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Shit, this was about me. I felt all my muscles lock up.

Fuck!

Her back was to me as she paced the living room, her phone clutched tightly in her hand. I watched as her ponytail bounced with each step she took. I’d been halfway through prepping the salmon for the grill, but now all I could do was stand there and force myself not to snatch the phone from her hand and yell at her brother.

She stopped moving and took in a long breath. Then she started talking again in a soft voice. “Seth. I’m twenty-four. You’ve always said I had a good head on my shoulders. You’ve got to trust me on this. Graham is a straight-up good guy. Have you even bothered to talk to Simon or Roan?”

I waited to see how he would respond. If he was a prick, I damn well would grab the phone and give him a piece of my mind. There was no way I was going to let this asshole treat Joy like this, even if he was her brother.

Still, I should have seen this coming. It was obvious that Joy came from a perfect family, and she was probably the apple of everyone’s eye. Of course, they would be uber protective. Wait until they found out I was thirty-two, with only a high school degree. Yeah, they’d sure be impressed with that. Yeah, I might have been an E-9 and a Team Chief, but I was a fucking failure at that. Shit, I couldn’t even look my dad in the face.

Joy laughed, then said, “I did. I told you about Graham. He’s the guy who buys Miss Laverne’s groceries and painted her house.”

At least things with her brother were getting resolved, but that still didn’t fix the real problem, which was me. There was no way I was good enough for the Magill family’s little girl.

Her laugh turned up a notch as they started talking about her college-level vocabulary. Just another thing that separated us.

She spun around and looked me dead in the eye. Apparently, she had been aware of my presence the entire time.

“You okay?” I asked.

She shook her head and gave me a half grin. “My brother is an idiot.”

“I’m not so sure of that,” I disagreed.

She came and stood in front of me, her hands resting on my chest. “You haven’t met him. Trust me, I know of what I speak.” I gripped her hands to stop them from going any farther and twining around my neck.

“Graham, what’s wrong?”

“I left the salmon on the counter. I either need to start the grill or put it back in the fridge.” I turned to head back into the kitchen, needing just a little bit of space from blue eyes that seemed to see right into my soul.

“I’ll help you.” Joy followed me into the kitchen, which wasn’t what I wanted. I didn’t say anything as she pulled the makings for the salad together. I could tell she was giving me mental space. It wasn’t doing much good. All I could think of was how much of a failure I was. How undeserving I was.

It’d been a while since my thoughts had been this bad. Most of the time, I could bury the parts of me that didn’t fit into civilian life, but damn if they didn’t claw their way back up at moments like this.

I grabbed the platter with the marinated salmon and headed to the deck, saying nothing. Joy didn’t follow.

Good.

I hated it when I was like this. I turned on the grill, needing something to do with my hands before I let the tightness in my chest turn into something worse.

Joy left me alone until the grilled salmon was almost done. I appreciated it. I’d heard her making the table behind me, but she finally set down an open beer beside me at the grill.

“Are you mad at me?” she asked.

“Why would I be mad at you?” I was confused.

“Because of what Seth was saying. I guessed you’d figured it out.”

I took the salmon off the grill, and she handed me clean plates to put the fish on. I turned off the grill, and we went to the table.

I dished out salad onto both of our plates, making sure she got a lot of the bacon bits and cheese. “I caught onto the fact that Seth has a problem with me.”

“Not after he heard you were the one who bought groceries for Miss Laverne and organized her house being painted.”

“Yeah, that’s just one part of who I am. I could tell they weren’t happy about me being only part-time with Onyx.”

“I get the feeling that’s your choice at this point, am I right?”