Page 192 of Twins for Three Bad Boys

My mother had a gift for saying things that sounded too simple until life cornered you hard enough to realize they were true.

Caleb reaches for another beer and points the neck of it at me. “Okay, but practical question. You stop long haul, what then? You got savings?”

“Some.”

“Enough?”

“No.”

Dad grunts as if that answer was expected. “You got contacts up there? Freight companies? Local depots? Anyone moving stock regionally?”

“A few,” I say. “Marlowe knows logistics better than anybody. Between him and the garage, there are people I could talk to. Maybe contract work. Parts runs. Equipment delivery. Maybe even dispatch, though the idea of sitting behind a desk full time sounds like divine punishment.”

Caleb laughs into his beer. “You behind a desk would last six hours.”

“Four if the chair squeaks.”

Dad nods slowly. “So don’t turn yourself into a man you ain’t.”

That quiets me.

Because that’s part of the fear too.

Not just money.

Identity.

What am I if I’m not moving?

If I stop being the one who rolls into town with road dust on the truck and stories in his pocket and a duffel that’s never fully unpacked, who am I then?

The answer comes quicker than I want it to.

Maybe someone better.

The thought startles me enough that I sit there with it for a second.

Not because who I’ve been is bad.

But because maybe who I’ve been has been built around avoidance for so long, I mistook it for personality.

Caleb watches my face and sees too much, as brothers do. “You love her?”

I could dodge. Joke. Make it about attraction, about care, about timing being weird, and life being complicated.

Instead, I think of June in that truck bed at the drive-in, folded into the three of us under blankets and dusk and old movie light. I think of her crying in the café. Of her trying to make herself smaller every time she’s scared someone will decide she’s too much trouble. I think of the way she looks at Evan with love, and at Wayne, understanding his silence even when it hurts her, and at Fletcher because his steadiness means something sacred.

And I think of how simple the answer feels in my chest, even if nothing else is.

“Yeah,” I say.

Dad looks down at his hands.

Caleb is quiet a beat longer than usual before he says, “That bad, huh?”

I laugh.

“Yeah,” I say again. “That bad.”