Gone Away Home (Bringing Home Trouble)

CHAPTER 1

DUSTIN

There’s something about coming home, like I can breathe again.

Even though there’s a sense of accomplishment I carry with me because of my time in the military, nowhere I went and none of the people I met felt like home. It’s probably because I knew where home was the entire time. It was the same place, the same person, I was running from and the entire reason I made the choice to enlist.

Being back in Jasper Ridge brings all the feelings I’ve spent the last 14 years burying back to the surface. Nothing looks different, but I know it is.

People have grown up. People have left. People have fallen in love. People have lost.

Life moved on and even though I was living mine it wasn’t here, in Jasper Ridge, where I belonged the entire time.

I know that now. It was cowardly of me to run away from what I thought I couldn’t have 14 years ago.

Sure, I could blame it all on being an 18-year-old kid who felt like everything was stacked against me, against us. That wouldn’t even be entirely wrong. Even with everything working against me, I should have stayed and fought for what I wanted instead of rolling over and not even trying.

Absently I rub the center of my chest as I drive past the high school. So many fucking memories, ones I haven’t examined in years.

The first time I ever saw Zayla, really saw her, was on the first day of school. It was clear she was nervous, but she was trying to hide it. I had tried to do the same thing the year before when I was a freshman. Fuck, I felt like I had made it as a sophomore that year, but then I was struck fucking dumb when I saw her.

The light caught on the dark strands of her hair, and I was entranced. Her hair was so dark it was almost black and looked like it absorbed every ounce of sunlight and glowed. What I found out over time was that the sunlight had nothing to do with Zayla’s glow; it was all her.

As I was frozen in place, she looked up and met my eyes. There was curiosity in her brown eyes, the flecks of gold lit up with it, along with an innocent attraction. She couldn’t hold my gaze, but she tried. When she looked away, she was nibbling on her plump bottom lip.

I desperately wanted to kiss her right then.

Honestly, kissing her was all I thought about for the entire school year.

Since she was a freshman, I told myself I was going to give her the school year to get her bearings and find her way. I kept an eye on her the entire time, needing to make sure no one was fucking with her, but I didn’t want to get too close. There was no way I was going to tolerate being put in the friend zone, and I promised myself I was going to wait to ask her out.

Even then, as young as I was, I knew Zayla was destined to be mine. Now, 17 years after I saw her for the first time and 14 years since I left Jasper Ridge, I know it’s still true.

“So much lost time,” I mutter to myself and have to swallow hard past the lump in my throat.

Before I could approach Zayla, before I could do what my soul yearned to do, everything came crashing down around me. I was the only one who seemed to know I was standing in the rubble of my dreams.

All it took was one day, almost a month before the school year ended, to change everything. While I drive by Millie’s Diner, I can’t hold in the sneer. It’s where everything changed and the place where I first felt the impact of other people’s choices on the life that I thought I was going to live.

I was sitting across from Dad at a table for four, which wasn’t unusual since a lot of families ate at Millie’s and there weren’t many two-person tables to begin with. I had been wondering why he seemed so nervous, but being a teenager, I didn’t think too deeply about it.

When his eyes lit up and he waved, fucking waved, at whoever had walked in the front door, I was confused. The relief was evident in his voice when he muttered, “They’re here.”

“They?” I pulled my face into some sort of look as I studied Dad. The sound of footsteps coming our way had me turning to find Zayla shuffling behind a woman who looked like her, but older. I barely even looked at the woman because, like always, whenever Zayla was around she had all my attention. I sounded confused as fuck, “Zayla?”

Her big brown eyes were wary as she looked at me. She nibbled on her bottom lip, something I found way sexier than I should have at the time, and shrugged in response to the unasked questions evident in the way I said her name.

Dad stood up and wrapped his arms around the woman Zayla was with, who I assumed to be her mom. He sounded chipper, but it was almost forced and it put me on edge, “Dustin, this is Janice. I’ve been seeing her for about six months.”

I’m not even sure how many times I blinked, trying to process what he was saying to me. It was a mind fuck and not just because he was introducing me to someone he had been seeing for six months, someone I had no idea even existed. I couldn’t understand how Dad, who I knew had been devastated by my mom’s death when I was only four, was seeing someone. He had never dated anyone since Mom died.

No, it wasn’t like he hid women throughout the years. I had asked him about dating and having a girlfriend, because it was all innocent back then when I was growing up. He would simply smile at me, but it was a sad smile which didn’t quite reach his eyes.

He would ruffle my hair, sadness creeping into his words, “Why would I date when I go to bed every night with memories of the amazing woman that I was lucky enough to call my wife?” He’d look away, a dreamy look on his face, “I miss her every day, but I don’t see myself ever falling in love again. It wouldn’t be fair to whoever I tried it with. No one should compete with a ghost.”

I stopped asking at some point throughout the years. Not because I didn’t want a mom, like most of my friends had, but because it made him sad. He had enough of that just from missing Mom, I wasn’t about to add to it.

There were many times growing up when I would find him looking at pictures of mom with tears in his eyes. He was clearly in love with her still, even in death. I figured if he never wanted to be in another relationship then I would respect his choice.

Color me fucking surprised as hell when he was dropping a six-month relationship bomb into my lap in the middle of Millie’s Diner like it was a normal occurrence. It wasn’t. It was far from fucking normal. I would have been happy for him, honestly, but he had to choose the one woman who was also the mother of the one person I wanted and was waiting for.

I was a fucking mess with only a few words, and I was struggling not to show it.

“Dustin,” Janice’s voice pulled me out of my spiraling thoughts, and I looked at her to find her giving me a small smile full of understanding, “I’m sure this is a shock to you. I want you to know I have no intention of replacing your mom in your life or in Thad’s heart. I understand he will always love her. I think our hearts grow to make room for new people without forgetting those who can’t be in our lives anymore.”

“Oh, honey,” Dad’s voice broke a little bit, and he placed a tender kiss on her temple.

She beamed up at him before looking at me again and then at Zayla. Her voice was soft as she spoke to her daughter, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, but we wanted to make sure everything was going to work out between us. I know this is probably a shock,” she glanced between the two mute teenagers, “for both of you.”

Dad helped usher Janice into the seat next to him which left Zayla no choice but to sit, stiffly, on my side of the table. She was so close I could feel the cozy heat coming off her body. It took so much fucking effort not to wrap my arm around her shoulders and pull her into my side the same way Dad was doing with Janice.

But I couldn’t.

It dawned on me slowly; their revelation changed everything. Fucking everything.

The plans I had. The feelings I couldn’t ignore. The time I had wasted waiting to give her the time I was sure she needed.

It changed how I felt and looked at everything.

My chest was aching and the only thing I could do was stare at the table. I’m sure it looked like I was pissed about Dad being with someone, but I wasn’t. I wanted him to be happy and I was very aware it would only be a few short years before I would leave the house. No, he deserved to find love again, but what was impossible to swallow as who he had found love with.

It just had to be her. The one woman in Jasper Ridge that I desperately didn’t want it to be, even though I had never met her before.

“I’m glad you’re happy, Mom,” Zayla’s voice was soothing even as it grated against the deepest part of my soul.

“I’m,” Janice cleared her throat and started again, “we’re very happy.”

“Which is why,” there was a note of disapproval in Dad’s voice which I knew was directed at me, but it felt like I was falling to pieces and all my energy was devoted to not becoming a rage tornado in the middle of the diner, “I’ve asked Janice to marry me.”

My head snapped up and I stared at Dad because I must have misheard him.

I didn’t.

Everything moved quickly after that. They were married in the middle of summer and by the time the next school year came around, we had been living in the same house together for weeks.

I was lost and I rebelled, but I never, not fucking once, took out my pain on my sister.

Stepsister.

It’s not like I was going to fuck up the life Dad was building for himself. There was no way I could do that to him, even though it felt like I was dying every single day I spent with Zayla under the same roof in some sick pantomime of being a happy family.

The day I graduated, I joined the military and left Jasper Ridge. I haven’t been back in 14 years, but I can’t stay away any longer. Not after the close call I had on one of my last missions, the same one which had me sending my friend’s ‘just in case’ letter home to his wife and kids.

Life is too short, and I’ve been denying what I need to be happy for too long. All because I was more afraid of what people were going to think of me than my own feelings.

My phone rings as I turn onto the street where Zayla lives. I might not have been home, but I’ve kept up with my woman as much as I could. I’m aware of how many guys she’s tried to date, and that those attempts at relationships didn’t go far. Finding out where she lives was easy.

“Hey, Noel,” I greet one of my best friends from my time in the military.

He got out a few years before me and went back to Montana where he’s part owner of a horse ranch with his brothers. We might not be in a unit together anymore, but we have kept up with each other’s lives. Noel is one of the few people who knows exactly why I came back to Jasper Ridge.

“I know you’re probably close to your girl’s house if you’re not there already. I just wanted to check in before I can’t reach you for a few days because I know you won’t want to come up for air once you get her where you want her,” there’s amusement in his voice.

But he’s fucking right.

“I’m just about to pull up to her place,” I chuckle, “and you’re right. I’m going dark for a few days.” As I pull up in front of her home, my nerves hit me full force. “Fuck,” I mutter, my voice shaking slightly. I clench my jaw to try and get myself under control and grit out, “Do you really think I’m doing the right thing? It’s been a long fucking time.”

I think back to the letters she wrote me for the first five years after I enlisted. The first couple I didn’t answer; I couldn’t. I was afraid I would read her delicate handwriting on the page and run halfway across the globe just to reach her.

But she didn’t give up and I found myself giving in. There wasn’t really another choice to make.

“Look,” Noel’s voice takes on an edge, one I need to hear, “I get you’re not sure how everyone is going to react to you being with your sister.”

“Stepsister,” I seethe, “and we’re adults now. Damn it.” My tone has a note of resentment, a feeling I’ve been battling for years, “It should have been me with her first before Dad ever met Janice.”

I might not begrudge Dad his happiness, but the fact that I waited just a little too long to ask Zayla to be mine still burns in my gut like battery acid.

“And that’s why this is right,” he sounds pleased with himself. “Someone who isn’t sure, someone doing the wrong thing, would not be as pissed about how everything went down. If you could have moved on, you would have done it a long time ago. For some reason, I think she would have too.”

“Maybe,” I try and deflect.

“You’ll regret it the rest of your life if you don’t try. Have a little faith in what you felt for her all those years ago. You were trying to do right by her and then life stepped in with other plans, but maybe it’s worked out just the way it was supposed to.”

I pull the phone away from my ear and stare at it for a moment, wondering if I’m really talking to my friend Noel or if he’s a pod person now. “Are you sure I’m talking to Noel Burns?” I throw the sarcastic ass question his way and can almost hear the way he rolls his eyes.

“The one and only,” he schmoozes. “Go get your girl and name your first son after me,” he makes his demand and instantly hangs up.

Probably because he knows I would have told him there’s no way I’ll name any of my kids Noel. Hell no.

The car door slams with a little too much force when I step out and start to head toward Zayla’s front door. Its time to claim my woman. I might be several years late, but I’m not going to let anything get in the way of seeing her and doing what I should have done years ago. Not now, not ever again.

My feet eat up the distance to her front porch and door. I hold my breath when I knock, knowing this will come as a complete surprise to her.

I hope she’s happy to see me.