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“Now, Zachary.”
“No Uncle Roar. Can’t show Uncle Wyatt,” Zach muttered mutinously at the ground, kicking at the dirt with the toe of his sneaker.
“Please, son.”
Wyatt felt bad for the little guy when his chin wobbled. But he nodded and turned without another word, his little legs pumping as he ran past Mrs. Laurence, pushing open the screen door and disappearing into her house.
“Who’s Jay?” Wyatt asked. “The babysitter?”
“None of your business,” Noah said shortly. “What’s got you so upset?”
“What do you care?”
“I care.”
“Really? Because I’ve got to say, you have a damn funny way of showing it.” Wyatt grabbed the empty chair beside him and turned it, sitting down to face him directly.
“Tell me what’s got you so torn up. I’ve never seen my brother cry while trying to murder a dead tire before.”
“It was sweat.”
“Right. From your eyeballs.”
“Why do you care? You haven’t given a shit about me since the fire.” There. He’d said it.
The man who stared at Wyatt from underneath the wide-brimmed hat was not the same Noah Finn he’d known all his life. And it wasn’t only because of his injuries, though he looked better since the last time Wyatt saw him, and the eye they’d feared had been damaged looked like it was working just fine.
Only a month in, and the left side of his face was still bright pink and red from the grafting procedure. Wyatt knew beneath the hat his hair would still be shaved on one side. Knew his arm was in a sling because his shoulder had taken the brunt of the blast and he’d need more surgeries to regain mobility.
It was startling to see him without his bandages, with the right side of his face still looking exactly the same. Handsome. Flawless. The contrast was almost cruel, and he knew it had to eat at Noah. The same way it would eat at him.
Wyatt leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “You’re not talking unless I do, is that it?”
“Spill, Wyatt—tell me who hurt you, or go on over to the family rave next door.”
No way was he moving. Noah was talking to him and he wasn’t about to waste the opportunity to finally clear the air. “You hurt me. You dusted me off like I meant nothing to you, shut me out of your life completely. Yours and Zach’s. You didn’t respond to any of my messages—”
Noah’s lips twitched. “You mean the ones you send every single day? The selfies and book reviews in the middle of the night? Those irritating self-help quotes? Those messages?”
“At least I tried,” Wyatt said fiercely, feeling like one big open wound. “You don’t give up on people you love, Noah. Not the people who matter. At least, I don’t.”
“Believe me, I know you don’t,” Noah said hoarsely. “If you did, I wouldn’t be here.”
“Are you mad at me for saving you? Because that doesn’t make any—”
“No! I’m grateful, damn it. You think I’ve got a death wish? That I want to leave my kid without a father?”
“Then what?”
Noah sighed. “My surgeries could take a year, maybe more. Recovery could take longer. I’ve got no desire to go back to our old job. I’m done as a firefighter, Wyatt. I won’t do that to Zach. My old life doesn’t fit my new skin.”
Wyatt nodded, taking that in. “I had a feeling about work. But that’s no reason to push me away. Not a good enough reason, anyway.”
Noah turned his head away. “Maybe I’m beating you to the punch. You ditched me after Zach was born. Was that a good enough reason? You didn’t talk to me for months because you resented me for growing up and taking responsibility.”
Wyatt flinched. “So this is payback? You know what? That’s fair. I was being childish. But you didn’t talk to me about it or factor me into the equation at all. We were roommates, we worked together, and you’re my best friend, and yet you acted like letting me know didn’t matter. Like I didn’t matter.”
And now Fiona had done the same thing with his baby. What the fuck was it about him that made people see him as an afterthought?
“We’re grown men, Wyatt. We’re not connected at the hip. We make our own decisions, and I had a child to consider.”
“You know, that might wash if you hadn’t just done it to me again. You shut me out, refused to talk to me for a whole god-damned month—”
“Language,” Mrs. Laurence called from the patio.
“Sorry, Mrs. Laurence,” Wyatt said, automatically lowering his voice. “You made me nothing more than an issue to be dealt with by the family when you refused to talk to me about not coming back to my own home to recuperate. Does what I feel even matter to you, Noah?”
His throat ached with the effort it took to get those words out.
