“Great? You can’t be serious.”

“Of course I’m serious. But let me ask you this. If you’re in love with her, why in the hell did you ask her to leave?”

“Because, Ryan, you and I both know I have no business loving anyone. Why would she want to be saddled with the mess that is my life?”

“Your life doesn’t have to be a mess, Tal. You can get help.”

“The last time I tried to get help, I ended up at the ER.”

“So? No one ever said this was going to be easy.”

“Easy? Aren’t I due for some easy at this point? My life has been anything but.”

My brother placed his hand on my forearm. We brothers hardly ever touched each other, and though I knew it was for comfort, it only made me uncomfortable.

“I know you haven’t had it easy.”

“You know. But you don’t really know.” I downed another gulp of my whiskey. Good stuff.

“No, I don’t,” my brother said solemnly. “Neither Joe nor I have ever claimed to know exactly what you went through. And you’ve never really opened up about it.”

“Would you have opened up about it, if it had happened to you?”

Ryan shook his head. “Talon, I sure don’t know. I’d like to think I would’ve gotten some help.”

I thumped my fist on the bar, making both of our classes rattle. “You have no idea what you would do.”

“Look, I didn’t mean to hit a nerve.”

No, my brothers never meant to hit a nerve. But they did sometimes. And it wasn’t their fault.

“I’m…sorry,” I said.

I hated those two words, and usually they had to be pulled kicking and screaming from my lips. They came a bit easier this time. In fact, they had been coming easier and easier since I’d met Jade.

“It’s okay, bro. No worries.”

I finished my second whiskey. “I’ve got to get going.”

“Oh, no, you don’t. You know, Joe mentioned that Jade was getting under your skin somehow. I can see she got under further than either he or I could ever imagine.”

I cleared my throat. More even than I could’ve ever imagined.

“I’m going to call Joe. I want him to come over, and the three of us can talk.”

I shook my head. “I don’t think I can do it.”

“Look, you came over here. I can count on the fingers of one hand how many times you’ve gone out of your way to come see me. Which makes me think this is something serious. Let me ask you, Tal. Are you ready to go back to the doc?”

I’d seen a psychologist, Dr. Melanie Carmichael, one time. Twenty-five years had gone by before I’d taken that initiative. Twenty-five years… Why had I done it? For Jade, of course. “Nothing really matters anymore,” I said. “Jade is gone.”

“You can ask her to come back.”

I clenched my jaw. “I can’t.”

“I don’t get it. Did she rebuff you or something?”

“No.”

“So she doesn’t know you’re in love with her?”

“No,” I said again.

“Don’t you think you should tell her?”

For the third time, I said, “No.”

Ryan rubbed his chin. “Is there any chance she might return your feelings?”

How I dreamed of it. Part of me wanted nothing more than the white picket fence and Jade at home, her belly swelling with my child. But any chance of a normal life for me had been erased from my existence twenty-five years ago. Did she return my feelings? How could she? I was a fucked-up mess.

“I doubt it.”

“Why would you say that?”

“Well, for one, I kicked her out of my house.”

Ryan nodded. “Yeah, there’s that.”

“And you know me, Ry. I’m a mess. She deserves…better. Hell, she deserves the best.”

“Talon, you are the best.”

I couldn’t help a loud scoff. “Don’t even go there with me. I am the best of nothing.”

“I disagree. You’re the best brother I could have.”

I rolled my eyes.

“I’m serious. You saved me that day. How many other people would’ve done that? You could have easily been the one to get away. You were bigger and stronger. But you stayed there, kicking and screaming, getting them off me so I could get away.” Ryan shook his head. “I wish there were a way to thank you for that. Some way to let you know just how grateful I am that you’re my brother.”

I squirmed in my chair like a little kid, belying my thirty-five years. This wasn’t the first time Ryan had gone all sappy on me. Truth was, all it did was make me wish I were listening to fingernails on a chalkboard.

“You would have done the same for me.”

“But I didn’t. I got away. I could’ve stayed and helped you fight them off.”

“For God’s sake, Ryan, you were seven years old. They were three grown men. We were lucky one of us got away. They could’ve easily overtaken both of us.”

“My point is, you didn’t have to be thinking about me. We were both just kids. Most other kids would have just thought about saving themselves, but not you. You thought of me first.”

Ryan liked to make me out to be some kind of hero, but a hero was so far from what I was. The first day I met Jade, she called me a hero because I’d served in the military. I told her the same thing I told Ryan now. “I’m no hero.”

“You are to me, bro.”

I squirmed again. Could this get any more awkward? Thankfully, my thoughts were interrupted by a pounding on the door.

Ryan stood. “Who in the hell could that be on a Saturday night?”

The door clicked open. “Is Talon here?”

My sister’s voice. Shit.

A few seconds later, Marj stormed into the family room. “So there you are. It might interest you to know that I just finished an hour-long conversation with Jade. How could you be so cruel?”

My sister, being ten years younger than I, didn’t know anything about those horrific events twenty-five years ago. My mother had been pregnant with her at the time.

“What did she say?”

“Nothing I care to repeat. But she’s coming back tomorrow.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but she held up a hand.