Page 1 of Every Chance After

CHAPTERONE

Grady

My truck hugsthe curves along Lakeview Avenue, bringing me closer to the sanctity of my log cabin, where I’ll spend the next forty-eight hours sleeping, fishing, and talking to no one but my dogs. I long for the quiet and feel it penetrating me already. The light between the trees hits my eyes like tiny starbursts, its heat collecting through the windshield. The snake-like road surrounding Seagrove Lake is usually fun to drive, especially under clear skies and a playful sun.

Not today. I need to get home.

It’s Friday, early afternoon, and the roads are subdued, with most people at work. Ishouldbe at work. But the compromise I reached with my aunt and office manager, Elena, after our staff complained about our long days is every other Friday off.

“When you overwork, we all overwork,” she argued. “Every other Friday is the least you can do.”

My phone alights on its dashboard perch.

Can you pick up a bakery order from Sunny’s Beach Market & deliver it to Zoe’s class by 2:30? 24 Valentine’s cupcakes. Please, Grady. It’s an emergency.

I huff, watching the ellipsis wave under her text.

You’re off today, right?

Reasons to refuse Mom’s “emergency” bombard me, starting with the fact that I’ve been up for thirty-some hours and spent last night in a barn two counties over delivering a breech colt—a stillborn colt—leaving me in no mood for family errands.

Not that I’m ever in the mood. Why can’t my niece’s life-or-death cupcakes be handled by her parents or grandparents? Or another Tripp sibling? Or hell, a delivery service? Why does my day off become a family free-for-all of tasks when they all know I’d rather be home, alone, with the dogs?

They mean well—it’s a ploy to get meinvolved.

Mom’s last “emergency” trapped me at my nephew’s soccer match, with single moms fishing for dates at one ear and pet owners looking for free advice at the other. It creates an unwelcome predator-versus-prey vibe, making me the helpless, irritated bunny in such situations. As I explained to Mom in a huff before finally leaving, “I prefer involvement at a distance.”

Or not to get involved at all, if I’m honest. I love my family. I’m there for my family. But I need boundaries. If I’m the cupcake delivery boy today, what will that mean for tomorrow?

I groan, my grip on the steering wheel tightening as I imagine myself as Mom’s substitute pickleball partner or Zach’s soccer team’s gator-costumed mascot. In a small town like Seagrove, horrifying annoyances are limitless.

Still, my valid arguments fade behind lazy resignation. It’s easier not to argue.

I voice-answer with a terse

fine

But it’ll be a drop-off situation, donebegrudgingly. No getting suckered into conversations about Fluffy’s mysterious drooling problem. Or talks with single teachers over Seagrove’s very absent nightlife. I’ll limit myself to four words:Here are Zoe’s cupcakes.And maybe a “Hey, Zoe,” if she notices I’m there.

The afternoon sun heats the interior of my truck’s cab, softening my irritation with quiet warmth, and my mind slips back to the colt.

Sometimes, nothing can be done.No matter how hard you try. No matter how much you hope, pray, bargain, work, or want a different outcome, certain things cannot be altered. Or made better. Hell, or even made sensical. Life is just shitty like that. It’s a universal truth that exhausts and angers me.

But I was in a shit mood before the colt. I’m always in a mood, like general irritation is my default response to every situation this town and my family offer me. Even after two years, I can’t shake it.

Afternoon light flickers through the trees, making me blink. The truck’s warning system alerts me as I drift over the middle lines.

I correct myself, sitting more upright and fisting the steering wheel. I crack the window, letting in the crisp chill of February. I turn the radio up, and Chappell Roan’s voice mixes with the wind. The upbeat melody of “Good Luck, Babe” fills the interior.“You’d have to stop the world just to stop the feeling.”

I huff—there seems to be no stop to my world. I have thirty minutes to get home, let the dogs out, and complete Mom’s errand. It’ll get done, and then I’ll retreat into a weekend-long solitary-confinement.

But damn, I’m tired. My thoughts drift to last weekend and my few hours fishing on the dock Sunday afternoon. I fell asleep in the Adirondack chair and woke to the sound of my rod slipping from my hands into the water. I spent the next hour debating whether to risk the lake’s alligator population for the rod or lose it forever.

Gators are less active in winter, I remembered, diving into the icy lake. Besides, I’d dealt with far more difficult things since returning to my hometown.

Losses no one understands, not that I ever talk about them.

Then, nearly losing my father.

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