Burn | jon bernthal

one: sunday evenings

There were some houses which felt like home. And then there were houses that seemed to remember you.

Trevi's parent's house was the latter.

It remembered the sound of her running through the hallway as a child, her many cousins chasing after her, the slammed doors of her teenage years, the laughter that had once carried from the kitchen until two in the morning. It remembered birthdays and Christmases and arguments that had ended with someone crying and someone else ordering from the local Italian Deli as a peace offering.

Even now, years later, the house seemed to hold onto all of it.

The photographs lining the staircase had faded slightly around the edges. The hardwood floors carried scratches from furniture that had been moved too many times. There was a dent in the wall outside the dining room that her older cousin Nicky had left that nobody bothered to fix.

And every Sunday evening, the house filled again.

It was tradition.

Dinner at seven.

No excuses.

No matter how busy everyone was, no matter who was traveling or who was working late, there was always an attempt to make it to dinner.

Trevi's numerous cousins would populate the house alongside her mom and dad. And without fail, Jon came.

Trevi heard his truck before she saw him, which was a feat in itself considering her two twin cousins, Sasha and Santino were fighting over who would get to sit next to Jon.

She was standing at the kitchen island, stealing pieces of roasted potato from the serving dish while her mother pretended not to notice.

"You're going to ruin your dinner."

"I've only eaten three."

"You've eaten seven!" Her older cousin, Dima, chimed in also stealing a potato for himself.

She shot him an annoyed glare while her mother slapped at Dima's hand as he went in for more. "More like ten."

"You counted?"

"I always count."

She smiled.

The sound of the truck door closing came from outside.

Her father, who had been also attempting to steal some food, perked up towards the window.

"That's Bernthal."

Trevi didn't think anything of it. Jon had been joining their Sunday family dinners for as long as she could remember. In fact, there were more years where she couldn't remember a Sunday without him.

He and her father met when they were younger when they served together in the Marines, long before Trevi existed. They had gone through their twenties and the war together, drifted a part for a while as her father chose to start a family and Frank enlisted once more, and eventually found their way back to each other.

When Jon returned to her father's life, he stayed. And somehow, over the years, he'd become part of the furniture.

Part of the family.

Trevi heard the front door open.

"I'm here." Sasha and Santino sent their cheers into the sky for Jon had arrived.

Jon appeared in the kitchen shortly after wrangling the twins off him carrying a bottle of wine in one hand and a paper bag in the other.

Her father stared at him.