The door opened with a quiet click, followed by the dull thud of boots crossing the threshold. Then the sound of his bag dropping to the floor—heavy, final—and a low groan from deep in his chest.

He was home. Finally.

He was supposed to be back nine days ago. What was meant to be a two-week deployment had stretched into nearly a month, without warning. Without updates. Just a string of half-answers, silence, and the kind of clipped messages that said everything was not okay, but nothing more.

You didn’t look up.

You were halfway through a basket of laundry you’d been putting off for three days. Not out of laziness—just out of sheer exhaustion. Everything had fallen on you lately. The dinner party he’d promised to help with? You’d hosted it alone. The bills, the broken bathroom light, the meetings at work that never seemed to end. You were stretched thin—brittle from holding it all together for too long.

The kind of tired that sleep didn’t fix.

You heard him move through the living room and into the kitchen. No words yet. Just footsteps. Tension settled into the air between you, thick and quiet.

Then the fridge opened.

A pause. Then his voice, rough from travel, smoke, days without proper rest.

“There’s no milk.”

You froze. Briefly.

“I know,” you said, tone sharp without meaning to be.

He either didn’t notice, or chose not to respond. The fridge door creaked again as he leaned in, rummaging like he hadn’t just walked back into a life he’d left waiting.

“You could’ve picked up some soda or somethin’,” he muttered.

That did it.

You turned, slowly, a hand still buried in a half-folded hoodie, and stared at him like the words had landed with weight. “Well,” you said, voice low and tight, “if you’d been home when you were supposed to, maybe I’d have had time to go to the store and buy your fucking milk.”

He straightened, closing the fridge harder than necessary. His jaw flexed, the circles under his eyes deeper than they’d been the last time you saw him. “Don’t start,” he muttered. “I just got home.”

You swallowed hard.