1
The trouble with burying your past was that it never stayed buried. Sometimes it waited. Sometimes it healed over just enough to let you believe it was gone. And sometimes it walked into the restaurant where you worked, sat down in a booth by the windows, and looked up while you were taking a lunch order.
Joseph forgot how to breathe.
For one blinding second, everything inside him stopped. His hand froze over the order pad. His pulse slammed once, hard enough to be felt in his feet, and the whole bright little dining room seemed to tilt around him. Plates clinked. Somebody laughed near the hostess stand. The front door opened and let in a ribbon of salt air from the ocean a block away. The world kept moving.
Joseph didn’t.
“Um, did you get that?”
The woman’s voice snapped him back so fast he almost jumped.
Joseph blinked at her.
Right. He was at work. In public. Holding a pen. Supposedly employed to do more than stand there having a quiet emotional collapse beside table twelve.
“I’m sorry,” he said, trying to gather his voice before it embarrassed him any further. “What was that?”
She frowned a little and repeated herself slower. “I said I’d like the daily special, with fries and an iced tea.”
“Right.” Joseph looked down at his notepad and forced his hand to move.
The pen shook so badly he could barely write. Nothing said competent waiter quite like spelling iced tea as though he were being tased.
He swallowed and looked back up with something that was probably supposed to pass for a smile. “Is that all?”
“I’d like to order too,” the man said, already sounding annoyed.
Yeah. That tip was dead.
Most people preferred their server not look like he was one wrong word away from climbing into the freezer and living there.
“Sorry. Yeah, what can I get you?” Joseph asked, but even to his own ears, his voice sounded thin and off balance.
The man gave his order. Joseph scribbled it down fast, not trusting himself to look across the room again.
Didn’t matter.
He could feel that booth anyway.
Feel it sitting there like a live wire dropped straight into the middle of his life. The worst night he’d ever lived through came roaring back in jagged pieces. Flashing lights. Gunfire. Wet pavement. The taste of fear in the back of his throat. Jake stepping out of a cruiser with his weapon drawn while Joseph crouched half hidden across the street, young and stupid and terrified.
When he finished writing, he turned away from the table without another word and headed straight for the kitchen, ignoring the two other tables still waiting in his section.
He needed out.
Needed air.
Needed a trapdoor, a false passport, and maybe the ability to dissolve into mist.
Across the restaurant, Danny noticed him immediately.
He saw the color drain out of Joseph’s face. Saw the speed in his walk. Saw panic take over where Joseph usually kept everything easy and smiling. Danny finished with his own table, handed off a basket of crackers, and followed him.
By the time he got into the kitchen, Joseph was gone.
“Hey, Sarah, you see Joseph?” Danny asked.
She pointed with a dish towel toward the back door. “Went out there.”
Danny muttered a thanks and pushed through the door into the narrow lot behind the restaurant.
Joseph was pacing along the brick wall, hands flexing at his sides, breathing too fast. He looked one step away from either passing out or bolting for his car.
Danny stopped and stared at him. “Hey. What’s wrong with you?”
Joseph turned at the sound of his voice but didn’t stop moving. Standing still felt dangerous. Standing still felt like letting the panic catch up to him.
“Dude, seriously,” Danny said. “You look like you’re about to throw up.”
“That might help,” Joseph muttered.
Danny frowned. “What’s going on?”
Joseph shut his eyes for a second.
Danny wasn’t just some guy from work. He was his roommate. His friend. One of the only real things Joseph had let himself keep in this town, and even then it was built on lies.
Not little lies either. The big kind. The ugly kind. The kind that sat under everything and waited.
Joseph was good at lying. Good enough that people usually believed whatever version of him he decided to hand them. Easygoing Joseph. Funny Joseph. No family, no baggage, no past worth mentioning, Joseph.
It was one of his more marketable skills, right behind stealing wallets and ruining his own life.
He exhaled and leaned back against the brick wall before sliding down into a crouch.
Danny watched him, confusion giving way to concern. “You look like you saw a ghost walk into the restaurant.”
Joseph glanced up at him. “I did.”
Danny waited.
Joseph stared out at the parking lot, sunlight flashing off windshields. “A ghost from my past.”
Danny kept his mouth shut, which was probably wise.
Joseph dragged a hand over his face and forced the words out. “My brother’s in there.”
Danny’s expression changed. “Brother?” He frowned. “I thought you said you didn’t have any family.”
Joseph let out a pathetic breath. “Yeah. About that. Tiny correction. I lied.”
Danny stared at him. “Why?”
Joseph laughed under his breath and tipped his head back against the wall. “Because that’s what I do. I lie about things I can’t deal with.”
Danny crouched beside him slowly, still trying to make sense of it. Joseph had told him his family died in a car wreck when he was twelve. That had been the story from the start. Two years of friendship built on top of something that wasn’t true.
Danny didn’t sound angry yet. Just blindsided. “Why would you lie about that?”
Joseph looked up at the strip of sky above the roofline. “My parents were killed in a car wreck when I was twelve. That part was true. I went to live with my brother after that. He’s a cop.”
Danny stayed quiet, so Joseph kept going.
“I ran away when I was seventeen. Haven’t been back since.”
Danny looked down at the pavement, doing the math. “Six years.”
“Yeah. Turns out time really flies when you’re avoiding your entire life.”
“Why’d you run away?”
Joseph rubbed a hand over his mouth. “Because I was an idiot.”
Danny gave him a flat look. “That explains a lot.”
Joseph almost smiled, but it didn’t last. “I screwed up. Bad.”
“What’d you do?”
Joseph drew in a breath and held it for a second. Once he said this out loud, it became something he had to face.
“I got mixed up with some bad people. Wrong crowd. One night, a few of us broke into a house. We needed cash for...” He closed his eyes. “Drugs.”
Danny’s brows rose. “I didn’t know you were ever into drugs.”
“I wasn’t for long,” Joseph said quietly. “That night cured me.”
He looked down at his hands. They were still shaking.
“The homeowner was there. He had a gun. By the time we realized it, he was already shooting.” Joseph’s voice thinned as memory dragged him under. “Me and the other two guys got out. Eddie got hit. I ran across the street and hid in some bushes because I wanted to see if he was okay.”
His throat tightened.
“That’s when the police showed up.”
Danny didn’t interrupt.
Joseph stared straight ahead. “My brother was one of the officers.”
The memory of the night made his stomach churn all over again.
“He stepped out of the cruiser and drew his gun, and I just...” Joseph shook his head. “I knew if he saw me, that was it. I couldn’t stand there and watch him realize what I’d turned into,” he huffed a small, disgusted breath. “Slap handcuffs on me and arrest me.”
He swallowed hard.
“The homeowner saw me too. It was dark, maybe he didn’t really get a good look, maybe none of it would’ve ever come back on me, but I didn’t care. I panicked.” He let out a bitter little laugh. “Actually, no. Panic makes it sound simple. I detonated and ran.”
“And you’ve been running ever since,” Danny said.
Joseph nodded. “Pretty much. Which, in hindsight, maybe wasn’t the most emotionally mature long term strategy.”
Danny leaned back against the wall beside him. “Wow. Okay.”
They both fell quiet, absorbing the words and their implications.
Then Danny asked, “So he’s the one in there?”
“Yeah.”
“The cop brother?”
Joseph nodded again. “I don’t even know what he’s doing here. I never thought I’d see him again. He lived in Oklahoma.”
Danny crossed his arms. “So what are you gonna do?”
Joseph let out a breath. “Hide out here till he leaves.”
Danny looked at him for a long moment. “Or... and hear me out... you could go in there and face him.”
Joseph barked out a laugh. “Absolutely not. Terrible plan. Zero stars. My brother is the most by the book, straight laced guy you’ve ever met. If I tell him what happened that night, he’ll probably take one look at me and suggest I keep on disappearing. Or he’ll slap the cuffs on me right there and haul me off to jail.”
“He’s your brother, Joseph.”
“Yeah, and he’s also a cop,” Joseph said. “That badge’s always been the center of his universe. Rules. Duty. Moral superiority. He’s really dedicated to it.”
Danny’s expression sharpened. “So that’s it? You’re not even gonna give him a chance?”
Joseph looked away.
“He took you in when you were a kid, didn’t he?” Danny asked.
Joseph said nothing.
“He probably worried about you. Probably looked for you. And your plan is to hide behind the restaurant?”
Joseph glanced up at him. “Yeah. Basically.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I. It feels like a solid plan.”
Danny pointed at him. “You know what I mean.”
Joseph let out a breath and scrubbed a hand through his hair. The truth was Danny was right, which he really wanted to hate.
He could leave right now. Walk to his car, drive until the coastline disappeared, start over somewhere else all over again.
It was his best skill.
But it would mean never knowing. Never knowing if Jake might’ve forgiven him. Never knowing if the man sitting in that booth still had any room left in his life for the kid Joseph used to be. And that little flicker in his head, that dangerous, awful flicker, was hope.
He hated hope. It was the one thing that could destroy you.
Hope was how you ended up standing in a parking lot behind a seafood restaurant, trying not to pass out over an accidental reunion.
Danny pushed off the wall and reached for the back door. He paused and looked at Joseph. “Your brother’s here. Right now. You’ve got one shot to stop being the scared seventeen year old kid who ran from everything.” He held Joseph’s gaze. “So are you gonna keep running, or are you gonna be a man and face him?”
Then he went back inside.
Joseph stayed where he was for a second, staring at the brick wall across from him while his heart kept trying to punch its way out of his chest.
Kid was easy.
Man was terrifying.
He drew in a long breath and shoved himself upright. “Man it is,” he muttered, because apparently he’d lost all interest in self preservation.
Then he headed back in.
He crossed through the kitchen and stepped into the dining room again, stopping just beyond the swinging door.
His brother was still there.
He looked almost exactly the way Joseph remembered him. Six years should’ve changed him more than that. They should’ve put some distance between the memory and the man sitting in front of him. But Jake still looked like Jake. Strong. Proud. Built like somebody who’d never once doubted his place in the world. He wore board shorts and a T-shirt with the sleeves cut out, showing off the athletic build Joseph remembered all too well. His dark brown hair was still a little darker than Joseph’s, and his jaw was still hard and sharp, giving him that same look he’d always had, like he didn’t need to demand respect because people handed it over on sight.
He sat in the booth with the other man.
Peter.
Joseph recognized him instantly. Another cop. Jake’s old partner and friend. Another reminder that life could be cruel, and it really knew how to commit to a theme. Jake had backup with him.
If he didn’t do this now, he never would. So he took one more breath and walked straight toward the table.
Peter looked up first.
Recognition hit him immediately. His best friend’s long lost kid brother. His brows shot up, his eyes widened, and he reached over to tap Jake on the arm. Jake was still studying the menu, because Jake never made a choice without considering every option first.
Jake glanced at Peter, then followed his line of sight.
His gaze landed on Joseph. Everything in Joseph went tight.
This was it. No more walls. No more running. No more bad jokes to take the edge off. Just him standing there in an apron and name tag, trying not to turn and run from the one person who still had the power to break him.
Jake stared at him.
Joseph couldn’t speak. Couldn’t think. His brain, so reliable in moments of crisis when it came to terrible humor and worse exits, had finally decided to abandon him completely.
Jake’s eyes narrowed slightly.
“Joseph?”
His voice hit harder than Joseph expected. Familiar. Older. Still his brother’s.
Joseph swallowed. His chest was rising too fast, breath sawing in and out, heart pounding so hard it felt violent.
Jake stood slowly, shock pinning him in place.
For a second neither of them seemed to know what came next.
Then Jake said, “Wow. It’s been a while.”
Joseph gave the smallest nod. “Yeah.”
Peter looked between them and said nothing, which was easily the most helpful thing anybody had done all day. He’d been there after Joseph ran. He’d seen the fallout. Seen what it did to Jake, how it hollowed him out in ways Jake never let anyone talk about. He’d watched Jake bury it deep and keep moving because life didn’t stop just because something in you broke. And now Jake was standing in front of the reason for all of it, staring at the kid who’d torn his life open and disappeared.
Jake’s eyes moved over Joseph’s face, like he was trying to match memory to reality. “You look good.” His tone was reserved, distant.
Joseph almost laughed at how formal it sounded, how careful. “You too.”
It wasn’t warm. It wasn’t the version of this reunion Joseph might’ve secretly hoped for. But it also wasn’t rejection. Not yet.
He glanced down, gathered what little nerve he had left, then looked back at Jake. “Do you think maybe we could talk?”
Jake looked at Peter, then back at Joseph.
“Yeah,” he said after a second. “Let’s go for a walk.”
Joseph nodded, though his nerves were still running wild under his skin.
Because hope was there now, but it was fragile, and the truth was still waiting behind it.
The darkest thing he carried. The thing he’d never told Jake. The thing that could still destroy this whole moment before it had the chance to become anything more.
And as Joseph turned to lead his brother outside, he realized the cruelest part wasn’t the fear that Jake would reject him.
It was how much it would hurt if he did.
