"Cal, that's—" I stopped, processing. "That's huge. Congratulations."
"Thanks. Means I'll be traveling more, overseeing crews across Alberta. But here's the thing—they're stationing me regionally."
Something cold settled in my gut. I knew what he was going to say before he said it.
“They picked home,” Cal said quietly. "I'm coming back, Wyatt. End of the month."
I stared at the brewery parking lot, at the mountains in the distance turning purple in the fading light. Cal Mercer. Coming back.
"That's good," I managed. "It'll be good to have you around again."
"Yeah?" Cal's voice carried something I couldn't quite read. Relief, maybe. Or concern. "I wasn't sure how you'd feel about it. We didn't exactly leave things on the best of terms."
That was an understatement. The last time I'd seen Cal, we'd been standing in the parking lot of the Rusty Spur, both of us half-drunk and fully pissed off, saying things that probably should've ended a friendship. I'd told him he was running away. He'd told me I was burying myself alive.
Turned out we'd both been right.
"That was a long time ago," I said. "We were different people."
"Were we?" Cal asked, and there was something in his voice that made me think he'd been wondering the same thing. "I don't know, man. Some things don't change as much as we'd like to think."
I thought about Tessa. About Maddy. About the life I'd built in those six years, piece by careful piece.
"Some things do," I said.
Cal was quiet for a moment. "Are you seeing someone?"
"Yeah. Tessa. She's—" I stopped, not sure how to explain what Tessa was. What she meant. "She's everything I need."
"I'm glad," Cal said, and he sounded like he meant it. "You deserve that."
"What about you?"
"Married to the job," Cal said with a laugh that didn't quite land. "Same as always."
I leaned against the truck, watching the last of the sunlight fade. "When you get back, we should grab a drink."
"I'd like that." Cal paused. "And Wyatt? I know things are probably going to be... complicated. With me being back. But I'm hoping we can put the past behind us."
"Yeah," I said. "Me too."
We said our goodbyes, and I ended the call, staring at my phone for a long moment.
Cal Mercer was coming back.
That meant questions I thought were buried would resurface. History that stayed safely in the past would be present again. And Brooke?—
I pocketed my phone and climbed into the truck. Whatever complications Cal's return would bring, I'd deal with them when the time came. Right now, I have a woman waiting for me who made everything else feel manageable.
Even the ghosts of old friendships and complicated histories.
Tessa
I finished cleaning up and was heading toward the front when I nearly ran into Brooke in the hallway. She had her phone in her hand, and her face had gone carefully blank in a way that made me pay attention.
"Everything okay?" I asked.
Brooke looked up, and for just a second, I saw something raw flicker across her expression before she smoothed it away. "Fine. Just got a call from an old friend. Someone I haven't heard from in a long time."
