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I lay on my back, him on his ass beside me. “The stars are bright out here,” I said.
“Ye-p.” His voice broke on the word. A few seconds later he lay down beside me. Our arms touched, just a gentle whisper. I didn’t move, wondering if he would, but Brian didn’t either.
“Were you close? With your brother?” I asked.
“Uh-huh.”
“I miss Paul. I hate that I couldn’t save him.”
“Wasn’t nothin’ you could do.”
“That’s not true. If I’d known, maybe things would be different.”
“I guess, but it still ain’t your fault and you still can’t go back.”
We were quiet again. I heard crickets and toads in the distance. “Did you get along with his wife?” I asked next.
Time stretched. It felt like an eternity before he said, “She was my best friend. We were close before she and Phil…yeah, we were close. I wanted her happy.” His voice was softer on the last sentence. I didn’t know what it was about how he said it, about the way the words had fallen from his tongue, but damned if I couldn’t feel the love in them.
Holy shit. He’d loved her.
Brian had been in love with his brother’s wife.
An ache started deep in my chest, vibrating outward. Was that why he was so sad? So alone? Had he ever loved anyone but her? And hell, after all this time, was he still in love with her?
“Wanna know a secret?” I asked, feeling like I needed to give him something, since I knew this thing about him.
“If you wanna tell me.”
“I used to be jealous of Paul.”
“All brothers are jealous of each other.”
“Yeah, but it was more than that. I felt like he was always better at everything. We were close, like I said, but I just… I don’t know why, but I was always in competition with him, always feeling the need to prove myself. It’s why I wonder if—”
“It’s not your fault.” This time he said it with more fervor.
“Why didn’t he tell me? I would have helped him. I would have stuck by him while he fought his disease.”
I was surprised when he turned to me, pushed up on one elbow, and looked down at me. “Don’t know. I wish I had pretty words to tell ya, wish I had answers, but it just…it ain’t right for you to blame yourself. I don’t like to see you hurt.”
My heart thudded, almost beating right out of my chest. It was like each one of those words made the blood pump through my veins. I was forty-three years old and had never had a sentence affect me so fiercely.
“I don’t like to see you hurt.”
I opened my mouth, but Brian shook his head. I didn’t even know what I was going to say but knew he was telling me that whatever it was, he couldn’t hear it right then.
I nodded, and he rolled to his back again. “I’m tired.”
“Me too. We should camp out. When we’d go to my family’s house in Pennsylvania, we used to sleep outside sometimes as kids. I haven’t done that since I was like…fourteen.”
What in the fuck was wrong with me? I was trying to sleep in this guy’s backyard. I waited for Brian to laugh or tell me I was being ridiculous, but instead he simply said, “Okay,” and closed his eyes.
I watched him for a moment, saw his chest rise and fall, wondered what was happening and why this friendship felt so vital to my very existence so quickly.
And then I reached over and laid my hand on top of his, just wanting to touch him and know he was there. “This all right?”
“This is nice,” Brian replied, without opening his eyes.
I lay there until he fell asleep, and then I did the same.
CHAPTER NINE
Brian
It had been three weeks, and I was still thinking about Charles holding my hand that night. It felt silly obsessing over that. Holding hands was what teenagers did, and I was mulling it over like it was the end of the world…though that didn’t fit either because it would have to be a good end of the world, which was…Jesus, what in the hell was wrong with me? My thoughts were spinning like crazy, and I hadn’t been able to slow them down.
Charles had held my hand, and I liked it, the feel of it, its softness against my calloused fingers. I’d just liked being touched, feeling heated skin, and knowing it was attached to someone living and breathing. I’d felt his pulse against my wrist, felt every one of his movements, was…connected to him. Inside, it felt like we were connected too, but that probably didn’t make sense.
“Uncle Brian?” Sutton said, pulling me out of my thoughts. Shit, I hadn’t even heard him walk around to the back of the house. I’d been expecting Sutton and Jasper and had come out here to wait before I got lost in the memory of Charles again.
