I want to tell everyone. Even the bastard writing parking tickets across the street. But I can’t. Freya and I have too much to figure out before anyone else gets a say.
This isn’t mine to announce. Not yet. Not without her.
I don’t even know what she wants from me in all this. There are way too many question marks. She lives hours away. Will she want me to move there? Would she consider coming here? Would we do this long-distance, and our poor kid would barely know me and see me once a month?
Fuck, that last question hurts… It’s shocking how I only just heard about my baby and already I want to see them every day. This is chaos. Madness…
I need to move.
Back inside, the door chimes. Gabriel glances up. “Everything good?”
I grab my jacket. “Really good.”
Not clean. Not simple.
But good.
I take a moment to consider my friend, and suddenly he looks like an uncle instead. I think of Santi on the ranch, theway fatherhood steadied him, turned recklessness into something solid. Will it do that to me, too?
“You heading out?” he asks.
I toss a few bills onto the table. “Don’t know when I’m back.”
He studies me for a beat. “Yeah. Do what you gotta do.”
Do what I gotta do. What do I have to do? I have to figure out a way for me and Freya to be in the same place—that’s what I have to do. There’s no version of this where distance works. I want to be around my kid and support Freya, too.
The sun’s high when I reach the truck. I slide behind the wheel, set my coffee down, and stare at the road ahead. A toothbrush, a tank of gas—everything else can wait.
Fifteen years waiting for a reason to move forward.
Now I’ve got one.
Seven hours to get there.
7
The diner smells like rosemary,almonds, and fresh baked bread. It’s a bistro that thinks butter is “artisanal” if you put a sprig of thyme on top. I picked it because it’s bright, neutral, and is known for having zero fried food. The smell of oil at high temperatures has set my stomach into a mess lately.
Maybe if the room feels calm, I can trick my heart into doing the same.
Pregnancy doesn’t just change your body. It changes the decisions you have to make, and I’ve done a lot of thinking.
Anton being involved was never a questionin my mind. I knew he wouldn’t run from this. And having grown up without my father, I’d never deprive my child of theirs.
That makes the real problem distance. Bonds don’t form through intention alone. They’re built through proximity—through being close enough to show up without scheduling it days in advance, close enough to matter when something goes wrong.
Since the baby news, being in LA hasn’t felt as solid as it once did. The job is more dangerous than I expected, and I already know what’s coming once I announce the pregnancy—desk duty, a slower pace, a version of policing I didn’t sign up for.
And if I’m going to be behind a desk anyway, then does it have to be here?
When Anton decided to race down today, it made the question impossible to avoid. If I was going to talk to him about being in the same place, I needed to know whether that was even an option.
So, while he was on the road, I bit the bullet and called Callum with a preliminary request to transfer.
It’s not a forever plan. Just a place to land while I’m on desk duty, while Anton and I figure out what it means to be in the same place.
Asfriends.
