Chapter Four #2
The Honeybrook Veterans Center sat four blocks from the square, in a low brick building with a flagpole out front, three rosebushes along the walkway, and a sign that had been repainted so many times the letters looked permanently tired.
Crew had spent half his childhood there.
Pancake breakfasts. Memorial Day setup. Youth hockey sign-ups. Donation drives. Folding chairs stacked against walls. His dad laughing with men who did not laugh anywhere else.
As he approached, he saw a blue tarp stretched over part of the side roof.
The sight made his chest tighten.
He had known about the roof.
Tom had mentioned it on the phone in the tone people used when they did not want you to worry.
“Little leak.”
“Board’s handling it.”
“Nothing dramatic.”
The tarp said otherwise.
Crew stopped at the walkway and looked up.
A man in a gray center T-shirt came out carrying a box of paper plates.
“Crew Donnelly,” he called. “Heard you brought national attention to our humble roof.”
Crew recognized him after a second.
“Mr. Alvarez.”
“Eddie now,” the man said. “You got too tall to call me mister.”
Crew shook his hand.
Eddie Alvarez had coached peewee baseball for one summer and quit after deciding six-year-olds had “the strategic discipline of raccoons.”
He looked older now, but not softer.
His eyes flicked over Crew’s face.
“Saw the video.”
Crew nodded.
“Everybody did.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I said Eddie.”
“Yes, sir.”
Eddie sighed. “Still Tom’s kid.”
Crew looked at the tarp again.
“How bad is it?”
“Roof?”
“Yes.”
“Bad enough that your accidental romantic catastrophe has become financially useful.”
Crew winced.
Eddie clapped him on the shoulder.
“Relax. I’m not endorsing it. I’m just old and poor enough to recognize usefulness when it knocks.”
“Marin shouldn’t have to pay for it.”
“No,” Eddie said. “She shouldn’t.”
Crew looked at him.
Eddie held his gaze, then nodded toward the side door.
“Come on. Your dad’s inside pretending he didn’t organize the chairs by emotional importance.”
Crew followed him in.
The center smelled like old coffee, floor polish, and paper decorations.
Folding tables lined the main room. A few volunteers arranged raffle baskets along the wall.
Someone had hung framed photos from past Fourth events: kids with sparklers, veterans in uniform, his dad shaking hands with mayors, Marin at sixteen holding a tray of cupcakes with frosting on her cheek.
Crew stopped at that one.
He had taken the photo.
He remembered.
She had been furious because he caught her mid-sentence.
He had kept a copy on his old phone for years.
Maybe he still had it.
No.
Not maybe.
He did.
Crew moved on before the memory could do worse.
His father sat near the front, assembling small American flags into a centerpiece with the concentration of a man disarming a bomb.
Sergeant Tom Donnelly looked up.
He wore jeans, a Marine Corps T-shirt, and the same battered watch he had worn since Crew was a kid. His hair had gone more silver than dark. His face looked thinner than last summer.
Still, his eyes were steady.
Crew braced for disappointment.
Tom looked him over and said, “You look like a man who walked into a bakery and found consequences.”
Crew exhaled.
Eddie laughed and kept walking.
Crew crossed the room.
“Hey, Dad.”
Tom stood slower than Crew wanted him to.
Not obviously slow.
But Crew saw it.
He saw everything now. The careful push off the chair. The way Tom hid the brief tightening around his mouth. The extra second before he opened his arms.
Crew hugged him gently.
Tom slapped his back hard enough to make it clear he hated gentle.
“Don’t handle me like glass.”
“Then don’t stand up like antique furniture.”
Tom huffed. “Smart mouth. College ruined you.”
“Pretty sure you started it.”
“Correct. I blame myself every day.”
Crew stepped back.
Tom looked toward the door. “Marin okay?”
Crew’s answer caught in his throat.
“No.”
Tom nodded.
No surprise.
No lecture.
Just grief, measured and quiet.
“Didn’t think so.”
Crew shoved his hands into his pockets.
“I apologized in front of everyone.”
“I saw.”
“I made it worse.”
“Probably.”
Crew looked at him.
Tom shrugged. “Public apology is still public. You put her in the center again, even if you meant to stand there yourself.”
The words hit clean.
Crew deserved that too.
“I thought I was protecting her.”
“I know.”
“I wasn’t.”
“Not fully.”
Crew looked at the flags on the table.
Red stripes. White stars. Wooden sticks. A hundred tiny symbols of a country that loved big declarations and often forgot private repair.
Tom sat back down.
This time, Crew did not help him.
Better choice.
“What do I do?” Crew asked.
Tom gave him a look.
“You asking as a captain or as a man?”
Crew swallowed.
“Yes.”
Tom’s mouth twitched.
“Captain answer is easy. You talk to the committee. You set terms. You stop the team from feeding the fire. You take responsibility where it belongs.”
Crew nodded.
“Man answer is harder.”
Crew waited.
Tom picked up a flag and smoothed the small fabric with his thumb.
“You let Marin decide what repair looks like.”
Crew looked away.
There it was again.
Staying. Waiting. Not managing. Not fixing her into forgiveness.
“Even if she decides there isn’t any,” Tom said.
Crew’s throat tightened.
“Yes, sir.”
Tom studied him.
“You still love her.”
It was not a question.
Crew stared at the table.
The answer had lived in him so long it no longer felt like words. It felt structural. Load-bearing. A beam inside his chest he had built everything around while pretending the house was empty.
“Yes,” he said.
Tom nodded slowly.
“Then stop treating that like the most important thing.”
Crew looked up.
Tom’s eyes were kind.
That made it worse.
“Your love doesn’t undo her hurt,” Tom said. “It doesn’t outrank it. It doesn’t buy you another chance. It doesn’t make the town right, and it sure doesn’t make a hashtag holy.”
Crew let out a rough breath.
Tom held his gaze.
“But it can make you honest.”
Crew sat across from him because his legs had become unreliable.
“I should have told her.”
“Yes.”
“I should have called.”
“Yes.”
“I should have come back.”
Tom’s face shifted then.
Not agreement.
Pain.
“You were drowning too, son.”
Crew looked down.
There were things he still hated remembering.
His first semester away. Practices that took everything.
Coaches who wanted more. Teammates who needed him steady.
His mother calling because Tom’s medical appointments had gotten complicated.
Marin texting pictures of the bakery remodel, trying so hard to keep him part of her life while he felt like he was splitting into versions of himself none of them could use.
He had been scared.
He had been ashamed of being scared.
So he had gone quiet.
Quiet was easier than telling Marin he felt trapped between wanting her, wanting hockey, wanting home, wanting air, wanting to be enough for everyone and failing at all of it.
“You could have told her you were drowning,” Tom said.
Crew closed his eyes.
“I know.”
“You didn’t trust her with the truth.”
That one hurt most because it was exact.
“I thought I was protecting her.”
Tom sighed. “That lie has ruined many good men.”
Crew opened his eyes.
His father looked tired now.
Not weak.
Tired.
The sight rearranged Crew’s anger into fear.
“You okay?” Crew asked.
Tom’s expression sharpened. “Don’t start.”
“Dad.”
“I am being honored this week. Let me enjoy my dramatic importance.”
“Your dramatic importance needs a chair.”
“I have a chair.”
“And a doctor.”
“I have several. They keep multiplying.”
Crew gave him a look.
Tom returned it, stronger.
Then his face softened.
“I’m okay enough for today,” he said.
Crew hated the careful wording.
Enough for today.
That was the kind of phrase people used when they were trying not to promise more than their body could keep.
Tom tapped the table.
“Focus on Marin.”
“She told me not to.”
“Then focus on not making her carry your mess.”
Crew nodded.
His phone buzzed again.
He ignored it.
Tom noticed.
“Group chat?”
“Probably.”
“Your team is a menace.”
“Yes.”
“Good people?”
Crew thought of Wilder’s bad apology, Sutton confiscating phones, Frankie holding back a graphic as personal growth, Cooper telling everyone to delete things, Beck’s existential despair, Junie’s snack-based supervision.
“Yes.”
“Then use them.”
Crew frowned.
Tom leaned back.
“Not for content. For correction.”
Crew looked at him.
“Your people made noise,” Tom said. “Now they can help make quiet.”
That settled.
Crew pulled out his phone and opened the group chat.
The message count had passed eighty.
He typed without reading any of them.
Crew: Stop interacting with any posts. No comments, no jokes, no graphics, no reposts.
Three dots appeared from Frankie.
Crew typed again.
Crew: I mean it.
The dots vanished.
Then:
Sutton: Already told them.
Cooper: Confirmed.
Hayes: I deleted three things and matured painfully.
Beck: proud of you I guess
Junie: I am creating a snack-based compliance system.
Wilder: I’m sorry, Crew.
Wilder: Tell Marin I’m sorry too. Or don’t. I know I don’t deserve message delivery.
Frankie: I am sitting on my hands.
Milo: We’ve got you. Quietly.
Crew stared at that last one.
Quietly.
Good.
That was the first useful thing anyone had said.
Then Sutton sent a separate message.
Sutton: Wilder wants to fix it by making another apology video. I said absolutely not.
Crew: Thank you.
Sutton: He feels awful.
Crew: He should.
Sutton: He does.
Crew: Good.
Sutton: You okay?
Crew: No.
Sutton: Better answer.
Crew: I’m trying not to make it worse.
Sutton: Start there.
Crew put the phone facedown.
Tom watched him.
“Good?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe is often where better starts.”
Eddie appeared in the doorway. “Tom, channel seven called the center line.”
Crew froze.
Tom’s eyebrows rose.
Eddie held up a hand. “I did not give them anything. I said our media liaison was currently unavailable due to pastry-related unrest.”
Tom looked at Crew.
Crew stood.
“I’ll handle it.”
Tom’s eyes narrowed. “Captain or man?”
Crew picked up his phone.
“Committee damage control.”
“Captain, then.”
“Yes.”