The deep, velvety blackness of true, hard-won sleep was a foreign country, and I was its grateful, newest citizen. The weight of the blanket—his blanket—was an anchor, and the profound, silent certainty of Clyde's presence in the house was a lullaby more effective than any drug. For the first time since the knife, since the terror, my mind wasn't churning with numbers or fear. It was blissfully, perfectly empty.
Which is why the sound didn't just wake me up; it detonated in the serene quiet of my bedroom.
It was my phone, buzzing on the nightstand with a violent, insistent urgency that screamed emergency. The screen glowed like a malevolent beacon in the pitch-dark room, casting frantic shadows.
I jackknifed upright, my heart immediately hammering a frantic tattoo against my ribs. Clyde. Something's wrong. Something's happened. My sleep-addled brain could only process one reality: phone calls at 2 a.m. meant disaster.
I fumbled for the device, my hand clumsy with sleep and a fresh surge of adrenaline. But as my fingers closed around it, the number on the screen didn't compute. It wasn't a D.C. area code. It wasn't O'Malley. It wasn't even Leo, trying his pathetic luck again.
It was a number I hadn't seen in… years. A number I'd almost forgotten existed, if not for the fact it was permanently, painfully etched into my memory. It was the landline number for that house. The one with the perfectly manicured lawn and the silence that could freeze hell over.
My mother.
We lived in different time zones, both literally and figuratively. A ten-hour drive and a lifetime of polite, chilly distance separated us. Our communication was limited to a text on Christmas and a painfully formal card on my birthday, always signed "Mother and Robert," as if her husband's name was a necessary buffer against any implied intimacy.
A call? At 2 a.m.?
My blood went from pumping adrenaline to running with ice water. This wasn't a wrong number. This was a cataclysm.
The phone buzzed again, an angry vibration in my hand. I squinted at the screen, as if I could discern the nature of the emergency through the digits themselves. A heart attack? A car crash? Had Robert finally succumbed to the sheer boredom of his own existence?
I swiped to answer, my throat tight. "Hello?" My voice was a sleep-ravaged croak.
There was a beat of silence on the other end, and then her voice. Not panicked. Not tearful. Just… her voice. Cool, precise, and clipped, as if she were reading from a clinical report.
"Troy. It's your mother."
"Mother." I stated the word flatly. A thousand scenarios, all terrible, flashed through my mind. "What's wrong?"
Another pause. I could picture her sitting in her pristine kitchen, a cup of tea steaming untouched in front of her, her back ramrod straight. "It's your father," she said, the word 'father' sounding like a distasteful term she'd found on her clean floor. "David. He passed away a few hours ago."
The words didn't make sense. They were just sounds, empty and sharp, clattering against the frozen surface of my mind. David. She never called him my father. He was always 'David,' the man whose name was a footnote in the story of her impeccable life. The man who had actually raised me until I was twelve, who taught me how to throw a spiral football and fix a leaky faucet, whose laugh was a loud, booming thing that filled up a room. The man she'd left for the more 'suitable' and vastly more boring Robert.
"Passed away?" I repeated dumbly. "How? Was it… an accident?" He was only in his late sixties. He was a mechanic, strong as an ox the last time I'd seen him… was a year ago.
"No," she said, her tone utterly devoid of emotion. "It was pancreatic cancer. Terminal. He was diagnosed six months ago. He chose not to treat it. He's been in hospice for the last three weeks."
The ice in my veins cracked, and a pain so acute it was physical lanced through me. Six months. Three weeks. He'd been dying, and no one had told me. He'd been dying, and I'd been tracing money for ghosts, eating turkey sandwiches, completely oblivious.
"Why…" My voice broke. I cleared my throat, trying to find some semblance of control. "Why didn't anyone call me?"
Her sigh was a whisper of static, impatient. "It was his wish, Troy. He was very specific. He didn't want a fuss. He didn't want… visitors."
The unspoken word hung in the air between us, louder than if she'd shouted it: You. He didn't want you.
"The funeral is on Saturday, at eleven, at the Lutheran church on Elm Street," she continued, her voice shifting back to that of a secretary reading a memo. "You can go. Or you can also not, too. It's entirely up to you."
The phrasing was deliberate. You can also not, too. For her, it wasn't a choice. It was a preference. My absence would be one less messy, emotional complication in her perfectly ordered narrative of grief. One less reminder of the life she'd left behind.
"For me," she added, and now her voice held a faint, almost imperceptible note of something—not pleading, but… strong suggestion. "I would like that you won't go."
There it was. The final, elegant twist of the knife. She hadn't just called to inform me; she'd called to manage me. To ensure I wouldn't disrupt the scenery with my inconvenient existence.
Before I could form a response—a sob, a scream, anything—the bedroom door opened.
Clyde stood there, silhouetted by the faint hall light. He was a mountain of shadow and implied threat, his hair rumpled from sleep but his eyes wide awake and laser-focused. He must have heard the phone, heard the shattered glass in my tone. He didn't speak. He just looked at me, taking in the way I was shaking, the phone clutched in my white-knuckled hand.
My mother's voice, tinny and sharp, emanated from the phone. "Troy? Are you there? Did you hear me? I said I think it's best if you—"
"I have to go," I interrupted, my voice a strangled thing I barely recognized.
"But—"
I ended the call. I didn't drop the phone. I threw it. It hit the plush carpet with a dull, pathetic thud.
I drew my knees up to my chest, wrapping my arms around them, trying to hold myself together. The pain was a vacuum, sucking all the air out of the room. My father was gone. He'd been sick, and he'd hidden it from me. He'd died, and my mother's only concern was that I wouldn't come and embarrass her.
A broken sound, half-gasp, half-sob, escaped me.
Clyde was across the room in two silent strides. He didn't hesitate. He didn't ask what was wrong. He sat on the edge of the bed, his weight causing the mattress to dip, and his large, warm hand came to rest on my back, right between my shoulder blades. The contact was solid, real, a tether in the swirling, devastating void.
"Talk to me," he said, his voice a low, steady rumble that was the exact opposite of my mother's clinical chill.
The words tumbled out of me in a ragged, broken stream. "My father. He's dead. Cancer. For months. She just… she called to tell me not to come to the funeral. She'd like it if I didn't come." A hysterical laugh bubbled up, bitter and sharp. "She'd like it."
I expected platitudes. I'm sorry for your loss. It'll be okay.
Clyde Adams didn't deal in platitudes.
His hand pressed more firmly against my back, a grounding, unwavering pressure. "Then we'll go," he said, his voice absolute, leaving no room for argument. "We'll be there. Front row."
I lifted my head, tears I hadn't even felt starting to fall now streaking my face. I looked at him, at the fierce, unwavering certainty in his pale eyes. "What? No, you don't have to… I can't ask you to…"
"You're not asking," he stated. "I'm telling you. You're going to say goodbye to your father. And I'm going to be right there with you."
The simple, profound ferocity of it shattered the last of my control. A sob broke free, and then another. I didn't turn away from him. I let him see it, the raw, ugly grief. His hand moved from my back to my shoulder, pulling me into him. I went willingly, burying my face against the soft cotton of his henley, his solid strength the only thing holding me together.
He didn't shush me. He didn't tell me it would be alright. He just held me, one arm wrapped around me, his other hand cupping the back of my head, his chin resting on my hair. He let me fall apart, and he was my shelter in the storm.
When the tears finally subsided, leaving me hollowed out and exhausted, I stayed there, pressed against him, listening to the steady, strong beat of his heart.
"He taught me how to change a tire," I whispered into the fabric of his shirt.
Clyde's hand stroked my hair once, a gesture of breathtaking tenderness. "Then he was a good man," he said, his voice rough with a conviction that felt like a balm on the wound my mother had so expertly sliced open. "And we're going to honor him."
In that moment, the icy, calculated words of my mother vanished, rendered meaningless. They were replaced by the solid, unwavering promise of the man holding me.
He wasn't just keeping me safe from knives and bullets. He was guarding my heart. And he was doing a hell of a better job than my own family ever had.
The hollowed-out feeling was still there, a cold, numb cavity in my chest where the shock and grief had taken up residence. But around it, something else was coiling: a grim, steely resolve. It was fueled by the memory of my mother's voice, so crisp and dismissive, and by the solid, unwavering presence of the man now moving through my house with a quiet, purposeful efficiency.
_
I stood in front of my closet, staring at the rows of neatly hung dress shirts and suits. What did one wear to the funeral of the father who hadn't wanted to say goodbye? To face the mother who didn't want you there? My usual armor of cashmere and tailored wool felt absurdly inadequate. This wasn't a boardroom negotiation. This was a trench war in a town I'd fled, and I was walking back into it emotionally naked.
I pulled out a simple, black suit, a white shirt, and a charcoal grey tie. Funeral clothes. The uniform of loss. I laid them on the bed with a sense of surreal detachment. This was really happening.
A soft knock sounded at the doorframe. I didn't need to turn to know it was him. I could feel him, a shift in the atmospheric pressure of the room.
"Come in."
Clyde stepped inside. He'd changed into a dark, long-sleeved shirt and jeans that looked like they could stop a bullet. In his hands were two printed boarding passes. "Flight's at 0800. Rental car is confirmed. We'll be wheels down by noon, at the service with time to spare."
Of course he had. He hadn't asked; he'd just handled it. In the space of an hour, he'd organized the logistics of a cross-country trip with the same calm competence he'd used to disarm an attacker and make scrambled eggs.
"Thank you," I said, my voice still a little rough. "You really don't have to do this. I can go alone. It's not… it's not your fight."
He crossed the room in three strides and stopped in front of me. He didn't touch me, but his proximity was a physical thing. "You're not going alone," he said, his voice leaving no room for argument. His pale blue eyes were intent, serious. "And it is my fight. Someone needs to have your back in that place. It's gonna be me."
The conviction in his tone was a lifeline. I nodded, unable to speak around the sudden tightness in my throat. I turned back to the bed and started folding the suit into my suitcase, my movements mechanical.
I felt him watching me as I moved around the room, gathering socks, toiletries, a couple of books I knew I wouldn't be able to focus on. I was a forensic accountant packing for a funeral, and a Navy SEAL was my silent, deadly travel coordinator. The surreality of it was almost enough to make me laugh, if I'd had any laughter left in me.
When the suitcase was packed, I zipped it closed and sat down heavily on the edge of the bed, the fight draining out of me again, replaced by a weary dread. I dropped my head into my hands, my elbows on my knees. The image of my father's face, weathered and kind, swam behind my closed eyelids. The sound of his laugh. The way he'd call me "partner" when we were working on some project together in his garage. Why hadn't he called? Why had he shut me out?
The mattress dipped beside me. Clyde sat down, his thigh brushing against mine. He didn't say anything. He just sat there, a solid, silent bulwark against the tide of grief and confusion threatening to pull me under.
After a long moment, his voice, low and quiet, broke the silence. "Tell me about him."
The question was so simple, so unexpected, that it undid me all over again. No one had ever asked me that. To my mother, David was a mistake to be erased. To my stepfather, he was a non-entity. To my friends, he was a vague figure from my childhood.
I lifted my head, wiping at my eyes with the heels of my hands. "He was… a mechanic," I started, the words feeling rusty. "The best in our town. He could fix anything. Cars, lawnmowers, broken radios… broken toy trucks." I let out a shaky breath. "He was big. Not like you," I said, glancing at Clyde's formidable frame. "But like… a bear. Big laugh. Big hands, always stained with grease no matter how hard he scrubbed. He smelled like engine oil and peppermints."
Clyde was watching me, listening with an intensity that made me feel like I was telling the most important story in the world.
"He wasn't… book smart. He hated that I loved school, that I'd rather be inside with a book than outside with a wrench." A faint smile touched my lips. "But he was so proud. He'd tell all his customers, 'My boy, he's gonna use his head for a living, not his hands like his old man.' He said it like it was the highest compliment."
I swallowed hard, the memory a sharp ache. "When she left him for Robert… it broke him. Not just the leaving. But her taking me. She said his environment was 'unstable.' Too much grease, not enough culture." The old anger, for him, not for me, surfaced hot and bitter. "He didn't fight her. He thought she was right. That I'd be better off with them. He thought he was doing what was best for me."
My voice broke on the last word. "And now he's gone, and he died thinking I agreed with her. That I thought I was better off, too."
The tears came again, silent this time, tracking down my face. I didn't try to stop them.
Clyde's hand came up, his thumb brushing a tear from my cheek. His touch was surprisingly gentle. "He knew," Clyde said, his voice firm, certain. "A father knows his son. He knew you loved him."
"How?" I whispered, the question a plea.
"Because you're sitting here, your heart broken in pieces for him," he said, his pale eyes holding mine. "A man who raised a son who feels this much for him? He knew what he had. He knew."
The simple, profound logic of it, delivered with such unshakable faith, was a balm. He made it sound so true. So inevitable.
He leaned forward, his forehead almost touching mine. "We're going to go there, and you're going to say goodbye. And you're going to remember the man with the grease-stained hands and the peppermints. Not the silence. Not her. Him."
I nodded, drawing strength from his certainty, from the sheer force of his will that he was so freely lending me.
"Okay," I breathed.
"Okay," he echoed.
He stood up, grabbing my suitcase as if it weighed nothing. "Get some rest. We leave in four hours."
He left the room, closing the door softly behind him. I sat on the edge of the bed for a long time, the ghost of his thumb on my cheek, the echo of his words in my ears.
The hollow feeling was still there, the grief was still a sharp weight in my chest. But it was no longer mixed with the paralyzing dread of facing it all alone. I had a ally. A protector. A man who booked flights, carried suitcases, and somehow, miraculously, knew exactly what to say to keep a broken heart from completely shattering.
I lay back on the bed, staring at the ceiling, and for the first time since that awful phone call, I felt a flicker of something besides pain.
I felt ready.
_
The airport was a special kind of chaos, a buzzing, fluorescent-lit purgatory where humanity was stripped down to its most impatient, schlepping core. A cacophony of rolling suitcases, blaring gate announcements, and the low-grade hum of a thousand separate anxieties. I usually hated it. Today, it was a welcome distraction from the cold knot of grief sitting in my stomach.
We'd checked in—or rather, Clyde had handled it with a few terse words and a presence that made the airline representative suddenly very efficient. Now we were marooned in the uncomfortable plastic chairs at our gate, waiting for the cattle call to begin.
Our little island of seats was a microcosm of the whole madhouse. Directly in front of us was a family: a harried-looking mom, a dad staring blankly at his phone, and a little girl of about five who was using the seatback as a drum kit for her juice box. Thump-thump-thump-thump. Behind us, two voices rose and fell in the passionate, dramatic cadence of college students debating something that was, undoubtedly, the most important issue in the history of the world.
"But you're not even considering the post-structuralist implications, Jason!" one of them wailed. "It's not about the author's intent, it's about the text itself!"
I pinched the bridge of my nose. I'd take a knife-wielding gangster over a post-structuralist debate at 7 a.m. any day.
And then there was the matter of my seatmate. Or rather, my seat-buffer. My human fortress.
I was on the aisle seat, my back to the collegiate philosophers. Clyde had taken the window seat, which meant he was effectively walled in. Or, more accurately, he was the wall. He'd folded his formidable frame into the ridiculously small space with a grunt of displeasure that promised retribution against the entire airline industry. His knees were practically in his chest, and his shoulders took up not only the width of his own seat but a significant portion of mine.
He wasn't just sitting. He was… looming. Even in a seated position, he was a giant among men. And people noticed.
It was like watching a magnet attract iron filings. Every passerby did a double-take. Businessmen in cheap suits, families herding children, weary flight attendants—their eyes would slide over the crowd, land on Clyde, and stick. There was a slight widening of the eyes, a quick up-and-down assessment, and then a hurried glance away, as if they'd stared directly into the sun and needed to look at something less intense, like the carpet pattern or the Dunkin' Donuts menu.
A group of college athletes—loud, broad-shouldered, and clearly feeling themselves—strolled past. One of them, a guy with a neck thicker than my thigh, made the mistake of meeting Clyde's gaze. Clyde didn't scowl. He didn't glare. He just looked at him, his expression neutral, his pale eyes utterly calm. The kid's bravado visibly deflated. He quickly looked down and muttered something to his friends, and the whole group suddenly became very interested in finding their gate.
I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing. It was like having a secret weapon. A terrifying, gorgeous, seat-stealing secret weapon.
"You're causing a scene," I murmured, leaning slightly toward him so the post-structuralists behind us wouldn't hear.
He turned his head slowly. The movement was so controlled it was almost predatory. "I'm sitting."
"You're not just sitting. You're… projecting. You've got a whole 'Beware of Dog' vibe happening. That guy with the neck looked like he was about to offer you his wallet as a tribute."
A faint, almost imperceptible smile touched his lips. It was there and gone in a heartbeat, but I saw it. "Good. Maybe it'll be enough for a pretzel."
The little girl in front of us chose that moment to turn around, her juice box forgotten. She stared up at Clyde with the unabashed curiosity of the very young. Her eyes were wide, taking in the sheer size of him, the short-cropped hair, the serious face.
Clyde looked down at her. I held my breath, wondering if his 'Beware of Dog' vibe worked on kindergarteners.
The little girl pointed a sticky finger at him. "You're big," she announced to the entire gate area.
Her mother gasped, mortified. "Sophie! Don't be rude!"
Clyde's expression didn't change, but the intensity in his eyes softened a fraction. He leaned forward, a Herculean effort in the cramped space. "Yeah," he agreed, his voice a low rumble that didn't seem to scare her at all. "Comes in handy."
"For reaching the cookies on the top shelf?" she asked, utterly serious.
"That's one of the top-secret missions, yeah," he said, nodding with grave sincerity.
Sophie beamed, having confirmed a deeply held childhood belief, and turned back around, satisfied.
I stared at him. "Top-secret missions for cookies?"
He shrugged one massive shoulder. "It's a critical operational necessity."
The gate agent finally picked up the microphone. "Now boarding Flight 227 with service to Cedar Rapids. We'd like to invite our first-class passengers and any active military personnel to begin boarding at this time."
Clyde didn't move. He just looked at me.
"That's you," I said, nodding toward the gate.
"I'm not leaving you in the scrum," he stated, as if the idea was personally offensive.
"The 'scrum'?" I laughed. "It's Zone 3 boarding, not the Battle of Fallujah. Go. Get on the plane and… I don't know, secure the perimeter or something. I'll be fine."
He looked deeply skeptical but finally unfolded himself from the seat, drawing every eye in the immediate vicinity. He leaned down, his voice dropping so only I could hear it. "Keep your head on a swivel. I'll be just up the jetway."
The order was delivered with such deadly seriousness that the college students behind us actually stopped arguing about Foucault.
"I will," I promised, my smile fading into something more genuine. "Go get your cookies, soldier."
He gave a short, sharp nod and strode toward the gate, his duffel bag slung over his shoulder like it weighed nothing. The agent took his boarding pass with a slightly awed expression.
I watched him go, the strange, warm feeling from the night before returning. He was going to a funeral for a man he'd never met, in a town he'd never been to, to face down a woman who embodied everything cold and dismissive in the world. And his primary concern was that I might get jostled in the boarding process.
The family in front of us gathered their things. The mom shot me a curious, slightly envious look. The college students were now debating in hushed tones, occasionally glancing toward the jetway where Clyde had disappeared.
I sat back in my plastic chair, the thrum of the airport fading into background noise. The grief was still there, a cold stone in my gut. The dread of what was to come still lingered.
But it was overshadowed, completely and utterly, by the terrifying, wonderful, hilarious certainty that I was not facing it alone. I had a six-foot-five-inch, cookie-retrieving, post-structuralist-silencing guardian angel. And he flew first class.
The "scrum," as Clyde had so ominously dubbed it, was its usual special kind of chaos. A disorganized surge of humanity clutching overstuffed carry-ons and dreams of overhead bin space. I was jostled by a woman with a neck pillow already inflated, looking like a startled sunflower, and nearly tripped by a man attempting to wrangle three suitcases and a yapping dog in a carrier. It was precisely the kind of mundane, irritating mayhem that felt a million miles away from terminal illness and funerals.
By the time I shuffled down the jetway and into the plane's stifling, recycled air, I felt rumpled and off-balance. The flight attendant at the door gave me a strained, professional smile that didn't reach her eyes. "Welcome aboard."
I mumbled a thanks and started the awkward sidle down the narrow aisle, scanning row numbers. And then I saw him.
Clyde Adams was in the first row of economy plus, right behind the curtain that separated the peasants from the cookie-eating elite in first class. He'd somehow managed to commandeer the entire row. His duffel was stowed, and he was standing in the aisle, one brawny arm stretched up to the bin, effortlessly rearranging someone else's poorly placed bag to make space. His sheer size made the already cramped cabin feel like a dollhouse.
But that wasn't the remarkable part.
The remarkable part was the two flight attendants—a man and a woman—hovering near him with expressions of rapt attention usually reserved for minor deities or people handing out free champagne. The male attendant was laughing at something Clyde had said, a light, flirty sound. The woman was nodding along, her hand resting on Clyde's bicep as if to steady herself.
He'd been on the plane for all of five minutes.
He caught sight of me, and his expression—which had been relaxed, almost amused—shifted instantly into focused assessment. His eyes did that quick, head-to-toe sweep, ensuring I'd made it through the gauntlet unscathed. The flight attendants followed his gaze, their smiles dimming slightly when they landed on me, as if I'd interrupted a very important meeting.
"There you are," Clyde said, his voice that low, calm rumble that somehow cut through the plane's din. He reached out, his hand closing around my elbow to guide me past him into the window seat. His touch was firm, proprietary. "Aisle or window?"
"Window is fine," I managed, sliding into the seat he'd clearly been saving for me. He'd already claimed the aisle, a strategic position that allowed him to control access and see everyone coming and going.
The male flight attendant, recovering his professional poise, gave me a tight smile. "Can I get you a pillow? A blanket? Anything at all?" The offer felt less like hospitality and more like a peace offering to Clyde.
"I'm good, thanks," I said.
Clyde nodded at them, a clear dismissal. "We're all set."
They dispersed, casting lingering looks back at him. Clyde settled into his seat, his body immediately consuming all available space. His thigh was a solid line of heat pressed against mine from knee to hip. There was no avoiding it. The plane could have been empty, and we still would have been touching.
He caught me looking. "Problem?"
"You're… a lot of person for a coach seat," I observed, my voice dry.
He didn't smile, but his eyes crinkled at the corners. "I've spent eight hours folded into a metal box smaller than this. This is luxury." He shifted, and his shoulder pressed against mine. "Besides. You're not exactly taking up a lot of room."
The entire flight, it became apparent, was going to be a masterclass in the gravitational pull of Clyde Adams.
The drink cart came by. The same male attendant practically tripped over himself to give Clyde two bags of peanuts. "On the house, sir." He got one.
The captain came on the intercom, his voice crackling with static. Clyde listened intently, his head tilted, analyzing every word for hidden meaning, as if the announcement about our cruising altitude and expected arrival time might contain a coded threat.
When the seatbelt sign dinged off, he turned to me. "Bathroom. Now."
I blinked. "I'm good, thanks."
"Not a request," he said, his voice low. "You go before the rush. Before everyone's been in there and touched everything. It's a petri dish at 30,000 feet. Go. I'll watch your stuff."
It was the most bizarre, controlling, and oddly thoughtful thing anyone had ever said to me. I found myself unbuckling and heading to the back of the plane like I'd received a direct order from my CO.
When I returned, he was standing in the aisle, letting a elderly woman into the middle seat across from us. He'd taken her cane and was stowing it neatly in the overhead bin for her without her even asking. She was patting his arm, calling him "such a nice young man." He accepted the praise with a solemn nod.
He saw me and gestured with his chin for me to get back in my seat. As I slid past him, I caught a whiff of his scent—soap and that unique, clean male smell that was just him—and my stomach did a funny little flip.
Once we were both seated again, the press of his body against mine felt different. Less like an invasion of space and more like… a claiming. The plane hit a patch of mild turbulence, a series of little jolts that had people gasping and grabbing their armrests. I instinctively stiffened.
Clyde's hand, large and warm, came down on my thigh, just above my knee. It was a heavy, steadying weight. "Just air pockets," he murmured, his voice close to my ear. "Nothing to worry about."
His hand didn't move. The heat of it seeped through the fabric of my jeans, a brand of reassurance. I should have shrugged it off. It was too much, too intimate. But I didn't. I leaned into it, into him, just a fraction. The tension drained from my shoulders.
He was reading the in-flight magazine with a look of intense scrutiny, as if assessing the tactical advantages of various Caribbean vacation spots. I pretended to doze, my head eventually lolling to the side until my temple rested against the solid curve of his shoulder. He didn't pull away. He just shifted slightly, a minuscule adjustment to give me a better pillow.
I must have actually fallen asleep, because the next thing I knew, the captain was announcing our initial descent into Cedar Rapids. I was slumped against Clyde's side, his arm now draped along the back of my seat, his fingers absently tracing a pattern on my shoulder. It was the lightest, most casual of touches, but it sent a shiver straight down my spine.
I jerked upright, my face heating. "Sorry. I didn't mean to use you as a mattress."
He retracted his arm, his expression unreadable. "You're light. It was fine."
The seatbelt sign dinged on with an aggressive chirp. As the plane began its bumpy descent, my mind, no longer distracted by his proximity, began to drift back to why we were here. The knot of grief tightened again in my stomach. The image of the church, my mother's cold face, the finality of a coffin—it all came rushing back.
I must have made a sound, a small, involuntary exhale of distress, because Clyde's head turned sharply. He took in my expression, the way my hands were clenched on the armrests.
Without a word, he reached over and pried one of my hands loose. He laced his fingers through mine, his grip firm and grounding. His palm was calloused, a map of hard work and violence, but his hold was gentle.
"Look at me," he said, his voice low.
I turned my head, meeting his pale, steady gaze.
"Whatever happens in there," he said, his thumb stroking over my knuckles, "whatever she says, whatever anyone says… you remember why you're there. For him. Not for them. And you remember that I'm right beside you. Okay?"
The plane bumped down onto the runway with a screech of tires, but I barely felt it. All I felt was the solid warmth of his hand wrapped around mine.
"Okay," I whispered.
He gave my hand one final, firm squeeze before letting go. "Good. Now let's go say goodbye to your dad."
The fear was still there, the sadness a heavy weight. But as we taxied to the gate, surrounded by the rustle of people gathering their things, I felt something else, too. A sense of rightness. However this ended, I wasn't facing it with a discreet companion or a chilly, dismissive parent.
I was facing it with a man who held my hand during turbulence and stared down post-structuralists. And that made all the difference in the world.
The moment the plane's doors hissed open, the spell was broken. The intimate, pressurized capsule of our journey gave way to the generic, bustling flow of deboarding passengers. The air in the jetway was cool and smelled of industrial cleaner and jet fuel, a stark contrast to the recycled, Clyde-scented atmosphere I'd just spent two hours in.
Clyde was instantly on alert, his posture shifting from relaxed sentry to active protector. He moved ahead of me, his bulk creating a wake in the stream of people. I followed in his slipstream, feeling like a remora attached to a very large, very dangerous shark. People instinctively gave him a wide berth, creating a bubble of personal space around us that was a luxury in the cramped terminal.
The Cedar Rapids airport was a study in beige efficiency. It was nothing like the chaotic sprawl of Dulles. This was… manageable. Or it would have been, if not for the reason we were here.
"Stay here," Clyde ordered, pointing to a relatively quiet spot near a potted faux ficus. "Don't move. Don't talk to anyone. If someone offers you a pamphlet on the joys of Iowa corn, you frown until they go away."
"Is that standard operational procedure?" I asked, leaning against the fake plant.
"For you? Yeah." He fixed me with a look. "I'm serious. I'll be right back."
He strode off toward the baggage claim carousels with a purpose that made other travelers instinctively check to make sure they had their tickets. I watched him go, a smile tugging at my lips despite the somber weight in my chest. He was in his element. Managing chaos. Issuing orders. Protecting his asset from aggressive corn lobbyists.
He returned not with our bags—we only had carry-ons—but with the keys to our rental car. He held them up, a single key fob dangling from his finger. "Got an upgrade."
"Let me guess," I said, pushing off the ficus. "The agent was impressed by your… presence."
"He was a veteran. We had a chat." He said it like that explained everything. It probably did.
The rental car was not an upgrade. It was a declaration of war on good taste. It was a SUV so aggressively red and so ludicrously large it looked like it should have its own zip code. Clyde patted the hood with something akin to affection.
"This'll do," he said, his voice satisfied. "Good sightlines. High clearance. We could run over a small sedan and barely feel it."
"Let's try to avoid that," I said, climbing into the passenger seat. The interior smelled overwhelmingly of lemon-scented disinfectant and new leather. "The goal is a funeral, not a vehicular manslaughter charge."
He slid into the driver's seat, and the spacious cabin suddenly felt incredibly small. He adjusted the seat, moving it back so far I was surprised he wasn't in the second row. His knees still brushed the dashboard. He started the engine with a low, powerful rumble that vibrated through the entire frame.
"Right," he said, pulling out his phone. "Address."
I gave him the address of the Lutheran church my mother had mentioned. His thumbs flew over the screen, pulling up a mapping app. He then spent a full minute meticulously programming the GPS, his brow furrowed in concentration.
"You know," I said, "the car probably has built-in navigation." I pointed to the large, glossy screen in the center console.
He didn't look up. "This is more secure."
"You think the rental car company is tracking us through the infotainment system?"
"I think complacency gets people killed," he said, his tone matter-of-fact. He finished inputting the codes—because of course it required codes—and set the phone in a holder on the dash. A calm, digital female voice filled the cabin. "In… two hundred… feet… turn… right."
He nodded, satisfied, and put the behemoth in gear. We pulled out of the rental lot and into the flat, bright Iowa afternoon.
The scenery unspooled outside the window: vast, endless fields of green and gold, stretching out to meet a sky so big it felt like a different planet. Giant, skeletal wind turbines turned with a slow, lazy grace. It was peaceful. Quiet. The absolute antithesis of my life in D.C. It was the landscape of my childhood, and it settled over me with a heavy, familiar melancholy.
Clyde drove with the same focused efficiency he did everything else. Both hands on the wheel at ten and two, his eyes constantly scanning—the road, the mirrors, the horizon, the GPS. He was a man who missed nothing.
We drove in a comfortable silence for a while, the only sound the hum of the tires and the GPS's occasional, overly precise directions.
"She said 'turn right' like she wasn't sure we'd manage it," I mused, watching a red barn slide past.
"She's doing her best," Clyde said, defending the digital voice with unexpected loyalty. "It's a tough job."
Another few miles passed. The fields began to give way to the outskirts of a small town. Familiar landmarks started to appear: the water tower with the faded high school mascot, the long-closed drive-in theater, the roadside stand that in the summer would be overflowing with watermelons.
My stomach tightened. We were getting close.
"You good?" Clyde asked, his voice quiet. He'd noticed my change in posture, the way my hands had clenched in my lap.
"Peachy," I said, the word coming out tighter than I intended.
He didn't call me on it. He just reached over, his hand leaving the wheel for a second to cover both of mine, stilling their nervous fidgeting. His skin was warm, his grip firm. "Remember what I said."
I'm right beside you.
I took a shaky breath and turned my hand over under his, lacing our fingers together. It was a bold move, but it felt right. Necessary. He didn't pull away. He just squeezed my hand once, a silent promise, before returning his to the wheel.
The digital woman's voice cut through the tension. "Your… destination… is… on… the… right."
And there it was. The Lutheran church on Elm Street. It was exactly as I remembered it: white clapboard, a tall, pointed steeple, surrounded by ancient oak trees. The parking lot was already half-full with sedans and pickup trucks.
Clyde pulled the red beast into a spot at the back, giving us a vantage point. He turned off the engine. The sudden silence was deafening.
He turned to look at me, his gaze searching my face. "You ready?"
I looked from the church, a place of so many stifling childhood Sundays, to the man beside me, a warrior who had walked into my life and decided to stay. The past and the present collided in a dizzying rush.
"No," I said honestly.
A faint, understanding smile touched his lips. "Good. Means you're not stupid." He unbuckled his seatbelt. "Let's go."