Page 14 of The Devil You Know
Linda shook her head fondly. “We’ve been talking about going to see so many places, and there was always some reason we couldn’t. When we first got married, we didn’t have the money. Then you were both so little. When you got older, there was school and activities, and it just wouldn’t work. Now here we are, retiring. We’ve been adding to our list of places to go for a while.”
She brought her hands together like a flying bird. “Now the two of you are launched. So it’s our time.”
Seth grinned. “I’m so glad. You two deserve it, putting up with us.”
Linda smiled. “We couldn’t be prouder, and you both know it.”
Seth had always known on some level that he was fortunate to have his family. Six years of hearing other people’s stories about their drama had confirmed that he was one of the lucky ones. His parents loved him, and he had a brother he would die for, whom he knew would do the same.
“Let’s go eat stuff you couldn’t get while you were gone,” Jesse said through a mouthful of waffle and bacon. “Anywhere you want to go, bro. Chinese, pizza, Mexican—whatever. See if you can still put the all-you-can-eat places out of business.” He waggled his eyebrows.
“You’re talking lunch while you’re still eating breakfast?” Linda asked.
“And now that we’re both legal, we can see how you do with all-you-can-drink,” Jesse continued.
Linda elbowed Jesse. “Not when you’re driving.”
“Of course not,” Jesse replied, with the choirboy innocence that had gotten him out of everything since they’d been kids.
The appeal of gorging himself and testing his drinking limits had faded early in his military career, but this was Jesse, looking for a way to reconnect with his big brother, and Seth couldn’t say no.
Maybe it was a good thing for him that I was gone for a while. It let him come into his own without always being my “little” brother. But I’ll always regret losing that time together.
“You’re on,” Seth said. He felt a strange urgency to grab his mom and brother and hold them close, tell them how much he loved them, and all the other things people never actually put into words.
Seth chalked it up to having been in life-or-death situations for the past few years. He’d seen men die screaming for their mothers on the battlefield, half a world away from home. There had been moments when he didn’t think he’d make it back, and he thought of all the things he’d never said to the people he loved most.
“Try not to get too sick to eat dinner,” Linda said, with an indulgent resignation as if she knew she’d already lost this battle. “We’re ordering pizza from Niccolo’s.”
Seth grinned. “They’re still around? Best. Pizza. Ever.”
Jesse drove his second-hand Mustang, and Seth squashed his long legs into the passenger seat. “Good to have you home,” Jesse said, keeping his eyes on the road. “I thought Mom was going to single-handedly cause a candle shortage burning votives for you.”
“Mom is a lapsed Lutheran,” Seth protested.
Jesse shrugged. “Just sayin’. She would have made a deal with the Devil himself if she thought it would bring you home safely.”
“Don’t say things like that,” Seth said, suddenly uncomfortable on a level he couldn’t explain. “That’s not the kind of thing you joke about.”
Jesse gave him the side-eye. “You sure you’re okay? I mean, I know you saw your share of action, and I respect the hell out of you for doing what you did. But none of us are going to think less of you if you need to see a therapist. PTSD and all that shit.”
They rode in silence for a while. Seth had the oddest feeling of belonging somewhere else, something he chalked up to having recently gone from a desert war zone to suburban America.
Seth cleared his throat. “I was wrong,” he said, knowing he needed to speak his truth. “I’m sorry.”
Jesse gave him a weird look. “What are you talking about, man?”
“Running off and enlisting just because Colin and I, um, had a falling out. That was severely stupid,” Seth confessed. “I made a major life decision for all the wrong reasons. I missed out on being with you, Mom, and Dad. It wasn’t until I was in my first firefight overseas that I realized Colin didn’t ever mean as much to me as you guys.”
Jesse returned a wobbly smile. “I knew you’d come to your senses sooner or later,” he snarked, although Seth heard the break in his brother’s voice. “Man, it’s good to have you home.”
Jesse took Seth on the food tour of all the places he’d missed during the years he was deployed. Everyone greeted Seth like a long-lost son, and he realized around the time they hit the third stop that Jesse must have talked about him a lot in his absence.
“Dude, what did you tell them about me?” Seth hissed when the servers at the fourth bar fussed over them.
Jesse shrugged. “Just that I had a highly-decorated combat vet brother who was coming home, and we needed to do him a solid.”
“You what?” Seth managed, still taking in Jesse’s smug grin.
