Chapter 15
Logan
The first few days away felt like breathing through fog.
Work was fine. Busy. Predictable. This was where I felt in control. Tampa didn’t ask anything of me beyond long hours in the heat, being on guard, checking boxes, filing reports. Everything where it belonged. Everything controlled.
That was the point of the job.
As an executive security consultant, my work existed in the margins.
I assessed risk, controlled access, and identified vulnerabilities before they could become threats.
Sometimes that meant coordinating with federal agencies, port authorities, and private security teams. Other times it looked like reviewing surveillance and manifests, or planning for scenarios no one else wanted to consider.
My job was to stay ahead of risks, to see what others missed, and ensure everything held together without anyone ever noticing.
I’d been doing some version of this work since I left the Marine Corps.
Same instincts, different uniform. Less noise.
Fewer people asking questions. Out here, I was respected for being thorough, for being composed, for not needing my hand held.
I could lose myself in procedures and protocols, in the comfort of checklists and contingencies.
The work didn’t care how I slept. It didn’t ask me to feel anything.
It just needed me to be present and sharp.
And I was.
During the day.
But when the sun dipped low and the heat finally broke, when the radios went silent and the paperwork was done, that fog crept back in.
Because control only worked when I had something to protect in front of me.
Out here, everything was contained and accounted for, except the part of me that kept drifting back to Huntington Beach.
The hotel room smelled faintly of bleach and citrus cleaner. The air conditioner hummed too loudly. Yet not loud enough to drown out the thoughts cycling in my head.
At home, quiet had shape to it. Harper’s footsteps padded down the hall, cartoons murmuring in the background, the scrape of a chair as she climbed where she wasn’t supposed to be. Quiet there didn’t mean empty.
Here, it did.
I told myself I was lucky. I’d said it more than once. Not every parent got to leave their kid behind knowing things would be fine. Maybe it was because not every parent had a Dani to step in effortlessly, filling in the gaps. That thought irritated me more than it should have.
She texted the first night, right after dinner.
Dani: We made pancakes and watched
The Princess And The Frog. I might’ve cried.
Harper says it’s okay though everyone
cries at that part.
I stared at the screen longer than necessary, then shook my head. Laughed. Actually laughed. Right there in the hotel lobby. The guy at the desk looked at me like I’d lost it.
The next night came a picture. Harper covered in flour, hair wild, grin too big for her face. Dani stood beside her, hands on her hips, failing to look stern. Flour dusted her eyelashes. I noticed. Didn’t want to.
I told myself the tight feeling in my chest was just relief.
Every day after that, another update.
A lunchbox plastered with stickers Harper insisted were “strategically placed.”
A photo of the two of them reading before bed.
A plate of peas arranged into a smiley face.
Dani wasn’t just keeping me informed, she was filling the space I pretended wasn’t there.
I didn’t realize how often I checked my phone until I caught myself doing it between rounds, between tasks, between nothing at all. By day three, one of the guys nudged me.
“Girlfriend?”
“Not exactly,” I said.
The words came out easy. Too easy.
The FaceTime calls with Harper became the best part of my nights.
She’d prop the phone on the kitchen table and talk a mile a minute while Dani moved in the background. Sometimes cooking, other times cleaning, and a few time just listening.
The calls always ended the same way; with Harper half asleep, and Dani’s voice softening.
“You can tell Daddy goodnight,” she’d whisper.
“I love you, Daddy.”
“Love you more, bug.”
“She’s the best,” Harper would mumble.
Then it would just be Dani and me.
At first, she stayed long enough to give me the rundown.
Lately, the calls lingered longer. We found ourselves drifting into moments where words weren’t necessary, where a look or a shared half-smile carried thoughts that didn’t need to be spoken.
We talked about nothing important, but somehow, it felt important.
During those pauses, lit by the slight curve of her lips or the way she breathed in sync with me, there was something unspoken hanging between us. Which somehow made it important.
There were pauses now. The kind that didn’t rush you. The kind I usually avoided.
When the calls ended, the quiet felt sharper than before.
That bothered me.
It was the ninth night when everything shifted.
I was sitting on the edge of the bed, laptop open, pretending to work, when my phone buzzed.
Incoming FaceTime: Harper’s iPad.
I answered immediately.
Harper’s face filled the screen, sleepy and half-buried in a pillow. “Daddy…”
“You’re supposed to be asleep.”
“I waited.”
Behind her, I heard Dani’s voice. “Say goodnight, superstar. It’s already way past bedtime.”
“Night, Daddy.”
The screen shifted. Dani came into view—barefoot, hair loose, wearing a thin white camisole and soft shorts. No armor. No walls.
I didn’t comment. Didn’t trust myself to.
“She’s great,” Dani said gently. “She’s happy.”
“That’s all I wanted to hear.”
“She misses you.”
I nodded. “I miss her too.”
“She told me you sing in the car.”
I groaned. “That information was classified.”
Her smile softened. “You’re a good dad.”
“Trying.”
“You’re doing more than that.”
I didn’t answer. I just studied her for a moment.
The lamp behind her cast everything in gold. The curve of her shoulder, the way she leaned back like she belonged there.
I shouldn’t have thought it.
I did anyway.
“You okay?” she asked, catching my stare.
“Yeah.” A pause. “You just… make it easier to be away knowing she’s good.”
Her expression shifted. Not startled, just quiet.
“You make things easier for me, too,” she said softly, then hesitated.
“Spending time here, with Harper, has reminded me that there is more to life than just working and trying to prove myself.” Her eyes met mine, and in that small space between words, something else was shared. Uneasy relief. Shared vulnerability.
The weight of it felt like a fist slowly closing around my heart, squeezing the air out of my lungs with each hesitant beat.
“I should go,” she said, glancing back toward Harper. “If I wake her, I’ll never hear the end of it.”
“Get some sleep.”
She smiled. “Goodnight, Logan.”
“Night, Counselor.”
The screen went dark.
I lay back, staring at the ceiling, the quiet pressing in again, but different now. Sharper. Fuller.
Harper had said it before I left.
She’s the best trouble.
Yeah.
She was.
And I wasn’t sure I wanted to keep pretending I could outpace it.