After an hour of chasing Preppy through the trees and almost accidentally shooting one another a few times, Preppy finally gave up and we headed back out to the truck. “Fuck this. I’m just going to get one of those plastic pig heads they sell at the gas station and mount it in my room.”

“Could have decided that a lot fucking earlier,” King muttered.

Preppy cracked his knuckles. “And now for the business portion of the day,” he said, grabbing two shovels from the bed of the truck which were laying over a blue tarp. He tossed us each one and pulled off the tarp, revealing the tied up body of a man underneath.

“Who the fuck is this?” King asked.

“This was the motherfucker who pulled a gun on me last night when I was out running collection,” Preppy announced, poking the corpse with the handle of his shovel.

“Ugh, why are you guys dragging me into this. This is your shit,” I huffed.

“Bear you can’t fucking complain,” Preppy snapped, grabbing a hold of the man’s ankles.

“Why the fuck not?” I asked.

“’Cause, bitch,” he said, flashing me a big white-toothed grin as he slid the body from the truck bed until it was about halfway and then he let it fall to the ground with a dull thud. “It’s my motherfucking birthday.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Thia

I WRAPPED MY arms around my legs and held them close to my chest, resting my chin on the tops of my knees. I closed my eyes and slowly inhaled through my nose, breathing in the wet air and the smell of Grace’s roses.

We’d finished with all the boxes just as the sun set. Ray was inside making a call to the babysitter to check on the kids while I sat outside on the deck in Grace’s backyard and wondered what the hell the future had in store.

For Bear. For me. For us.

Only time would tell, but the time I was most concerned about was the next few days, and whether Bear would come out of them alive.

I tried my best to steady my erratic beating heart, but I felt helpless—a feeling I hated more than anything.

Crickets chirped loudly from out beyond the fence. I rubbed the heels of my bare feet over the warmed fabric of the chair. There were so many questions in my head that I just wanted to do a hand stand and shake them out of my ear.

He could be hurt. He could die.

My stomach twisted as I forced myself away from that thought.

He could also succeed.

Then what?

I didn’t hear Ray approaching until she sat down next to me, her shoulder bumping mine. “In my life, everyone close to me has died,” Ray started with a sigh, looking out over the backyard as if she were wrestling with something in her head too. “My best friend from when I was a kid. Well, I guess my two best friends, although one was kind of my husband for a minute. A woman who was more like a mother to me than my actual mother, and someone I knew for only a short period of time, but was more connected to than anyone else, besides King.” Her eyes flickered from the house to the trees and finally back to me.

“Preppy,” I said, wishing I’d had a chance to meet the guy that King, Ray, and Bear had all cared for so deeply. Ray nodded and attempted a small smile that did nothing to mask her hurt.

“Yes, Preppy. I was in love with him you know,” she said with a sniffle.

“You were?” For a second I thought that Bear hadn’t told me the entire story.

“Yeah, not in the way I’m in love with King, but I was…or I am,” Ray corrected, “as in love with Preppy as I could be without it being a romantic kind of love. I loved him deep, and so it hurts deep. That’s just the way love works, I guess.”

“Aren’t you afraid something will happen to King?” I asked, needing to know if I was alone in the anguish I felt over them going to war against Chop. “If he goes to bat for Bear, he’s putting his life on the line. It’s not even his fight. Even Bear has tried to talk him out of it.” I was grateful that Bear had King in his life and that King was so willing to step up for Bear, but being no stranger to loss myself it was easy to put myself in her shoes.

If something happened to King, it would leave their three kids without their father, and she would lose yet another person she loved. “I know how it feels,” I added, reminding her that she wasn’t alone.

Ray shook her head. “No, I’m not afraid. If I’ve learned anything over the past year, it’s that going to bat for one another is what family does, regardless of the cause. This is King’s battle because it’s Bear’s battle.” Ray absentmindedly picked at the threads of the fraying chair cushion. “I grew up in a house with two parents and it still took me coming here to learn that myself. Besides, it wasn’t like when I met King he was an accountant or something who suddenly decided to venture into another questionable and dangerous line of work. I knew what I was getting into from day one.” Ray let out a quick burst of laughter. “Did. I. Ever.”

I laughed with her as she disappeared for a moment into some memory she’d been recalling. When she came back she said, “King isn’t the kind of man you change, and I never went into this thinking I could change him. I went into this loving him. That’s all.”

“I know exactly how that feels,” I admitted.

Ray nudged my shoulder again. “The Bear I first met was a little bit different than the Bear you know now,” she said, looking out over the water. “I met him at a party, right before I met King. Such a smooth talker with his crazy deep voice. He was strong then. Confident. Then after Preppy died that all changed. He turned into a shell, then he just up and left.” The smile briefly left her face but returned when she added, “But he’s Bear 3.0, better than before…and it’s all because of you.”

“I can’t take all the credit. There was this guy who gave me a ring once,” I said, rubbing Bear’s ring between my fingers. “He made me better, too.”

I couldn’t help but think that even though Ray and I took very different paths to get to the same place, that our stories were a lot more similar than I’d initially realized. I too was learning more about family than I ever had before. “So you’re really not afraid? Because honestly,” I said, a lump forming in my throat. “I don’t know what I would do if something happened to B…” I stopped and squeezed my eyes shut, willing away the unwanted thought.