Page 11 of Until the Storm Breaks (The Midnight Men #1)

CALVIN

Be right there, he finally responds. Two minutes.

While I wait, I watch Maren’s cabin windows.

Still dark. She got home around ten last night from the bar, and I heard her laughing at something, probably Laila being ridiculous.

The sound traveled through the walls and made me want to knock on her door and ask what was funny, just talk to her about nothing important.

Instead I lay there like an idiot, listening to her get ready for bed, trying not to picture her in the shower we share.

I need to get my shit together. Not spend so much time thinking about the woman who’s got me twisted up after a week of living next door.

Jack finally walks over from the main house, somehow looking put-together despite the hour.

There’s a quality about my youngest brother that makes people notice him, not just the looks, though he got lucky there too.

It’s the way he moves through the world like he owns it, like consequences are for other people.

Women have always loved it. Men want to be it or fight it.

“Ready?” I unlock the truck.

“Let’s get this over with.” He climbs in, bringing the smell of tequila mixed with motor oil from whatever he was tinkering with on his bike last night.

Today marks thirty-three years since Dad opened Midnight Boxing with borrowed money and determination.

Mom made it sacred every year—gathering us before dawn with homemade cinnamon rolls and photo albums, making sure we remembered where we came from.

Jack and I haven’t been to one in three years, too busy with our lives to show up.

We’ve never done it without her. Until now.

The truck still smells like sawdust and fresh-cut lumber from all the work on the sunroom.

Yesterday Jack helped me for a couple hours, holding boards while I hammered, making jokes about my transition from professor to carpenter.

It’s coming together slowly, the room Mom loved finally getting the repairs it needs.

Too late for her to see, but I keep working anyway.

“How’s the season going?” I ask as we drive through empty streets. Harbor Bakery is already open and lit up, Mrs. Peterson visible through the window arranging pastries. “You mentioned the recent race but I never actually asked about everything overall.”

“Could be better.” Jack drums his fingers against his knee in that restless rhythm he has had since he was eight and couldn’t sit still in church.

“Got to drive FP1 in Montreal, set competitive times. Did a test day in Austin. Six practice sessions all year while I watch from the garage the rest of the time.”

“Team happy with your performance?”

“Team’s happy with my lap times and my sponsor checks clearing.” He laughs, but there’s an edge under it. “My sponsors, however, want to see me in a race seat, not doing simulator work at three AM.”

“So what are you going to do?” I keep my eyes on the road, but I can feel his restlessness filling the car.

“Keep pushing. Keep asking for a real shot. Keep refusing to just shut up and be grateful.” He shrugs. “Apparently that makes me difficult. Can you imagine?”

“You? Difficult? Never.”

“Right?” He grins, and there’s the cockiness that got him in trouble in high school and apparently still works for him now.

“I’m twenty-five. Every year there’s some nineteen-year-old coming up from F2 with generational talent or generational wealth.

Usually both. But I’m still faster in the sim, and I make sure everyone knows it. ”

“That’s why they keep you around.”

“That and my sponsors’ checks.” His voice goes quiet. “Sometimes I wonder what Dad would think. His son flying around the world to not race.”

“He’d be proud. Mom was.”

“She kept calling it NASCAR just to watch me lose my mind explaining that Formula 1 is a completely different universe,” he says, shaking his head with a fond smile.

We pull into the gym parking lot. Three familiar cars are already there: Dominic’s BMW parked precisely in Dad’s old spot, which he claimed the day after the funeral and nobody challenged him.

Theo’s Subaru with restaurant supplies visible in the back, probably from handling some supplier issue at dawn.

Alex’s ancient Jeep that looks like it escaped from a junkyard but somehow keeps running year after year.

Inside, Midnight Training Co. waits in darkness.

The gym doesn’t open for another half hour, so everything sits still and strange.

Just emergency lighting throwing shadows across equipment that should be moving.

The smell hits immediately: leather and sweat mixed with that industrial cleaner Dad always bought in bulk, all of it combining into something that just smells like home, even when home is complicated.

We find our brothers in the office. Dominic behind Dad’s desk like he owns it now, which I guess he does. Theo untying the string on a pink bakery box from Harbor Bakery. Alex sprawled in the corner chair with the rip Mom kept saying she’d fix but never did.

“Morning,” I say, and they all nod back. I’d stopped by the restaurant when I first got into town to see Alex and Theo, but we’d barely talked.

“Coffee’s ready,” Theo says, nodding at the coffee maker next to the espresso machine. “Made a fresh pot.”

The espresso machine next to it is new, an Italian model gleaming with chrome, the kind baristas drool over. Dominic must have splurged on that. But when I pour from the regular pot, it’s the same Seattle roast Mom insisted on, the same one Maren and I now share in the cabin kitchen.

Looking at my brothers now in the morning light, I notice things I missed at the restaurant.

Theo’s cut his brown hair shorter, which makes him look younger than thirty-two.

New burn marks stripe his forearms, and he’s got that lean build that comes from never stopping moving. He’s always been the steady one.

Alex looks better than he has in years. His brown hair’s grown out, and there’s a tattoo I don’t recognize peeking from his collar, something written in script. He’s lost the soft edges and gone all sharp angles, alert and present in a way that makes me think he’s finally got his shit together.

Alex catches me staring and flashes that grin that used to mean someone’s car was about to get egged. “What? Do I have something on my face?”

“You both look good. Healthy,” I say, meaning it.

“Restaurant life,” Theo says simply. “No time to fall apart.”

“Plus, someone has to be the pretty one now that you’re gone,” Alex adds.

“Excuse me?” Jack cuts in. “I’m right here. Still the pretty one, thanks.”

“You’re never here,” Alex shoots back. “Doesn’t count if you’re pretty in Monaco.”

“Cinnamon rolls?” Jack says, already reaching for the box.

“They’re not Mom’s,” Alex says quietly, and we all know what he means.

But we each take one anyway, going through the motions. Mom would make them from scratch, the whole house smelling like butter and cinnamon before sunrise. These are from the bakery, good but wrong, like everything else about doing this without her.

Dominic pulls out Mom’s photo box with the kind of care usually reserved for newborns or explosives. The leather is worn soft from decades of handling, corners reinforced with duct tape that’s probably older than Alex. Inside, our entire family history waits in Kodak moments and fading Polaroids.

“Found these when I was cleaning out a drawer last week,” Alex adds, pulling photos from his jacket. “Figured they belonged with the rest.”

We spread them across the desk and start passing them around, each image landing differently. Opening day with Dad looking young and invincible. Mom in his boxing gloves, laughing at something off-camera. The five of us at various ages, in various states of brotherhood.

Then Dominic pulls out a photo that makes me stop breathing for a second.

Mom and Maren behind the bar at The Black Lantern, leaning together like conspirators mid-laugh.

Mom’s face is bright with genuine joy, fully present in the moment.

Maren beside her, glowing with that particular light she has.

“When was this?” I ask.

“Right after Maren bought the place, so maybe seven years ago now.” Theo says. “Mom spent weeks teaching her everything. The regulars’ drinks, the books, all of it.”

“She loved doing that,” Alex adds. “Passing it on.”

“You know,” I say to Dominic, taking a sip of coffee that burns going down, “the other day you mentioned the buyer wants to close fast. How’d you even find someone that quickly? Mom’s barely been gone a week.”

The room goes quiet like I’ve pulled a pin on a grenade. Alex suddenly finds his coffee fascinating, studying it like it holds the secrets of the universe. Theo clears his throat and looks at the ceiling tiles like he’s counting them.

“The buyer’s been interested for a while,” Dominic says, his shoulders going rigid.

“How long is a while?” Jack’s voice has gone flat, that dangerous calm he gets before he loses it.

“A few months,” Theo admits quietly, still not meeting anyone’s eyes.

I set my coffee down hard enough that it sloshes over the rim, pooling on Dad’s old desk. “You’ve been negotiating this while Mom was dying?”

“Be realistic, Calvin,” Alex jumps in, finally looking up. “The house was falling apart. The roof, the plumbing, everything. We had to start thinking ahead—”

“Mom was still alive!” Jack stands so fast his chair rocks back. I see his hands clench into fists, the same way they did when he was sixteen and about to punch someone.

“Barely,” Dominic shoots back, standing too, matching Jack’s energy. “She didn’t recognize us half the time. Thought I was Dad. Called Theo by your name.”

“That doesn’t mean you get to decide she was already gone,” I say, heat rising in my face. “You don’t get to make that call for all of us.”