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“Actually, it’s with her friend Mary Ellen and the guy she’s dating.”
“You can’t blow them off?”
“Not this one. The guy happens to be that long-lost uncle of mine I told you about. He flew in to see Mary Ellen for Christmas and now the girls have a date planned. There are a lot of reasons I can’t just back out.”
Ryan looked tired. He looked like a man who had just rolled in from a deployment. His face was weathered and dark. He carried the worry lines of man who was fifty, not someone just barely hitting thirty.
“Tomorrow?”
“Christmas Eve is tomorrow, man. I haven’t done any shopping.”
“I doubt anyone expects you to fly in from the Middle East and go to the mall.” I watched as Grayson fell face first into a snowball. Instead of crying he started to laugh. I grinned.
“Probably not.” He tipped the beer toward his lips. “But it wouldn’t be Christmas around here if I didn’t surprise them with something.”
Small flurries started to drift around us.
“I got a call.”
Ryan turned to look at me. “What kind of call?”
I scuffed my boots in the snow. I had to tell someone. It was tearing me up.
“Someone from the Pentagon. They found Satori in Kabatur. They need me to go run the ops mission.”
“What the fuck? Why aren’t you on a plane right now?”
My eyes landed on Grayson.
“Right. The kid. Sorry, man.”
“I talked to this colonel for a while. He’s insistent I go. They don’t have anyone else with the history I do. No one else fluent in Kabutese. There isn’t enough time to train another officer.”
He shook his head. “Then why don’t you do it? You know what it takes to run one of these missions. If they get the wrong guy in there it could be fucked before there are even boots on the ground. I’m sure Kaitlyn will watch Grayson. Go, man. You need to do this.”
He talked about his sister like she was my babysitter.
“It’s not that simple. I can’t pick up and leave like that.”
“You’ve been out of the Corps what? Two years? And a colonel in the Pentagon calls? You have to realize what that means. You know how serious this is. Those are our brothers out there fighting, risking their lives. They wouldn’t call you if it wasn’t a crisis. I can’t believe we’re even talking about it.”
I shook my head. “I know I have to do it.”
“Then what’s the problem? Kaitlyn?” He grinned. “Come on, my sister will be fine.”
“She needs me, man.”
Ryan huffed. “Don’t ask me to understand what’s going on between you two, and definitely don’t ask me to believe you’d choose her over this mission. She can handle it. I know my sister better than you do apparently.”
He might have been my best friend and future brother-in-law, but it didn’t mean he wasn’t a dick sometimes. No one in this family took our relationship seriously. I had to own that. I whored my way through college and the Marine Corps, and Ryan witnessed half of it. To know his sister was now the girl in my bed had to give him nightmares, but that was a different me. That was the me before I became a father.
“Ryan, I know I have to go. But I don’t know how I’m going to leave.”
He finished the rest of the beer. I knew I needed to get Grayson inside. His cheeks were bright red.
“Do what I do. Hugs. Promise to call. And you get on the fucking plane. And if this thing between you is going to last, you’ll figure that out.”
I faced him. “You think I’m worried about my relationship with her?”
