, not an obstacle course. He continued the other way anyway.
By the time Wes circled toward the front of the store, Bee had lowered her phone and tucked it into her bag. He saw her from farther away as she looked over one of the shelves. The same warmth returned to his chest.
This time, Wes kept walking. He checked his mother’s list one last time, even though he already knew everything was in the basket. Wes headed toward the registers without looking back.
Wes felt relieved that he had made it through the store without embarrassing himself in front of Bee. After paying for the groceries, he carried the bags to his truck and headed home.