Page 17 of Backed By You
“I got it,” I grunt.
The bin is heavier than it looks, and as I maneuver it down, pain shoots through my bad knee. I clench my jaw, refusing to show it.
“So,” Dad says when I set the bin on the floor and pop open the lid. “You thinking of sleeping at your property before the cabin’s built?”
I find the tent bag buried beneath a tangle of camp stoves and lanterns. “That’s the plan.”
“It’s supposed to rain.”
“I’ve slept in worse.”
Dad huffs, a sound I’ve heard a thousand times. Disappointment, concern, resignation—all wrapped in a single exhale. “Your mother’s not going to like it.”
Nothing I can do about that.
“She worries about you. We all do.” He leans against the doorframe, crossing his arms. “You only just got back, son.”
I stuff the tent into its bag, along with a rolled-up sleeping pad. “I’ve been stateside for months.”
“In DC. Not here.”
He’s really not wanting to let this go. He can see how miserable I’ve been here—crowded by everyone, waited on like I’m a fucking child. I got here Sunday, thinking I could handle a week of family before the bachelor party next weekend. Now here it is, Tuesday evening, and I’ve wanted to rip my hair out since Sunday.
“I need my own space.” I zip the bag closed with more force than necessary. I debate telling him part of the truth is I can’t sleep on that damn bed another night, but then he’ll ask about my knee, he’ll tell Ma, then I’ll really be aggravated.
Dad nods slowly. “I understand that.”
“Good,” I say, hefting the tent bag over my shoulder.
He watches me, heavy with the weight of all the things he wants to say. The questions he wants to ask about what happened overseas, my knee, why I’ve barely spoken ten words at dinner each night. But he doesn’t ask. That’s not how my father operates.
Instead, he says, “Let’s head inside. Dinner’s getting cold.”
I follow him out of the shed. The tent bag bumps against my back with each step, a small victory in my quiet rebellion. I’ll eat my mother’s casserole and deflect her questions about my plans. I’ll sit through my sister, Lily, yapping about some modeling agent that contacted her through Instagram and hear more details about my brothers’ wedding than any man should.
Because tonight, I’ll be on my property. Alone. A nylon barrier between myself and the rest of the world.
Just the way I like it.
I jolt awake when a stream of ice-cold water hits my face. For a disoriented moment, I think I’m back overseas, huddled in a leaking transport while monsoon season wreaks havoc. Then I remember, I’m in a fucking tent on my property, and my brilliant plan is quite literally underwater.
Thunder cracks overhead, vibrating through the ground beneath my soaked sleeping bag. I reach for my phone. It’s 0117. The dim light reveals what I already know. Everything is drenched. My duffel, my boots—all of it submerged in the inch of water that’s pooled beneath my sleeping pad turned waterbed.
“Goddammit,” I growl, struggling to sit up.
My knee screams in protest as I shift positions, the cold amplifying the ever-present ache to a sharp stab of pain. Two nights in this tent had been manageable. When it was dry, mind you. Now, with rain coming down hard enough to sound like machine-gun fire against the nylon shell, the situation has become unbearable.
Another leak springs open above me, this one dumping water directly onto my chest. I grab my phone and duffel, knowing there’s no salvaging this night.
I haven’t been this wet and miserable since training exercises in Georgia.
Unzipping the tent flap, I’m greeted by a downpour. The rain hammers against the earth with enough force to bounce back up, creating a fog of water at ground level. My worksite is a mud pit, the stakes I’d carefully placed now barely visible in puddles of rust-colored water.
I make a break for my truck, my bad leg tense as I slog through the muck. By the time I reach the driver’s side door, any inch ofme thatwasdry isn’t anymore. I’m soaked to the bone, my T-shirt and sweats clinging to me like a second layer of misery.
Inside the truck, I crank the heat as high as it’ll go, but it does little to cut through the bone-deep chill. I stare through the fogged windshield toward my useless tent, now partially collapsed under the weight of the water.
Now what?
