“You have a good day?”
Sean nodded absently. “Listen, I’m sorry about this morning.”
“It’s fine. I’m a nosy motherfucker sometimes.”
“Truth.”
They sat together in silence for a few minutes, then Sean groaned and looked sidewise.
Dean didn’t like that look. “What?”
“I’ve been tapped to go on tour.”
Oh. “When?” he asked, his heart thumping hard against his ribs. “Where?”
“Leave in January most likely. Tour would be…Turkey.”
The pause told Dean it wasn’t really Turkey. His brother was an officer, and an ambitious, career-oriented one. If he wasn’t a professional athlete as well, he would have joined the regular forces like Zander had.
And because his career was flexible, Sean had maxed out on courses and his career progression was exemplary. So “…Turkey” meant he’d been tapped to join a training mission. Northern Iraq.
As hot as shit got.
It would be everything that Sean wanted. And as a fellow army reservist, Dean understood the desire to serve. But it was one thing to make that call for yourself, to know you’d put your life on the line for your country.
It was an entirely different thing for your baby brother to do it, even if he was twenty-seven and two-hundred-pounds of stubborn muscle wrapped around a whip-smart mind.
He forced a neutral, supportive tone into his voice. “Wow. When does work up start?”
“I’m packing up and heading to Petawawa in a few days.” Where he’d spend the next five months training with the special forces team there before shipping out. Dean could fill in the blanks.
“Damn, bud. That’s an awesome opportunity.”
“Thanks.”
“You tell anyone else yet?”
“Matt was with me when I got the call.”
“That little shit. I tried to find out what was going on and he didn’t spill.”
“I told him I wanted to tell you guys myself. Telling Jake next.”
“And the Colonel?”
Sean didn’t answer. Instead he turned his face toward the dying embers of the fire.
Dean winced. “He’ll be proud.”
“He’ll tell me I could’ve done this sooner if I wasn’t racing, too.”
Ha. “That means the same thing.”
“Yeah.” Sean didn’t look or sound convinced.
Dean didn’t really have time to manage his brother’s mercurial mood right now, but even as he had that thought, guilt sliced through him. His father…even Jake and Matt…none of them really got that Sean was sensitive. He certainly didn’t look it. But his tough-guy routine was a cover for a fragile kid who lost his mom before he really had a chance to know her.
If Dean ever felt alone in this world, it was nothing compared to what Sean lived every single day.
