Page 5 of The Best Shot

Me: Touched down. Home. Alive. Mostly functional.

The responses came fast, like they’d been waiting.

Annie: SHE LIVES

Tabby: welcome back!! how was it??

Ava: Just in time. My place tonight. No excuses.

Me: Bold to assume I’m even unpacked by then.

Annie: you’ll rally. you always do.

Me: How’s everyone? What’d I miss?

Tabby: SO MUCH

Annie: debrief in person

Tabby: we finally got a real candidate for Hale btw

Ava: Her name’s Sophie. Graphic designer. Cool as hell. You’ll like her.

Annie: Grant’s cooking brisket. just show up.

Tabby: we missed you

I smiled and set the phone down.

Part of me wanted one quiet night to adjust, to remember where everything belonged and stop feeling like I was still living out of a backpack.

The other part already knew I was going. Three months was a long time to go without my people.

Me: What time?

Ava: 6. You’re the best.

Tabby: wear something cute!

Annie: ignore her. just show up and look alive.

This was the pattern. The field stripped everything down to the bone—light, movement, the next breath, the next shot. Then I came back and remembered I was still a person who liked people.

Specific people.

Loud, messy, meddling, ride-or-die people who had apparently finally worn Hale down enough to let them set him up on a blind date.

That was going to be… interesting.

Hale didn’t do setups. He did easy, carefree women from bars who played pool, drank whiskey, laughed too loud and left before breakfast. I’d watched it happen more times than I’d meant to notice.

But not my business.

I went to find something that could reasonably be called “cute” after twelve weeks of living in thermal layers and dirt.

Something soft that didn’t smell like snow and effort and distance.

Something that made me feel like a woman again instead of just a pair of eyes behind a lens.