Page 120 of Summer Holiday Lifeline

Anytime you need me… Hadn’t that been what Ozzy had said? Any time he needed to talk?

Making up his mind, he rose and hurried down the back stairs. Less chance of being waylaid if he avoided as many people as he could.

He held back in the doorway to the small bedroom at the Cabin where he found Ozzy kneeling to nail quarter-round along the baseboards.

Ozzy worked in silence.

“Come on,” Myles said finally. “I know you know I’m here.”

“You’ll tell me why you’re here eventually,” Ozzy said without skipping a beat. “Hand me that little piece on the sawhorse, will you, please?”

Myles gave him the short bit of wood, which he proceeded to nail gun in place. “What do you think?” he asked.

“About?”

“Steven and me.” He started. That had not been what he’d come to ask advice about.

Ozzy sat back on his heels, but remained facing the wall. “What does it matter what I think?”

“It matters because you’ve always seen me more clearly than I see myself.”

“I’m not getting between the two of you, Myles.”

“I’m not asking you to.”

Ozzy looked over his shoulder at him. “Then exactly what are you asking?”

“I don’t know.”

Ozzy grunted, took out his tape measure and measured the length of the wall between his last piece of quarter-round and the edge of the wall under the window. He rhymed off the measurement and tossed the tape to Myles, who cut the piece for him.

They worked in silence like that, getting halfway around the room before either of them spoke.

“You don’t need my permission to move on from us,” Ozzy said.

Myles curled a lip but breathed through his annoyance. It wouldn’t be helpful to default to old patterns that had no place between them anymore. “I know that.”

“Then what do you want me to tell you?”

Myles took the time to carefully measure and cut another bit of trim before he spoke. “How did you know you were ready?”

“To move on from us?”

“For Tris. How did you know it was… I don’t know. Safe?”

Like Myles had, Ozzy took the time to complete his task and nail the bit of wood in place before answering. “Probably the same way you knew you were ready to face your sister. To look after her.”

“Didn’t matter if I was ready. She needed me. I need Steven more than he needs me.”

Ozzy put his nail gun down and rested both his hands on his thighs. He bowed his head to stare at the floor rather than look at Myles. “Pretty sure you want me to tell you something you already know I’m not going to tell you.”

Knees suddenly weak, Myles all but collapsed onto the windowsill. “If I stay here, what if I lean on him too much? We can’t be good for each other if he’s just a crutch. If I go back, I have no one. I don’t know if I can do this with no one.”

“Don’t go back,” Ozzy said flatly as he climbed to his feet. He leaned on the wall next to the window, facing Myles. “You are not built to do life alone. You never were. And you always wanted to show us—me, mostly—that you didn’t need us. But you kept coming back, kept defending us, because you’re built for family. Don’t let your asshole, and might I remind you, dead, father take that from you. You deserve to have everything you want. It sucks that you lost your mother and your sister. But you have those kids, and you have all of us, despite how hard you tried to trash all those relationships.”

“Oz, I never tried⁠—”

Ozzy held up both hands. “Sorry. Reflex. I know you weren’t doing it on purpose any more than I was. I’m sorry.”