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Sean waved it away. “Forget it. I don’t want—”
“Take it,” Seth snarled. “Or else I’ll hit you with it.”
Sean sighed, shoved it into his pocket.
“Short string gets to babysit this bozo `til midnight.” Davy held out his huge fist. Four pieces of string dangled from it.
“Aw, shit,” Sean protested. “I don’t need—”
“Shut up,” Davy said harshly. He pulled out a string—long. Con grabbed his. Long. Seth and Miles drew.
Miles grunted in resignation. He had the short string.
“Congratulations. You got your work cut out for you,” Seth said.
“This is humiliating,” Sean complained.
“Tough. If you don’t like it, stop doing this to us every year.”
Sean shut his eyes. The weight of his eyelids made his eyeballs throb. Red bloomed like a bloodstain in his head. Black bloomed from the center and took its place. Red again. Then black. The drumbeat of his stubborn heart. And behind it, Kev’s pickup. Endlessly falling.
Miles shoved open the door and slid out. Sean followed him.
“Hey. Erin had a sonogram yesterday,” Connor said abruptly.
“Oh, yeah?” he inquired politely. “Everything’s fine, I trust?”
“Yeah, everything’s great. It’s a boy,” Con said.
“Ah. Uh…good. Congratulations.” He felt like he should say something more profound, but his mind was as blank as the white sky.
“We’re going to name him Kevin,” Con added.
Something squeezed like a vise around his larynx, horribly tight.
Con laid his hand on Sean’s shoulder. “It helps, you know?” his brother said, his voice intense. “Trying to make a difference. And if it all comes together and you get there in time to save somebody, oh, man. It’s the best damn thing in the world. It makes up for so much.”
“Yeah? And then? What happens after? When the thrill is gone?”
Connor hesitated. “You get out there and do it again.”
Sean nodded. “Right,” he muttered. “It never lasts, does it?”
“No,” Connor admitted. “But then again. What does?”
Sean contemplated that. “Sounds pointless and exhausting.”
His brother did not contradict him. He just turned away, his face stony. Sean let the door swing shut. The Chevy sped away.
CHAPTER2
Sean and Miles stared at each other. Miles’s mouth was settled into a flat, stubborn line. “Don’t even start,” he said. “It’s useless.”
Sean groaned inwardly. Not that he didn’t love the guy to pieces. Miles was a great kid. A good friend. Crazy useful when it came to the gearhead techie computer details that bored Sean out of his skull. In the last couple years since he’d taken on the role of McCloud mascot, he’d proved his worth many times over. But Sean wasn’t up to being anybody’s mentor, love counselor, cheerleader, or fashion guru today.
“Buddy? You know I love you, right? But I don’t want company,” he said wearily. “So get lost. Disappear. See ya.”
“Nope.” Miles’s face was implacable.
