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“Really?”

“Hell yeah. Did a little college right after high school and then dropped it. Been a fixture at the PMFD ever since. Just made captain this year, too.”

“Congratulations,” I say, voice tight.

Dad is usually so forthcoming with all the town news, always trying to pull me out of my cave to reconnect with society. I’m surprised he didn’t already reveal this nugget of information to me.

“Lynn, my wife now, is a nurse. We have another baby on the way. It’ll make it girl number four.” He chuckles again, reminding me of sleepovers when we were school-aged boys. “You remember Lynn?”

“Not ringing any bells.”

“Man, you’re still a prick. Serra’s best friend. You know, the chick you fucked all the time. I’m still surprised you two didn’t end up together.”

Serra did try to reach out after the fire and what happened to my mother. All my friends did, including Baker. I just ignored everyone. Jude Park, fun-loving, football-playing, life-of-the-party guy died. They didn’t know the monster who rose from the ashes, nor did I want to introduce them.

“What are you up to these days?”

Hiding away in my dark-ass house, angry at myself and the world. Alone. Empty. Lost.

“Work.”

“Okayyyy,” he says with less humor. “You weren’t always so vague. Everything okay?”

No.

Nothing is okay.

My mind is a clusterfuck of confusing emotions with Tate right in the center stirring the pot.

“It’s fine.”

He sighs heavily, frustration seeping into his tone. This is exactly why I didn’t keep in contact. I let people down. Every day I let my own family down. But they’re blood and have to deal with me. Everyone else got a free pass to not see my surly ass.

“We should meet up for a couple of beers. Maybe watch a game on TV or something. It’ll be like old times. Except now I have a full beard and have to be home by eight at night when I’m not at the station to tuck the girls into bed.” He chuckles, voice breathy and filled with pride. “Fatherhood. It’s fuckin’ great, Jude.”

Despite the familiar voice and laugh that has me feeling the least bit nostalgic, I have nothing in common with Baker anymore. He’s married, enjoying being a father to a mess of girls, and is actually on a career path he enjoys. I have nothing to contribute to the conversation, much less the sad attempt to resurrect an old friendship.

“Listen,” I start, but he interrupts.

“You still live in that old dump with your mean-ass gramps or did he kick the bucket? Remember that time he caught us in the woods when we were cutting down trees to make a fort?”

We were like ten and were attempting to take down a hundred-year-old oak with a chainsaw. Grandpa whipped both our asses that day.

“He’s still here. Same with everyone else. It was good talking—”

“I heard through one of the guys at the station Callum got fired at the high school. It’s not been confirmed, but people say he’s been fucking a teenager.”

My hackles rise. Baker was always a gossip, but I draw the line at my family.

“She’s legal. I’ve got to go, man. Talk to you later.”

More like never.

He doesn’t get another word in before I hang up.

Sometimes I long for the life that could have been. Serra was really cool and I could have settled down with her one day. Maybe. I could have had friends and a different career path. I could have actually gone to the goddamn grocery store without shame.

But that life was taken from me.