“Dad!” Jax’s voice dragged me from my memories. I cleared my throat and shook off the hindering memories as I shuffled the boys out to my truck and loaded up, trying my best to stay focused on the present and why I’d made the choice I had.

Listening to the boys chatter in the back seat just made me melancholy. The last time I’d packed us up for a family day at their pseudo grandmother’s place, Haven had been with us. The boys had been talking trash at each other in the background completely distracted, and I’d reached my hand over just enough to make contact with her fingertips. It was as much contact as I could afford to make with two curious boys in the car with us. We’d been a secret from the start and it had to stay that way. Too many people would have been hurt if we’d come straight out with it and it went bad. And I’d been right. When it finally came out, it’d been a catastrophe.

I guessed things would have to be as they were. All this time, it had been just me and them, since their mother had skipped out on them when they were just a few months’ old. It was obvious by how things panned out, Haven and I weren’t meant to be. I’d done the best I could with my boys, going on ten years now, and they were my top priority. Despite their opposite temperaments, they both wanted the same thing—a momma-type figure. All I could offer them was the stability of a father who loved them more than anything. If that meant I did it alone, so be it.

“Boys! Slow down.” I didn’t even have the truck in park before they were climbing out and racing for the front door. Every month since I could remember, I was expected to be at Haven’s parents’ house for their get-togethers, a barbeque, swimming, and general catch-ups. This one, however, I wasn’t looking forward to, not only had I not spoken to Mace yet, since he was avoiding me like the plague, but Haven might just be here too. I sluggishly moved to collect the cooler and swimming bags from the truck, biding as much time as possible before facing the <last name> family, namely Mace.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” I stepped back from the truck and closed my door, turning around and steeling myself for what came next. Mace folded his arms across his chest and stood staring as if he was a bouncer. “The boys can stay but you get gone. Pick them up later,” he commanded with hostility.

“For crying out loud, Mace. I’ve known you forever, enough already.” I stood my ground. It was time he heard me out. This was the longest we’d ever gone without speaking.

“I don’t got shit to say to you, “ he growled. “You were my brother!”

“I’ve known you boys since we were knee high to a grasshopper.” I remembered the day I met them as if it was yesterday.

Five-year-old Trip had been sitting in the park with dirty knees and tears in his eyes after a bigger kid had pushed him off his bicycle and stolen it. I knew exactly who the bully was too. He’d been picking on people half his size for as long as he’d lived in town. Something about Trip’s sad eyes and distraught face made me snap.

Without explaining, I turned on my heel, stormed off to the exact spot the bully hung out at and showed him what it was like to be on the receiving end of a few well-placed fists. I didn’t even feel badly for him when he pissed his pants. Needless to say, he never picked on another kid again. When I showed up back at the park with Trip’s bike, Mace, his older brother, was kneeling down in front of him with Trip’s face in his hands, trying as best he could to console him. I handed the bike off to a then beaming Trip, whose expression had transformed to one of wonder and glee. I turned to Mace and nodded. It was one of those moments in life where you didn’t know it at the time, but you’d be forever changed.

Mace had put his hand out in a simple gesture and I shook it firmly. It was something I’d never had before, respect. I was the outcast of town. When you had a drug addict, alcoholic for a father who regularly beat on you and your mother, people tended to shy away from you. Especially when I looked the way I did. Shaved head, rough clothes, beaten-up boots and bruises with the occasional split lip, I looked like trouble, so folks just ignored me. Mace however didn’t. He shook my hand and stared at me with nothing but admiration, regardless of the dried blood of the bully marking my busted-up knuckles.

It was a foreign feeling. I let go of his hand tipped my head and walked back to my momma’s trailer. The next day, Mace had shown up with a big pot of food that looked and smelled like the best beef stew I’d ever seen, claiming his ma had sent him with it to say thank you. I’d stood in the crack of the doorway praying to God he couldn’t see my daddy passed out on the small sofa, vomit crusting his mouth, urine stain on his jeans and a needle hanging out his arm. It took me a while to reach out and grab the pot, and when I did, Mace smiled and walked in the direction of town.

I looked down at my feet when a black bag caught my attention. After I dragged it inside, I discovered it was full of clothes and shoes. The clothes looked like they’d only ever been worn a few times and the shoes seemed the same. I stared at the bundle of things he’d left there and my pride kicked in. I picked up the bag and threw it in the corner of my room. It wasn’t until a few weeks later when I realized he wasn’t being anything but kind to a stranger that I pulled them out and slipped on a clean cotton t-shirt that didn’t have a single hole in it.

The tears in momma’s eyes and the smile that tipped the corners of her lips when she got home from her second day job, exhausted and greasy, was enough that I decided maybe Mace was the kind of guy I wanted as a friend. I’d never before had friends but he’d done something nobody else had ever bothered to do. He’d put a smile on my momma’s face and that was priceless. Mace and I hadn’t exchanged many words; we just sort of hung out together. Before I knew it, he was my best and only friend.