Ty patted Nick’s hair and rested his chin on top of his head. Nick had stood like a rock in a tempest his entire life, rain beating at him, the tides trying to carve away his soul, the relentless howl of the wind always at his shores. But Nick was the first to smile, the first to laugh, the first to joke. He was the first to put his shoulder to yours when the storm came calling.
He deserved more than a family who turned their backs on him. More than a lifetime of second best. And he damn well deserved more from Ty than to be merely an afterthought when Ty needed help.
The more Ty thought of it, of the way Nick’s smile could light an entire room despite how broken he had always been, the angrier he became. His body began to tremble and he held Nick tighter. Tears came unbidden to his eyes and he hung his head, ashamed to realize he wasn’t worthy of the loyalty Nick had always given him. He would never be worthy.
“I’m sorry,” he gasped. He ignored the tears and kept talking. “I’m sorry I’ve been a shitty friend. And I’m sorry about Eli. If we’d listened to you, then he’d still be alive. You were right, and I’m so goddamned sorry he’s gone.”
“Damn you, Ty,” Nick said, his voice muffled by his own tears and Ty’s chest.
“You were right then, and you’re right now about talking to Burns. I’ll go with you, okay? We’ll talk to him together.”
Nick huffed a breath and sniffed. “You better not be getting snot in my hair,” he finally said.
Their laughter was a pitiful mixture of sniffles and snickers. It was the only way either of them knew to combat the pain and sadness.
“Listen, your dad . . . I don’t want you to do it because you’re my brother, and I love you, and you deserve to live your own life.” Ty cupped Nick’s face between both hands. His voice was stronger when he spoke again. “You’ve spent your whole life trying to prove to yourself that you’re a good man. Well, you are. I may not be one, but I know one when I see him, and you’re the best there is. So don’t you dare go off and risk yourself for him if you’re just trying to prove that to yourself again, you understand? I don’t want you to do it. But if you do, I’ll be right there with you. I promise.”
Nick gave a single nod.
“I’ll be there.” Ty met his eyes for a few more seconds, then released him and sat straighter. He wiped at his face, still sniffing. “Damn you.”
“Ty,” Nick grunted, smacking Ty’s chest with the back of his hand. “Is that a boat?”
Ty wiped his eyes again. “I don’t know, I can’t see anything ’cause I’m crying like a little bitch!”
“It’s a boat,” Nick insisted.
Ty squinted out over the water. He heard footsteps coming up behind them and turned to see Zane and Kelly approaching carefully. Nick scrambled to his feet and put his hand under his nose, shielding his night vision from the reflection of the moon off the waves.
“I think it’s one of the bigger launches. The tides are pushing it back in.”
Ty finally made out the flashing, bobbing emergency beacon of the boat Nick had spotted. “That’s a long way out, dude.”
“Can you swim that?” Zane asked as he came to stand beside Ty.
“We sure as f**k can. We’ll need wet suits,” Nick answered.
“Oh, hell no,” Kelly said. Nick peered at him. Kelly crossed his arms. “Fuck no. You wait until daylight to swim that shit or I’m not patching you up from the hypothermia.”
“Less than thirty hours before the ferry’s due,” Zane reminded them. “No need for drastic measures yet, okay?”
They all nodded, though Nick seemed reluctant. He stared off at the blinking lights until Kelly grabbed his arm and pulled him away. “Come on. They’ll be getting dinner together soon. We need to eat or we might start getting pissy with each other. We wouldn’t want that.”
Nick snorted and let Kelly pull him. Ty and Zane watched them walk away. They both had their heads down, watching their footing, and Kelly soon snaked his hand around Nick’s waist. Nick threw an arm over his shoulders, and it was like the most natural thing in the world for both of them. Ty still wasn’t quite processing the two of them as a couple, but nothing about them felt wrong when he watched them like this.
Zane tapped his shoulder. “Can we please move the f**k away from this cliff?”
Ty scooted backward, then crawled until he felt he was a safe distance away before taking to his feet. Zane laughed at him the whole time.
“Bastard knows I’m scared of heights,” Ty mumbled. He brushed at his knees and then his ass, but the wet grass had soaked through his jeans. They started off toward the gardens and the mansion beyond.
“What did he mean when he said you earned his loyalty on the bus to Parris Island?” Zane asked quietly.
Ty sighed in the darkness. “You heard the whole thing?”
Zane shrugged apologetically. “We were afraid someone would get tossed off the cliff.”
“Valid.” They walked in silence for a few seconds before Ty cleared his throat. “When we were loaded onto the bus for Basic, we were all pretty much young and stupid and scared, you know? Kids from all different places, all different backgrounds. Some of them were nervous and chatty, some of them were too scared to talk. There were a couple loners who we all kind of pegged as guys who wouldn’t make the psych cut.”
Zane snorted.
“I remember the first time I saw Nick. Big kid, you know? I mean he’s a big guy now, but he was already almost that size to start with. Most of us at seventeen or eighteen, we could fit three to a f**king bus seat. The red hair and the green eyes, he was kind of hard to miss. He was sitting on a bench, ramrod straight. A couple guys were kind of poking fun at him for trying to pretend he was already a Marine with the posture. And a bunch of us had noticed he had a black eye, but his knuckles weren’t bruised. They were on him because he’d obviously been in a fight but hadn’t fought back or even defended himself.”
Ty had to stop and shake the memory a little before he could continue. It still made him angry. Zane was silent, letting him gather his thoughts.
“Through all that shit they were talking, Nick never said a word. He just sat there and watched them. He didn’t look angry. He didn’t look amused. He was just . . . sitting there, blank. And for some reason I was fascinated by it, so I watched him. I mean, one look at him and you could tell Nick was a hardass. I remember thinking, this is someone with restraint. This is someone who’ll take a punch to the face and walk away instead of brawling. This is someone I need to know, because I knew I’d never be that kind of person. And the more shit he took, the angrier I got for him. So when we loaded onto the bus, I made sure I sat beside him.” He began to laugh with the memory. “I had to shove a kid and tell him to keep moving to get to the seat, and I just plopped my happy ass next to him.”