Page 69 of Almost Home
The doorbell made me jump—a clear indication I’d only had two of the five shots I’d take tonight to honor the five men I’d lost. In The Pines, where most of the guys lived back in North Carolina, we’d meet at a bar creatively called Brew and everyone did five shots, sipping beers and sharing memories of the men who’d all passed on the same day. The brutal operation gone wrong and easily one of the worst days of my life.
The repeated ring had me glaring, but I shoved off the couch and padded to the door. The peephole showed not one but two Saints.What the hell?
“Open up, Wilder. We can see you eyeing us.”
I unlocked the deadbolt and swung open the door. “What’re you doing here?”
“We came to check on you,” Wyatt said.
“Yep. Just swinging by.” Warrick held up a case of beer.
“And why, out of nowhere and with no warning, are you checking on me?”
Warrick beamed. “Sarah mentioned you’d had a bad day.”
Wyatt elbowed him and shot him a disapproving glare.
“What? She did. She said very little, only that today was… significant.”
A mix of frustration and something sweet, almost like relief, twined together inside me. Sarah had told them. After what a jerk I’d been, ordering her around and talking about her parents like I still knew them or had any right to tell her what to do, she’d sought outmyfamily to help me.
I’d been so caught up in my day, I hadn’t considered her. I’d thought I should give her space, maybe call her tomorrow and see if she’d still give me the time of day. But the woman had put herself out there for me by asking these two oafs to come check on me. She risked me being a jerk again all because she wanted to make sure I was okay.
My hand not holding the door handle pressed into my chest above my aching heart. I eyed them as they waited for something, until Warrick snorted and shoved past me into the apartment. Wyatt held a giant pizza box.
“We’re not letting you be alone tonight,” he explained, waiting for me to step farther to the side to let him by.
I glared at both of the presumptuous asses for a moment, but since neither of them even turned to question whether they would stay, I locked up behind them. Plus, if Sarah had sent them, they knew they had cause to be here. I wondered what, specifically, she’d told them.
“Yeah. This is not solo activity time,” Warrick said, cracking open a beer and handing it to me.
On reflex, I took it. “This is not family reunion time.”
Wyatt had flipped open the pizza box and rooted around in the cabinets until he pulled out three plates. “You’re not drinking alone in the dark on an empty stomach.”
I glanced around at the dim living room lit only by the lights in the kitchen. I hadn’t tried to set it up like this—me sitting in the dark. It’d just felt right. “How do you know I didn’t eat an hour ago?”
Wyatt only spared me an unimpressed look as he slopped a cheesy slice onto each place, shoved one in my direction, one at Warrick, and stomped over to the living room.
Each of us settled into a seat—Wy to my left on the couch, Warrick in the chair to my right. I bit into the still-hot pizza and chewed through the scalding toppings, my mind grasping for something to say but failing to find anything. We ate in silence until Warrick shot out of his seat, flipped on all the lights on the panel near the kitchen, and slumped back into the chair.
“Sorry. I get that the mood is somber, for real, but the atmosphere doesn’t have to be so completely depressing on top of it.” He folded his pizza and took another giant bite.
I let out a breath I’d let compound in my chest.
“Sarah told us what today is,” Wyatt said gently.
I nodded, hardly able to summon frustration with her. Only a warmth I now associated with Sarah and only her. A lightness in the midst of drudgery and darkness I hadn’t felt in years. “I told her about it. Told her I didn’t want her to come. That I would do it on my own.”
Warrick set his plate down a little too forcefully. “Yeah? What a shock.”
“Warrick.”
Wyatt’s warning tone should’ve silenced our youngest brother, but evidently, he had some things to say. Maybe he’d wanted to say them days or weeks ago but now, he wasn’t holding back.
“You’ve got a whole life we know nothing about and a lot of it you can’t even talk about. I get that.Weget that. But I refuse to stay quiet about this. You’re not building that house by yourself. You’re not living in this crap apartment and sitting by yourself drinking yourself silly in memory of your friends you lostby yourself. You aren’t on your own here, even though you left your team behind.”
Throat tight, I slugged a few drinks of beer. “I know.”
