She set a mug of coffee in front of me at the kitchen table, then finally asked, “So. Why now?”
I froze, fingers curling around the mug. She didn’t ask gently. She never did. With my mom, you didn’t get coddled. You got the truth, straight and sharp.
“I just needed to… get out for a while,” I said carefully.
Her brows lifted as she studied me. “Is it about a girl?” Her gaze was sharp, too knowing, pinning me across the table. “You didn’t run home after your divorce,” she added, letting the words hang between us like a truth neither of us wanted to face. Her eyes searched mine, waiting for the true answer. “So why now? Don’t sit there and tell me it’s just to see me. I know you, Hunter. You don’t fly cross-country without a reason.”
Her words cut because they were true. I dropped my gaze to the mug in my hands. “I screwed things up, Ma.”
“With that girl?”
I didn’t answer, which was all the answer she needed.
Her sigh was sharp. “Then fix it. Don’t you dare sit here in my house, hiding, licking your wounds, and pretending that’s easier. You chose her, Hunter. You don’t get to run when it gets hard. You hear me?”
I nodded, throat tight. “Yeah.” I let the silence fill in what I couldn’t say. I’d never told her much about Camille or the kids. I kept most things to myself. She didn’t know the ways the military had worn me down, or how my body sometimes ached in places I didn’t talk about, or how my relationship felt like a secret I was still learning to trust.
I remembered taking Camille out on my bike for the firsttime, the way she leaned into me, the way she looked so at peace sitting on the pier, curls blowing wild under the setting sun. Her laugh echoing in the hallway as she joked with Chloe, her voice a melody that chased off my doubts for a moment. Avery’s sticky fingers grabbing my hand, anchoring me in the middle of the storm. Those small, ordinary moments became my quiet refuge. It wasn’t that I didn’t love Camille or want to share her with the world. I just knew some things were safer kept close.
She leaned back, arms folding. The softness from before shifted into steel. “You always did have a bad habit of running when things got too real.”
I opened my mouth, but she cut me off. “Don’t. Don’t tell me it’s different this time. You chose her, Hunter. I can see it all over your face. And now you’re here because what, she scared you? She made you feel something you weren’t ready for?”
Her words landed heavy, right where I didn’t want them to.
“I’m not running,” I muttered, but it sounded pathetic even to me.
Her eyes narrowed, sharp and knowing. “Don’t lie to me. You’re not eighteen anymore. You don’t get to play boy and man at the same time. You either show up, or you don’t. You chose her, Hunter,” she pressed, voice softer now but no less firm. “Don’t you dare run from someone you already chose. That’s not how love works.”
The truth of it burned because she was right, and with my mom, you don’t ask questions and, you don’t argue, you do what she says. And this time, as hard as the truth was, I knew she was right. She may have stood at only four-foot-eleven,but what she lacked in height she more than made up for in pure, loving intimidation. As I sat there, the weight of her words settled into my bones.
After dinner, I fell asleep in my old room, staring at the same ceiling fan that had seen me plot escapes and practice speeches and pray for things I didn’t know how to name. My luggage slouched in the corner like a guilty dog. I didn’t dream; I just sank.
???
By the third night, even the quiet was too loud. When Ben texted, “Beers? Luke’s in town too,” Ianswered yes without thinking.
The bar hadn’t changed since we were idiots with fake IDs. Neon signs buzzed in reddened corners. A snowmobile helmet hung above the dartboard like a trophy. The jukebox cycled through Springsteen, 90s country, and a random salsa track someone always played to mess with the locals.
Ben was already in the booth when I walked in, nursing a beer while enjoying his first moment of solitude in a week. He looked good in the way tired men look good: content, a little rumpled, a wedding band he twisted without noticing. “There he is,” he said, standing to pull me into a shoulder-pound hug. “Thought you’d gone witness protection.”
Luke slid in a minute later, haircut still sharp enough to measure angles, that watchful ease some of us never lost. He chin-jerked hello and took the outside seat, back to the wall, the way we all did without saying a word. It had been years since we’d all been together; the last time was my brother’s wedding, five years back. Ben had a whole family now, a wifeand five kids. Luke was still single, still living the bachelor life, still on active duty in the Corps. He left for boot camp just a year after me.
“Look what the cat dragged in,” Luke said.
“Nice to see you too,” I muttered, but my mouth quirked.
Ben poured me a beer and pushed it across the table. “We heard you’re back for a minute. Figured that either means you’re avoiding the law or a woman. Your face says woman.”
Luke snorted. “If it were the law, he’d look happier.” He turned to me. “You look like shit. Girl trouble?”
We traded the low-grade insults that meant I love you in our family. The pitcher sweated. The jukebox switched to an old country song I didn’t know.
Ben’s voice shifted, serious now. “You gonna tell us why you’re really here? I know you. I’ve never seen you like this. You’ve been half alive for years, Hunter. Divorce, deployments, the military grinding you down. And now you’re sitting here looking like someone ripped your heart out. That tells me you found something worth bleeding for.”
His words echoed the fear that chased me: what if I’m not enough? I laid it out for them. Cami’s smile that unhooked something in me, Zeke’s side-eye and quiet courage, two little girls who thought my back was a jungle gym, the way my chest felt like it finally had instructions.
Then the fight. It started small, but underneath, I was wrestling with the fear of losing myself. I picked at the softest spots because I was scared of being asked to be the man I said I wanted to be. The worry that I’d fail them, that I’d come up short, wouldn’t let go. Panic rippled through me, whispering that the easiest way to avoid more pain was to leave. So I ran, caught a plane, hoping space would quiet the ache sittingheavy inside me.
