I clenched my jaw. “I can’t.”
“I don’t get it. Did she rebuff you or something?”
“No.”
“So she doesn’t know you’re in love with her?”
“No,” I said again.
“Don’t you think you should tell her?”
For the third time, I said, “No.”
Ryan rubbed his chin. “Is there any chance she might return your feelings?”
How I dreamed of it. Part of me wanted nothing more than the white picket fence and Jade at home, her belly swelling with my child. But any chance of a normal life for me had been erased from my existence twenty-five years ago. Did she return my feelings? How could she? I was a fucked-up mess.
“I doubt it.”
“Why would you say that?”
“Well, for one, I kicked her out of my house.”
Ryan nodded. “Yeah, there’s that.”
“And you know me, Ry. I’m a mess. She deserves…better. Hell, she deserves the best.”
“Talon, you are the best.”
I couldn’t help a loud scoff. “Don’t even go there with me. I am the best of nothing.”
“I disagree. You’re the best brother I could have.”
I rolled my eyes.
“I’m serious. You saved me that day. How many other people would’ve done that? You could have easily been the one to get away. You were bigger and stronger. But you stayed th
ere, kicking and screaming, getting them off me so I could get away.” Ryan shook his head. “I wish there were a way to thank you for that. Some way to let you know just how grateful I am that you’re my brother.”
I squirmed in my chair like a little kid, belying my thirty-five years. This wasn’t the first time Ryan had gone all sappy on me. Truth was, all it did was make me wish I were listening to fingernails on a chalkboard.
“You would have done the same for me.”
“But I didn’t. I got away. I could’ve stayed and helped you fight them off.”
“For God’s sake, Ryan, you were seven years old. They were three grown men. We were lucky one of us got away. They could’ve easily overtaken both of us.”
“My point is, you didn’t have to be thinking about me. We were both just kids. Most other kids would have just thought about saving themselves, but not you. You thought of me first.”
Ryan liked to make me out to be some kind of hero, but a hero was so far from what I was. The first day I met Jade, she called me a hero because I’d served in the military. I told her the same thing I told Ryan now. “I’m no hero.”
“You are to me, bro.”
I squirmed again. Could this get any more awkward? Thankfully, my thoughts were interrupted by a pounding on the door.
Ryan stood. “Who in the hell could that be on a Saturday night?”
The door clicked open. “Is Talon here?”