Chapter 1: The Truck Door Slams
The door to the law office clicked shut with a sound like a coffin lid. Final. David Thorne stood on the sunbaked asphalt, the thick manila folder in his hand feeling no heavier than a grocery list. It should have, he figured. It represented twenty-two months of acrimony, seventeen thousand dollars in fees, and the last frayed threads of something that had once promised forever. His third forever. The air tasted of stale coffee, old cigarette butts ground into the cracks, and something else—a faint, metallic tang of regret.
Mitch Gallagher followed him out, a silent shadow in a tailored suit. The silver in his hair glinted under the hard midday sun. He adjusted his wire-rimmed glasses but said nothing. He was good at that.
David’s truck, an old Ford pickup the color of dried mud, sat alone under the skeletal branches of a lone oak. He walked towards it, his boots crunching on gravel. The movement was all shoulder and economy, the muscular build of a man who’d spent more years wrestling machinery than people. He yanked the driver’s door open, the hinge screaming in protest.
“She gets the lake house,” David said, his voice a low rumble. He tossed the folder onto the passenger seat. It slid across the cracked vinyl.
“She wanted the lake house,” Mitch replied, his hands tucked into his pockets. He leaned against the fender of his own sensible sedan. “It was her parents’ place. You knew that was non-negotiable.”
“I know.” David hoisted himself into the cab, the springs groaning under his weight. He sat there, staring through the bug-smeared windshield at the iron gates of the courthouse across the street. They looked like bars. “Just stating a fact. She gets the house. I get the truck. Seems about right.”
Mitch offered a thin, professional smile. “It’s a fair settlement, David. All things considered. Clean.”
“Clean.” David repeated the word, tasting its bitterness. Nothing about it felt clean. It felt like digging a splinter out with a dirty knife. Necessary, but ugly. He dug his keys from his jeans pocket. The silence stretched, filled by the distant wail of a city bus.
He looked down at Mitch, who was still standing there, a patient monument to resolved chaos. Mitch knew things. Years ago, in this very parking lot after divorce number two, fueled by a bottle of cheap bourbon, David had confessed something. It had hung in the air between them ever since, unmentioned but understood.
David cleared his throat. The sound was like gravel shifting.
“I’m done, Mitch.”
“I know you are. Three times is enough for anyone.”
“No.” David turned the key. The engine coughed, then roared to life with a visceral, unhealthy racket. He leaned out the window, his face, rugged and weathered with graying stubble, set in hard lines. “I mean I’m done with the whole goddamn pantomime.”
Mitch’s eyebrows lifted a millimeter behind his glasses.
“The dating. The flowers. The ‘what do you think about kids’ conversations. The pretending I give a shit about which ceramic vase goes on which goddamn shelf.” David’s knuckles were white on the steering wheel. “The lying.”
The last two words landed differently. Quieter.
Mitch pushed off from his car. He took a step closer, his sharp lawyer’s eyes softening into something older, more fraternal. “What are you saying, David?”
David stared straight ahead, his jaw working. The truck’s exhaust plumed blue in the cool air. He’d held this in for thirty years. Through three marriages, through a thousand sidelong glances in locker rooms he pretended not to see, through a lifetime of molding himself into a shape that never fit. The pressure of it felt physical, a cramp behind his ribs.
“I’m going to find a man,” he said. The words were flat, solid. A statement of fact. “A specific one. Not a husband. Christ, no. I’m going to find a man I can suck off. And fuck. Regularly. A fuck buddy. That’s the term, right?”
The only sound was the ragged idle of the Ford. A pigeon landed on the courthouse gate.
Mitch blinked. Then, slowly, a smile broke across his face. It wasn’t a smile of surprise, but of recognition. Of relief. It reached his eyes, crinkling the corners. He let out a short, sharp laugh that was mostly air.
“Well,” Mitch said, shrugging his impeccable suit jackets tighter. “It’s about fucking time.”
David looked at him, the tightness in his chest unraveling a notch. He hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath. A harsh, genuine bark of laughter escaped his own throat. “Yeah. It is.”
“You got a plan? Apps? Places?”
“I’ll figure it out. I can fix a broken combine. I can figure out how to get laid.”
“The parameters might be slightly different.”
“The principle’s the same.” David put the truck in gear. The transmission clunked like a hammer on an anvil. “Direct. Honest. No vases.”
Mitch stepped back, shaking his head, the smile still etched on his face. “Call me if you need anything. And I don’t mean legal advice.”
“I will.” David rolled up the window, but paused. He met Mitch’s gaze. The gratitude there was raw, but wordless. Mitch gave a single, slow nod. Understood.
David slammed the truck into first and fed it gas. The tires spun, spitting a spray of pebbles and gray dust against the faded asphalt. In the rearview mirror, he saw Mitch Gallagher, a shrinking figure in the empty lot, watching him go. His friend was still smiling.
The truck roared onto the main road, the vibration thrumming up through the pedals and into his bones. The folder on the passenger seat slid and fell to the floor. He left it there. The windows were down, and the rushing air was cold and loud and perfect. For the first time in decades, the road ahead felt absolutely, terrifyingly clear.