This is pathetic. I'm an adult man who's survived combat zones and classified operations, and I'm having an existential crisis in the chicken aisle at eleven o'clock at night.
I grab a rotisserie chicken from the hot case. Pre-cooked, single serving if I stretch it, no effort required. Drop it in my basket next to nothing.
Bread. Eggs. Milk. A box of cereal that's mostly sugar. A six-pack of beer that I probably shouldn't drink alone but definitely will. The basket gets heavier, but it doesn't feel like real groceries. Not like something an actual adult would buy.
At the register, the teenage girl scans my items without looking at me. Chicken, bread, eggs, milk, cereal, beer. The saddest grocery haul in history.
"Twenty-three forty-seven," she says, already looking back at her phone.
I pay cash. Take my bags. Walk back out into the cold night air and load everything into my saddlebags, the rotisserie chicken warm against my leg the whole ride home.
The house is dark when I pull into the driveway. I
The plan was to have somewhere to come back to, somewhere that was mine. Three bedrooms, two bathrooms, detached garage with room for all my bikes. A real house. A grown-up house.
It's never felt like home.
I unlock the front door and step inside. The air is stale. The living room has a couch I bought online without sitting on first, a TV I rarely watch, a coffee table with nothing on it. No pictures on the walls. No plants. No signs that anyone actually lives here except for the combat boots by the door and the jacket on the hook.
The kitchen is worse. I put the groceries away—chicken in the fridge, bread on the counter, eggs and milk and beer in their designated spots—and the quiet presses in on me. Nosounds except the hum of the refrigerator and the occasional car driving past.
This is my life. This is what I came home to.
I crack open a beer and lean against the counter, drinking it too fast. The cold slides down my throat and settles in my stomach, doing nothing to fill the ache that's been growing since I left the bar.
Jason's probably still up. Probably cleaning the popcorn bowl, putting away the leftover snacks, doing all the small domestic tasks that come naturally to him. Maybe he's thinking about me. Maybe he's not.
I pull out my phone. Stare at his contact. My thumb hovers over the message icon.
What would I even say?Thanks for letting me touch your ankle for two hours. Sorry I'm a mess. Please continue being patient with me while I figure out how to be a person.
I put the phone down.
The beer is gone faster than it should be. I grab another, carry it to the couch, sit without turning on any lights. The streetlight outside casts long shadows across the ceiling, shapes that shift and move with the occasional passing car.
Brennan would have known what to do.
The thought comes unbidden, unwanted. I shove it away but it doesn't go. Brennan, who used to fill up spaces just by existing. Who'd sprawl across whatever furniture was available like he owned it. Who made even a tent in a combat zone feel like somewhere worth being. Dead for two years and I still reach for him sometimes when I wake up from nightmares.
Jason isn't Brennan. Jason is softer, warmer, more openly affectionate. Brennan was all sharp edges and dark humor and intensity born from knowing every day might be your last. Jason bakes cookies and stress-cooks for his pack and lights up when he talks about motorcycle engines.
They're nothing alike. I don't know why my brain keeps trying to compare them.
Maybe because they're the only two people I've ever wanted to keep.
The second beer disappears. I should eat something—the chicken is right there in the fridge—but the thought of eating alone in this kitchen makes my stomach turn.
I think about the bar. The warmth, the noise, the constant presence of people who actually seem to like being around each other. Jason in the kitchen, always feeding someone. Robin sprawled on the couch complaining about work. Knox watching over his pack with that quiet intensity.
Pack. Family. Belonging.
I don't know what any of those words mean. Not really. My family was a disaster. Robin and I basically raised ourselves. The military was structured, purposeful, but you learned fast not to get too attached. People transferred. People died. The unit was a tool, not a family.
But that thing at the bar, with the popcorn and the horror movie and everyone piled onto couches together—that felt real. Felt like something I wanted, even though I didn't know how to ask for it. Even though I don't know if I'm allowed to want it.
Jason's pack. Not mine. I'm just the brother of someone adjacent, a visitor tolerated because Robin vouches for me.
Except Jason looked at me like I belonged there. Like he wanted me there.
