Riley: Dylan’s back.

It still feels wrong. Because the man who just stormed out of the house isn’t Dylan. I don’t know who he is.

Riley: He’s back.

Eric: ?

Riley: Dylan.

Eric: He is?

Riley: I think something’s wrong, E. I don’t know. Something’s happened.

Eric: What do you mean? Is he hurt?

Riley: Not that I know of.

Eric: Ask him.

Riley: He’s gone.

Eric: Gone where?

Riley: Out with some guys from his unit, I guess.

Eric: When did he get home?

Riley: A couple hours ago.

Eric: And he left you?

Riley: Yes.

Eric: Hold on.

Dylan: Really, Riley? You telling E about ourxbusiness? How close did you guys get while I was fuxking gone? Don’t accuse me of shit when you’fe talking to my brother behind mycback.

Riley: I’m worried.

After fifteen minutes of no response, I get out of bed, throw on some clothes and clean the living room, the kitchen, the bathrooms, the toilets, the garage, the everything. Because I’m lost.

So lost.

And scared.

I’m so damn scared.

It’s after three in the morning when I hear the front door open. I know because I’m sitting in bed, Kindle in my hand pretending to read like I’ve been doing for the past four hours. His footsteps are heavy as he trudges down the hallway, his body crashing into the walls. Muffled grunts belonging to two voices I don’t recognize get louder as they approach the bedroom.

Dylan stops in the doorway held up by two other guys.

He’s drunk.

Beyond drunk.

He doesn’t even see me watching him, his head lowered as he takes the few steps to get to the bed, falling chest first into it.

“Hey Riley,” one of the guys says. He’s built like Dylan with dark skin and even darker eyes. He doesn’t step foot in the room, just holds on to the doorframe. “Banks said we could crash in your guestroom.”

The leaner guy standing next to him laughs.

“What did you do to him?” I ask, shifting my gaze from Dylan’s passed out frame to them.

The darker guy struggles to stand upright, his hand going to his forehead in an attempted salute. “We didn’t do anything, Ma’am Sir Ma’am,” he almost shouts.

Frustrated, I kick off the sheets, ignoring Dylan’s moan as I stand up.

“Nice legs,” one of them says. I look up to see the leaner guy watching me, his eyes focused on my bare legs. “His pictures of you didn’t do justice, Ma’am.”

“Watch your fucking mouth, Leroy,” Dylan mumbles, his words muffled by the bed. He still hasn’t gotten up. His torso’s on the bed, his knees are on the floor.

I grab spare blankets out of the linen closet and open the door to the guestroom. They thank me, politely, before moving to opposite sides of the bed. Leroy murmurs something about how good it’ll be to sleep in an actual bed. I step into the room, closing the door behind me as they start to strip out of their clothes. “Did something happen over there?”

Leroy looks at me like I’m stupid. “Everything happens over there, Ma’am.”

“Quit calling me Ma’am. I’m younger than you are.”

He chuckles. “Sorry.”

“Where’s Dave?”

Leroy smirks. “What? We not good enough, Riley?”

“No.” I shake my head. “I just assumed that he’d be… where is he?”

Conway answers. “Dave’s… unavailable.”

“What happened in the past few weeks—”

Leroy sighs, cutting me off. “Good night, Ma’am.”

Forty-One

Dylan

“Thanks for letting us crash here for the weekend, Riley,” Conway says as Riley places the plate full of bacon, eggs and toast on the table in front of me. Even though I refuse to look at her, I know she’s watching me. I can feel it. She’s probably wondering when it was exactly that she agreed to having two strange men stay in our house.

If I could find it in myself to look at her, to actually speak to her, I’d tell her the answer was never. She never agreed to it, but I had no choice. Besides, I wanted them here. Because they’re the only ones who understood.

They called last night and asked if I wanted to escape. They didn’t ask if I wanted to hang out, go drinking or go somewhere and fucking talk. They said escape.

So we did. We escaped to a bar full of military veterans who didn’t fucking judge us. We drank and we drank and we drank some more, until the numb caused by the alcohol overpowered the fucking pain living and breathing in each of us.

But I felt it the most, and they knew that. I could tell by the way they looked at me, by the way they bought drink after drink after goddamn drink until I felt nothing.

And I wanted to feel nothing—especially after they kept patting me on the back, toasting to Dave and to me—his best friend. Every time they mentioned it I drank some more, praying that they were fucking wrong. Because I wasn’t his best friend. I wasn’t worthy of it.

If I was, I should’ve been able to stop him. But more than that, I should’ve been able to see it coming way before he bled his heart out to me.

All those times he wanted to talk. All those missed calls and messages I never fucking returned… He even sat and listened to me talk about Riley while he was fucking dying on the inside and he never said a word.

He shouldn’t have had to.