Raylen’s just been intercepted. Another woman grabs her arm. Not violently, but firmly enough that I can’t tell if it’s the motion or the instinct behind it that has King moving faster. His shoulders tense, boots dragging heavier, strides lengthening without permission. There’s heat behind his mask now—something a little too sharp to ignore.
I reach out without a word, wrapping my fingers around his elbow and pulling him back just enough to meet his eyes. One brow arched.
Easy.
He glances sideways, then forward again, jaw tight beneath that ridiculous makeshift wrap. At first, I think it’s his typical overprotectiveness flaring now that our “family” is larger than just him, me, and Delilah. But when his gaze doesn’t leave the woman holding Raylen—Laura—I realize this isn’t about instincts.
He’s watching her.
The medic.
The one who practically held my son together with shaking hands and iron resolve when it should’ve been me in that chair. Me bleeding, me with the pain, not him.
A cold, familiar pit forms in my stomach.
If I’d known I had a son… If I’d known he existed… he never would’ve walked this path. Never would’ve stepped into the teeth of the military machine. He’d have had a real life. A quiet one. A shit job in a shit town, maybe, but he would’ve had the choice. He never would’ve needed Greenport, never would’ve needed me to be anything more than a story his mother told.
But I didn’t know. Not until it was too late. Not until he was already forged in the same fire that built me.
And now, some twisted turn of fate has dumped him on my doorstep—not as a boy I could raise, but as a man I barely recognize.
Raised by strangers. Raised by soldiers. By people who weren’t his parents but somehow still hold the title I never got to earn.
They wouldn’t have let him take a risk like that. Wouldn’t have let him go rogue on a mission, pull a stunt that nearly killed him. They would have wrapped themselves around him like armor and refused to let him break.
I clear my throat hard, swallowing the guilt before it swallows me. The music swells again, oblivious.
No use getting caught in self-pity. Not here. Not today.
I slide into the pew behind Raylen and Laura, King settling next to me with all the subtlety of a falling boulder. The wood creaks under his weight, the whole row shuddering like it might collapse. Neither of the women look back. Maybe they feel the weight of us behind them—or maybe they’re too wrapped in whatever silent conversation passed between them to notice the tension shifting through our row like a current.
This whole wedding is surreal.
But I’ve got time now—a second chance—and I’m not wasting it.
Moe and I—we’re finding our rhythm. It’s not perfect, not sentimental. But it’s real. We text. We talk. We argue. We figure shit out in our own way. Sometimes he hangs up on me. Sometimes I deserve it. It’s not the kind of father-son bond you read about in stories, but it works. And for us—for who we are—that’s enough.
The music swells, strings sweeping through the air like a breath being held. Heads start to turn as Cordelia steps into the clearing ahead, sunlight catching the shimmer of her veil and the proud, still look on Caspian’s face as he waits for her. Her dress moves like water, and for once, no one is calculating exits or angles. They’re just… watching.
For a moment, everything stills.
Even the ghosts in my head.
Even the ache in my chest.
Because despite the fractured lives we all carry, despite the bullets and blood and names erased from existence—this… this is peace.
And for now, we get to feel it. If only for one night.
Let the war wait.
Let the reception begin.
***
The reception’s in full swing now.
String lights zigzag overhead, soft and gold, casting a warm haze over the makeshift dance floor and linen-draped tables. The sky above is ink-dark, stars swallowed by the glow of the event, but the air still smells like ocean and bonfire. Laughter blends with low music and the clink of glass, but I stay near the perimeter, nursing my drink more for the motion than the taste.The alcohol is decent, but I don’t trust myself drunk in a room full of people who know what I look like bleeding.
