“Bo,” she whimpers.
“I know, honey, be patient. We both knew this would happen.” I try to reassure her, but I can feel her shudder when she buries her face against my chest.
I push her away from my chest, and I take her hand and squeeze it. "Find your parents," I say quietly. "I'll call you."
"Wait, Bo?—"
"This won’t be pretty," I say that because I know Tyler Williams, and Tyler isn’t going to listen to sense. Not now. He didn’t just drag himself off a transport with a broken arm and a concussion to make a scene at the Fourth of July. He came home because he needed to, and right now he needs to say things to me that he can't say in front of his sister. "I'll call you," I say again. "I promise."
She holds my hand for one more second before I let go and follow Tyler.
He's already through the park and walking down Main Street and moving at a quick and angry pace by the time I catch up. I fall into step beside him, and we walk in silence for half a block, the sound of the fireworks finale rolling out behind us in bursts of color and noise.
Rowdy walks on my left, doing his job at keeping me calm, or at least calm-ish.
Tyler stops at the corner. He sets his bag down, rolls his good shoulder, and looks at me with anger and betrayal.
"How long?" he says.
"Since we were seventeen."
He closes his eyes. Opens them. "I meant this summer."
"I know what you meant." I keep my voice level. "Since I got back." He rolled his shoulder again.
"How long have you been lying to me?"
"Since I was seventeen. I know I wasn’t as honest as I should've been." I don't dress it up. "I should have called you. I know that."
"You think?" He shifts his weight, and I see the pain the surgery cost him for a second before he controls it. "Bo, I asked you to watch out for her. I asked you because I trusted you. You were the one person I thought—" He stops. Jaw tight. "I was out there. I was doing my job. And you were here, and you?—"
“I know,” I interrupt, but I won’t talk about this here. Not on Main Street. You and I can hash this out all you want, but it won’t be here.” I gesture to my truck just a half block away. “I’m more than happy to discuss this at home.”
Tyler narrows his eyes and follows me to the truck. He throws his bag in the back and hops in, slamming the door shut.
“I’m listening,” he seethes. Folding his good arm over his chest.
"I fell in love with her," I say, knowing he wasn’t going to like it. In fact, I knew he was going to hate it. "That wasn't the plan."
"The plan? That was nowhere near the plan." He laughs once, short and humorless. "Great. That's great, Bo."
"I know you're angry."
"You don't know the half of it."
"Then tell me."
He looks at me. The streetlights catch the lines around his eyes that weren't there two years ago, the set of his mouth that's gotten harder since deployment. He's twenty-six years old, and he looks forty in this light, and I think about the crash, about what it must have been like, about the fact that he's standing here in a cast when he could very easily not be standing at all.
"She's my little sister," he says. Finally. "She's the one thing in my life that hasn't changed. Every time I come home, she's there. Same, Falon. Same ranch, same boots, same stubborn, impossible, wonderful—" He stops. "I needed that. You understand? I needed to know that one thing was going to stay the same."
"I understand that. But you do realize that if it wasn’t me, it was going to be somebody."
"Somebody. Ha.”
“Ha, what. You don’t think that Falon would ever date?”
“None that stick, but now I have to deal with you.”
