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“You want dinner? I’ve made stir-fry.”

“I could eat.”

There were six beer bottles on the table, and I had never had more fun in my life. Scratch that; I had definitely had more fun in my alone time with Kai. But seeing these two brothers getting a chance to get to know one another was magical. There were so many parallels in their lives. As a matter of fact, there were two times when they were in the same country at the same time, and they would have met one another except for small little chance circumstances.

Beau admitted that he had passed out at the exact moment when Kai had been shot. He’d been in the middle of physical training, otherwise known as PT. Everybody thought it was sunstroke, but he’d never experienced anything like it before.

“It took me a week to recover,” Beau said.

“It took me almost a year to recover.” Kai laughed.

At eight-thirty there was a knock on the door. When I got up to go get it, both men stood at the same time. In the same voice, at the same time, they told me to stay put. I would have been offended, but I was too stunned to see them act as one person, so I giggled instead.

They both stalked over to the door.

“Who is it?” Again, both of them spoke in unison.

“It’s Lettie Magill. Kai, let me in.”

Kai opened the door.

She took two steps into the house and stutter-stopped. She looked from one man to the other. She then turned to Beau and grabbed him. “It’s so good to see you back home.”

Kai looked over his shoulder at me. I shrugged. I didn’t know how she did it either. I mean, I could tell them apart, but how Lettie was able to do it, was beyond me.

“Are you home to stay?” she asked as she finally let go of Beau.

“Still have some time left to serve,” he told her.

“Oh.” She nodded her head. “You here because of your sumbitch father?”

“Yep.”

“You’re going to be able to stop him, right?”

“Damn right.”

She peeked around Beau to look at me. “You didn’t call my ma. She has news.”

I got up from the table and walked over to her. “I’m sorry, things got out of hand.”

“I can see that,” she smiled. “Ma remembered that old Willie Ames was a good friend of your daddy back in the day. Do you remember him?” She looked between Beau and Kai.

Kai shook his head, and Beau pinched the bridge of his nose. “I think I remember him coming around and bothering Mama from time to time.”

“Greasy gray hair, and he stank?”

“Yep.” Beau nodded.

“He lives with an aunt of his, at the Blue Ash Village trailer park. Poor old Via, she doesn’t deserve having someone like that sucking the life out of her. He’s living off her disability money.”

“Are you thinking that my dad⁠—”

“Our dad—” Beau interrupted Kai.

“Our dad,” Kai corrected himself. “Are you thinking our dad could be holed away with Greasy Willie at the trailer park?”

“It’s worth a shot.” Lettie shrugged. She pushed her hand into her pants pocket and pulled out a carefully folded piece of paper. “Here, this is Via’s address and phone number. Please, if Arthur is there, make sure to keep any confrontation away from Via. She doesn’t need any more strife in her life.”