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Kodiak shrugged with that smirk etched into his face. “Or something.”
Dillon’s arm went around Kodiak like they were lifelong buds.
“The army trained me well. Communications intelligence. So it was a logical career choice when I got out—pretty lucrative too.” He winked and drained his glass.
Kit cocked his head to the side. “So you hack into computers and shit?”
“I provide surveillance services among other things.” He smirked. “Cheating husband? I can catch him for you. Need proof your business partner is embezzling funds? I’m your guy. Everything is electronic these days. Piece of cake.”
And it was Brendan’s turn to grin.
“I’ll collect the intel. What you do with it is up to you.”
He knew exactly what he was going to do.
Bye-bye, bitch.
Brendan felt lighter already and chuckled. “Dill, open up another bottle!”
Several hours and one too many shots of whiskey later, as the party wound down outside, Brendan found himself staring at the wedding portrait of his grandparents that hung on the wall. The wedding photos of their three children—his parents, aunts, and uncles—were mounted right below theirs. A portrait of Chloe, Jesse, and Taylor now claimed the once-empty space below Jesse’s parents. He supposed he’d see Kyan and Linnea’s picture hanging beneath Uncle Charley and Aunt Peggy the next time he was here.
When they were little, he and his cousins called it the wedding wall. As they got older, it became difficult to look at. After the accident, he couldn’t bear to look at it anymore at all. By the time Uncle Charley was gone, no one came up to the lake house much. Until last year, when they all spent Fourth of July here together with Chloe and Linnea. When love breathed life and happiness into this place again.
He still avoided the wall, though. It hurt too much to look at it.
“I miss them too, nia.”
Aunt Colleen came up beside him and took his hand. He interlaced their fingers and squeezed. “Aintín, I didn’t hear you come in.”
“I know.” She chuckled. “I’ve been watching you stand here for a good five minutes already.”
She reached out to touch the image of her sister, his mother, with the tip of her finger. A single tear rolled down her cheek. “She was so beautiful. And so damn funny.”
He looked away.
“Just because you won’t acknowledge it doesn’t mean the pain isn’t there, you know.”
Brendan locked eyes with the woman beside him, the closest thing to a mother he had left. “You think I don’t?”
She smiled at him. “I bet you still don’t have one photo of your parents on display anywhere in your house—am I right?” Colleen squeezed his hand, nodding to herself. “You don’t have to answer because I already know you don’t. I bet you still have those nightmares too.”
“They aren’t nightmares, Aintín, just some fucked-up dreams.”
“Language, Brendan,” she chided him and then softened her voice. “I know what you’re doing because it’s what I did too, but you can’t avoid it. Or run from it. Or bury your pain in somebody else.” She swiped beneath her eye. “In the end, what you do with your pain is up to you. You can allow it to break you, a little at a time, piece by piece, or you can use it to rebuild yourself even stronger. Suffering is a choice…so is letting go.”
He blinked and sniffled away the tickle in his nose. “Sounds like something Uncle Charley said to me.”
She laughed. “I think he said that to me too, or maybe I read it somewhere.” She just shrugged and wrapped an arm about his waist. “I love you, Brendan.”
“I love you too, Aintín.”
She swatted his arm. “And fill up this wall, will you?”
“Sure, Auntie.” He hugged her and chuckled. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Her phone buzzed.
Katie felt the vibration of it against her body. She pulled the phone out of her apron to glance at the notification on the screen and pocketed it again, ignoring this text just as she had all the others. She couldn’t think straight, let alone figure out what to do, with him distracting her.
