“You did?”

“He has three little brothers, right? They’d be missing him something fierce.”

“Yeah, they would be.”

“So.”

“So?” I ask.

“So reach out to them if you think it’ll help them. I’m almost positive it’ll help you.”

“What? You think I should write them a letter or something?”

He smiles and sits up higher. “Well you see, Grandpa Banks, there’s this little thing called email. You can access it on something called the Internet.”

Yeah. That weird sound is definitely a laugh. “I don’t have a computer. It was Riley’s.”

Now it’s Jake’s turn to laugh. “Well you see, Grandpa Banks—” He dodges the cushion I throw at his head. “—there’s this little thing called the Smartphone which has previously explained Internet.”

“Fuck you.”

We both pull out our phones at the same time. “So what do I do?” I ask.

“Well, this is tough. Riley ever get you to set up Facebook?”

I shake my head.

“Twitter?”

Another shake.

“Instagram?”

“Nope.”

“Tumblr?”

“Now you’re just making shit up.”

He laughs again. “Swear it.” He taps his phone and moves to sit next to me. “Let’s start with the basics, Grandpa.”

“Enough with the grandpa bullshit.”

“Pops?”

“No.”

“Gam?”

“No!”

“Fine. Gramps it is.”

I look over his shoulder and watch him pull up an app. “Dave O’Brien, right?”

“Yep.”

He types in: “Dave O’Brien USMC.”

He’s the first picture that pops up in the results. But it’s not just him. It’s us. We’re standing next to each other, our smiles wide, head to toe in our combat uniform. I remember him getting Leroy to take the picture but I never actually saw it.

My chest tightens as I focus on his face, on his smile, and I remember the exact words he said after the picture was taken. “This one’s going right in the Banks spank bank.”

“You okay?” Jake asks.

No. “Yeah.”

“His profile’s set to private, but we can see his friends.” He types in “O’Brien” in another search window and boom. Two of his brothers are listed.

“Mikey—he’s the oldest. I mean now he is…”

Jake nods, tapping more buttons and then hands me his phone. “You can write him a message but I have to go pick up my sister from the movies so if it’s going to take you eighty years, Gramps, I’d rather you do a voice message.”

“I can do voice messages?”

He nods. “Hold down that mic.”

I do what he says. “Hey… uh… Mike. It’s Dylan Banks. I’m using my friend’s account. I don’t have one. I was just seeing… um… checking up on you… I guess…”

Jake takes the phone from me, his thumbs flying across the screen and hitting send then switching it off and pocketing it all before I even realize I’m no longer holding the phone.

“I gave him your number and told him to text you. I gotta jet.”

“How is Julie, anyway?”

He sighs, long and loud. “She’s dating.”

“What?” I ask, surprised.

He nods. “Yep. She’s fourteen now.”

“Shut up.”

He keeps nodding. “I keep a bat in the back seat so the kid knows I’m not fucking around.”

“So you don’t like him?”

He scoffs. “I fucking hate him. He’s a cocky little punk. Thinks he’s God’s gift to women.”

“So she’s dating Logan?”

His face drops. “That shit’s not funny, man.”

“If the shoe fits…”

“I’m going to fucking kill him,” he says, rushing to the front door. I follow after him, laughing under my breath.

“Hey,” he says, the door half open. “How’d you like the new workbench Riley got you?”

Fifty-Two

Dylan

I hadn’t been in the garage since I’d been discharged from the hospital. I had no reason to. It was empty. No cars. No engine for me to work on. Besides, when it came to avoiding memories of Riley, the garage was as bad as the bedroom, if not worse. Maybe that’s why it took an entire day and four hours of tossing and turning in bed, unable to find enough calm to sleep before I throw the covers off and make my way out there. I take a calming breath before opening the door and when I do, a million different emotions hit me at once.

Riley caught me on Pinterest once (shut up) looking at garage set-ups. I shut the screen quickly and told her I was just bored. Like most guys look at porn, I was looking at workbenches, dreaming that one day I’d have something similar.

Now the image that was on the screen is real and I’m fucking touching it.

I don’t know when she did it. I don’t know how Jake knew about it and I didn’t. Right now, I don’t know much of anything.

There’s an empty jar in the middle of the bench, just like the ones she used to store her letters to Jeremy. I pick it up, my eyes squinting as I read the letters written in black marker: DYLAN.