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“What?” She pushed back to look at him. That was the last thing she expected him to say.
“You remember the day Robert went to enlist?”
She nodded. “Yes. Why?”
“I went with him.”
This was news to her. She frowned. “You did?”
“Yeah. I was supposed to enlist with him.”
“You were?”
He nodded. “Remember back then how he practically idolized me? I don’t know, maybe you were too young to know that.”
“He did. We both did.” She felt his arms tighten in a quick squeeze.
“He’d been out of sch
ool for a year or two and just sort of floundering for what to do next. That’s the summer I found the club.”
“The MC?”
He nodded. “Yeah. I knew. Immediately. Everything just sort of…clicked into place for me.”
“I didn’t know.”
“I kept it from you. Your mom, my dad, no one knew, except Robert.”
“Robert knew?”
He nodded. “And I knew he’d follow me. Whatever path I led him down, he’d follow, if for nothing more than to have my back, even if it wasn’t right for him. And the club wasn’t right for him. Robert was always more the hero type. That’s why the military was perfect for him. He got to save people. He got to stand up for right. That wasn’t me.”
“That’s not true,” she protested. “You saved me. So many times.”
He squeezed her again, snorting, “Saving you from a schoolyard bully? That’s not exactly the same thing. I was never cut out to be anyone’s white knight.”
“You were to me.”
He looked off at the horizon for a few minutes, his head turned toward a plane landing in the distance. He was quiet for a few minutes. When he spoke again, she heard the emotion in his voice, as if her words had affected him.
“Maybe. Anyway, I knew I couldn’t let him follow me down that road. I had to make sure he took the path he was always meant to take.”
“The military?”
“The military. Maybe you don’t remember, but he used to talk about it all the time.”
“I didn’t know. It was such a shock when he signed up.”
“I was supposed to go with him that day, to the recruiter. I knew he wouldn’t sign up if I didn’t sign up with him.” He paused, and she could sense he was struggling with his next words.
“And?” she prompted.
“So I went with him.”
“You did?”
“When it was time to sign on the dotted line, I told him to go first. So, he did.”
