“
Hell if I know.” Liam
just shrugged. “I
think
she
thinks
she’s my girlfriend.”
“
Shhiiit.
” Julian drew out the word.
“If I were your girlfriend, you know what I’d be doing? I’d be
baking you banana bread all day and shit.”
I laughed. A
ha-ha-ha just kill me now
laugh. “Okay, guys. Cut the crap, will ya?” Rolling my eyes
at Julian, I added, “And by the way, I
did
bake you some banana bread. It’s
sitting on the kitchen counter.”
“
Aw, V.” He tousled my
hair and pulled me in for another hug. “Really?”
“
Yep,” I said, popping the
P sound. “I sure did. Mom’s recipe.”
“
Thanks, sis.” He grabbed
his duffel bag off the floor and paced toward his room. “Save me a
slice. I’m gonna hop in the shower real quick and
slappa da bass, mon
.”
Then his bedroom door banged shut.
Staring after him, I cracked a semblance of a
smile because it was hard to believe that weirdo was my brother.
Then I shook my head and rubbed my temples because there was
nothing I could do about it.
“
Mmmm,” Julian moaned.
“This banana bread is
sick
.” He took a minute to chew and
swallow before asking, “Aren’t you guys gonna have some? This is so
good. Like
totes.
”
Julian didn’t normally talk like that so I
knew he was doing it just to annoy the hell out of me.
Still, I couldn’t help but
blurt out, “Will you quit using
totes?
Every time I hear it, I think
of tote bags. And I baked the banana bread just for you, so you can
eat the whole damn loaf if you want.”
“
Thanks.” Julian took
another bite, grabbed a beer out of the fridge, and plopped down on
the sofa. “I plan on it.” Then he reached for the remote and
flicked on the TV.
I scooted over on the sofa to make more room
for him and rested my feet on Liam’s lap.
“
Mmmm,” I moaned as Liam
began massaging my foot, kneading first my left heel and then my
right.
Closing my eyes, I let my head slump back
against the cushions, feeling all that tightness and tension melt
beneath his fingertips.
Liam gave the most spectacular foot
massages.
Suffice it to say, I had been on my feet all
day, cleaning, baking, changing the sheets, getting Julian’s room
ready for him, and this was just what I needed.
A foot massage.
Slowly, gently, with excruciating care, he
rotated my ankles clockwise and then counterclockwise.
Then he began rotating my toes the same way,
pulling gently on each one.
My lips parted to release a deep sigh as he
took my foot in both his hands and walked his thumbs along the high
arch of my instep.
“
Does that feel good?” he
asked, gently applying pressure.
“
Oh, yessss.” A breathless
moan escaped me. My body, my limbs felt wonderfully relaxed,
blissfully languid, and I shivered with pleasure as his fingertips
traveled up and down the smooth contours of my foot.
“
Is that too hard?” he
asked, pressing harder against my instep, working all the pressure
points.
“
Noooo,
” I whimpered. “It feels so good. But go a little lower.
Almost.
Ahhhh
.” I
released a deep, full-body sigh as his thumbs moved in semicircles
directly beneath my instep. “Right there. Yes.
Yesssss
.
Oh, Liam. Yes
. Just like that.
That’s perfect.”
Julian yawned and stretched, making that
loud, growly noise that sounded like it was coming from a baby
dinosaur. “Christ!” he grumbled. “Get a room already!”
“
By the way, Julian.” I
cast him a darting glance and pointed out, “You sound like a baby
dinosaur when you yawn.”
“
Pffft!” Julian shot back.
“How do you even know what baby dinosaurs sound like? You didn’t
live in the Mesozoic Era.”
“
Because…” I stifled a
monstrous yawn. “Chuck Norris let me borrow his time machine and
I
did
go back to
the Mesozoic Era.”
This time Julian growled like a T-Rex as he
let out another big yawn, and barely two seconds later, I was
yawning like a Brachiosaurus.
Gosh. This was an attack of the yawning
dinosaurs. And I couldn’t seem to stop myself. Yawns were
contagious whenever I was around my brother.
“
You should really close
your mouth when you yawn, V.” Julian took a long pull from his
beer. “Do you know that when you yawned just now, the ghost of
Chuck Norris puts his penis in your mouth.”
“
Shut up, you idiot.” I
couldn’t help but laugh. “And for your information, Chuck Norris is
still alive and well.”
The two of us went back and forth in this
vein for a few minutes and Liam didn’t even bat an eyelid. Having
been there from the dawn of our childhood to the inevitable dusk of
our adulthood, he was more than accustomed to our silly and asinine
sibling banter.
“
So,” I said as Julian
began flipping through the channels, “how was LA?”
“
It was
El-Lay
.” He gave a
careless shrug. “I could throw a rock five feet from anywhere I was
standing and hit an actor.”
I cleared my throat twice. “And who is this
friend you had to stop and see?” I gave him a look laced with
mischief, silently wondering if this “friend” was a he or a
she.
Almost abruptly, the amusement in Julian’s
eyes was gone, replaced by something else entirely. Something sad
and impossible to turn away from.
At last, he said, “I went to see Mark
Ritchie. It was his funeral.”
Liam’s hands stilled at my ankles. “You
escorted Ritchie home?”
Julian nodded. “I was part of the military
escort onboard the flight to LA.” After a pause, he said, “When the
plane landed, we had a full police escort, front and back. And then
the fire trucks greeted Ritchie with a water cannon salute.” He
took a slow breath before continuing. “It felt like the sky was
weeping over the plane. Every single passenger in the cabin paid
Ritchie a silent tribute. Not one person got up. And I’m glad they
honored him.” Pain echoed through his voice. “I’m glad his casket
wasn’t treated like some piece of luggage.”
All three of us shared a moment of silent
grief, and there was no more conversation for a long time after
that.
My heart cinched into a tight knot as I sat
in ponderous silence, moved and touched that amidst all the
turmoil, our country still honored our fallen soldiers… soldiers
who could have very well been Liam and Julian.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Liam
“
So…” Julian began after
Vivian had retired to bed.
“
So…” I echoed.
Julian started to speak when Atticus trotted
into the living room. With the grace of a cat, he hopped onto the
sofa and rested his head on my lap.
Julian blinked once. Then he blinked again,
seeming to notice the dog for the first time. “Is that your
dog?”
“
Mine and Viv’s,” I
said.
After a pause, Julian said, “When Lola died,
V told me she’d never get another dog. Said it was too painful to
love again.”
Idly stroking the dog’s head, I said, “I’m
glad she changed her mind.”
“
Hmm,” Julian murmured.
Then he grew quiet for several long moments.
In the wake of his silence, I finally
broached the question that had been at the forefront of my mind all
night. “What happened to Ritchie?” Just saying those words aloud
caused my throat to constrict.
Mark Ritchie was only nineteen, but I had a
lot of respect for the kid. He worked hard, followed commands,
always showed initiative, and enjoyed playing pranks.
Everyone loved Ritchie, but no one loved him
more than Julian.
Ritchie would often cover Julian’s watch
patrol shifts because the kid practically hero-worshipped him. Like
Julian, Ritchie was an adrenalin junkie, always the first to take
on tough assignments and always willing to take the fight to the
enemy.
Special ops, sneak attacks—Ritchie and Julian
lived for that adrenalin rush.
Julian released a gruff sigh, letting his
eyelids drift shut. “We were on a foot patrol when his boot caught
a tripwire and ignited an IED. There was nothing left of Ritchie.
No head, no limbs, no body. Just a deep crater in the ground and
his charred remains.”
Fighting past the tightness in my chest, I
asked, “Where were you when the IED went off?”
“
Near enough that I was
knocked off my feet by the explosion.”
For the first time, I
looked at Julian. Really
looked
at him. “You doing all right, man?”
“
Yeah.” Julian finally
opened his eyes. “I’m holding up. You know, I see things a lot
differently now.”
I said nothing. Waited.
“
I was in a different
place before. I’d caused and witnessed so many deaths that it all
became routine. When we lost five men last year, I thought it was
just the precursor to many more. Death…” He gave a tired sigh. “It
was just part of my everyday existence. I lived it, breathed it,
and after a while I started to lose regard for my own life. I
didn’t give a flying fuck. I used to think that so many around me
had died, why should it matter if I go next?” He dragged a hand
down his face. “I became one miserable fuck. I wasn’t there for
Viv. I wasn’t there for you.”
“
And now?”
“
Now…” He released a long
breath. “I want to become a better brother to Viv. A better friend
to you. Facing my own mortality and living in the shadows of
Ritchie, Shelby, Navarro, Malone, Laswell, Buchanan, and all our
brothers who didn’t survive… you can say it’s changed me. It’s made
me appreciate my own life. I don’t want to self-destruct anymore. I
want to live for those who can’t. I want to live for
Ritchie.”
When I fell silent, Julian went on. “Life is
short. Unpredictable. Some people have twenty more years and some
have twenty more minutes. You just never know. You need to let go
of the past.” He exhaled sharply. “You and I—we know what it’s like
to have lost so much, to have lost so many of our friends, and we
should be so grateful that we have a chance to live. Every day
we’re alive is a gift, not a given right. So live every day like
it’s your last. Live every day for Ritchie. Live every day for
Shelby. Live every day for that Iraqi family.”
I didn’t reply. Didn’t say anything.
Julian sat forward, resting his elbows on his
knees. “If today was your last, what is the first thing you’d
do?
I didn’t have to think twice. “Make Viv my
wife.”
“
Seriously?” He went
rigid. “You want to marry my little sister?”
Fuck. Did I just say that out loud?
Feeling the sudden need to change the
subject, I cranked my neck and said, “Don’t you feel like cranking
your neck is like this delicate balance between comfort and
death?”
“
Yeah.” Julian nodded.
“It’s that lure of potential tension release balanced against the
fear of severing my own spinal column.” Then he stopped abruptly
and shook his head. “Wait! Stop changing the damn subject or
I’ll
really
break
your neck.”
I couldn’t tell if he was joking or dead
serious.
“
Are you for real?” he
demanded. “About marrying my sister?”
“
Yes.” My voice was
strong, and it was certain.
“
Then you better get your
shit together.” His tone was harsh, an order rather than a
request.
“
I’m trying, man.” I
sighed with exasperation and slanted my gaze away. “I’m
trying.”
There was a long, heavy
moment of silence. When I risked a glance at Julian, his whole
demeanor had shifted. “You haven’t even dated my sister
that
long.”
I didn’t miss the alteration in his tone.
“True. But I’ve known Viv my whole life. I’ve probably been half in
love with her for as long as I can remember. There’s no one else
for me.” I paused and swallowed hard. “Only her. Just her.”
Julian looked like he was about to pass out.
“Fuck my life.” He pressed his fingers to his temples. “My life
just turned into a fuckin’ Nicholas Sparks novel.”
I stared at him, my expression incredulous.
“You read Nicholas Sparks?”
“
No.” He made a dismissive
gesture. “But Viv does and she tells me
alllll
about that melodramatic shit.
I. Can’t. Even. Deal, man.” A ragged sigh deflated his chest. “I
just can’t.”
I gave a rough bark of laughter. Julian was
certainly being a melodramatic diva for someone who hated all that
melodramatic shit.
While he was having his mini meltdown, I rose
from the sofa, grabbed a beer out of the fridge, and handed it to
him. “Here,” I said. “You could use another drink. And I need to
ask you something.”
“
Fuck, man.” Julian
grabbed the beer out of my hand. “Are you trying to butter me up so
you can ask me for my sister’s hand in marriage?” He popped the tab
and took a deep swig. “If that’s the case, don’t even bother. V is
going to do whatever she wants to do. Our parents may not be around
anymore, but they raised us to be independent adults.
Shiiittt,
I haven’t had
a say in anything V’s done since she turned sixteen, and I sure as
hell am not gonna start now. But she deserves to be happy, and if
you can make her happy, then I’m not gonna stand in your way. But…”
He fixed me with an eagle-eyed glare. “If you break my little
sister’s heart, I will blow your fucking brains out. And I
will
bury
you
like a maw’fuckin’ cockroach. Capische?”