Page 11 of All Along The Watchtower

I navigated through the streets on muscle memory, though it had been years since I’d been stationed here. The drive had been exactly what I needed after leaving the island—easy silence punctuated by bullshit arguments about Zeppelin versus Floyd and whether pineapple belonged on pizza. It did not. After so many years in the Navy, these moments of normalcy with any of my brothers felt like anchors, keeping me steady.

“You ever notice how Mario’s wife always calls you ‘too skinny’?” Rios grinned as I pulled into the cramped parking lot. “Even though you’re built like a brick shithouse?”

“Says the guy she force-feeds three plates of pasta.” I killed the engine, stretching my legs as best I could in the confined space. My six-foot-three frame never quite fit comfortably in these compact spaces. “Remember when she wouldn’t let Jace leave until he finished that entire tiramisu?”

“Man looked green for days.” Rios chuckled, shaking his head at the memory. “Swore off Italian food for a month after that.”

The neon ‘Open’ sign flickered in the window, and the smell of garlic hit us before we even reached the door. Some things never changed, and Mario’s was one of those constants—red checkered tablecloths, photos of Italy yellowing on the walls, and Mario’s wife, Lucia, ready to scold us for not visiting sooner. It was exactly the kind of predictable comfort I needed right now.

It felt good having this slice of normal with Rios. The kind of easy friendship where you didn’t need to fill every silence or dance around difficult topics. Where you could just be. After everything that had happened lately, I needed this familiar rhythm, this connection to simpler times.

“Ford! Rios! My boys!” Lucia’s thick accent carried across the restaurant as she bustled toward us, arms spread wide. “Where you been? Too long, too long!”

I’d long since stopped marveling at the fact that she seemed to know the name and face of every sailor who walked through her door.

She wrapped me in a hug that smelled of basil and warmth, then moved to Rios. “Both so thin! Navy no feed you?” Her weathered hands patted my cheeks like I was still that green recruit who’d demolish three plates of her spaghetti after a day’s training.

“We eat fine, Lucia.” I slid into our usual booth by the window, the vinyl seat creaking in welcome. “Just can’t compete with your cooking.”

She clucked her tongue, already scribbling on her notepad. “The usual? Extra meatballs for my hungry boys?”

“You know us too well.” Rios settled across from me, relaxing into the expected routine. “When you gonna leave Mario and come marry me instead?”

Lucia cackled, her dark eyes crinkling in a face that had seen decades more than we had. “You gonna have to do more to tempt me than that.” She swatted at him with her order pad, the gesture full of motherly affection.

She disappeared into the kitchen, returning moments later with two frosted glasses and bottles of Peroni. The scents of garlic and oregano followed in her wake, making my stomach growl.

Rios took a long pull from his bottle. “Remember that time Jace tried to convince Mario to give him the marinara recipe?”

I tipped my beer into one of the frosted glasses, watching it foam. “Got about as far as you did trying to sweet talk Lucia into sharing her tiramisu secrets.” Even back then, Rios had been smooth as silk, but Lucia was immune to his charms.

“Worth a shot.” He shrugged, his dark eyes dancing with amusement. “What about that road trip to Pensacola? When Sawyer’s piece of shit Chevy broke down outside Atlanta?”

I grinned and sipped. The beer was cold and crisp, washing away the last traces of highway dust. “We ended up sleeping in that sketchy motel with the neon cowboy sign?” The memory hit like a warm wave, taking me back to simpler times. “Place had magic fingers beds that ate quarters.”

“You and Jace spent twenty bucks making those beds shake.”

“Best waste of money ever.” I traced a ring of condensation on the table, remembering how we’d laughed until our sideshurt that night. “Think we hit every dive bar between here and Florida that summer.”

“Back when gas was cheap, and we were dumb enough to think we could live on beef jerky and Red Bull.” His voice held a note of nostalgia that echoed my own thoughts about those carefree days.

Lucia returned with bread still steaming from the oven, and the rich smell of garlic butter filled our corner of the restaurant. The aroma mingled with the scent of marinara and fresh herbs, reminding me of a hundred other nights in a hundred other places just like this. Some memories were better shared over carbs and beer, in places that felt like waypoints between the lives we’d built and the ones we’d left behind.

“It’s been forever since we had a real road trip with all the Wayward Sons. We should do that again next time we get the chance.” Because I felt more anchored after these past days with my brothers than I had in a long time. Something about having Jace, Rios, and Sawyer around made the world make more sense, like puzzle pieces clicking into place.

Rios huffed a laugh and shook his head, his beer bottle dangling loosely between his fingers. “Not sure that’s ever gonna happen again, bro. Not now that Sawyer’s married.”

I plucked up a slice of bread and slathered butter over it, savoring the way it melted instantly into the warm surface. “Willa would never stop Sawyer from doing anything he wanted to do.”

“It’s not that. He doesn’t want to get that far from her for that long. You saw how he was this week.”

“You don’t think that’s just the newlywed talking?” Damn, if the pair of them didn’t have the glow. It was probably the regular mind-blowing orgasms. Hard not to be a little jealous of that, especially given how long it’d been since I’d had anything resembling a real relationship.

“Some of that, sure. But that break-in at O’Shea’s old office has Sawyer and Willa both rattled.”

I paused. “It’s not his office anymore. That new guy was appointed by the state to take over all O’Shea’s cases. Are they even called cases with family law? Anyway, what’s his name?”

“Matthew Alward. Yeah, he was. And if the police found anything to suggest this was related to what happened last summer, they aren’t sharing.” Rios grabbed his own hunk of bread, ripping off a piece. “But I think, for all his good humor about it, Sawyer’s still playing guard dog. Can’t really blame him after everything that went down.”

---