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I say it before I’ve decided to say it. So does Jax. We look at each other across the kitchen and then away again very fast, because whatever just happened between us is not a thing we are going to acknowledge out loud in front of her.

Her laugh is a beautiful sound, and I’m trying to think of something funny or clever to say so that I can hear it again.

“You say that now, but you haven’t heard my answer yet.” There it is again. Her laugh. Pure joy. “Yes, I want kids. Lots of kids. Five, maybe six?”

Five or six. She wants five or six kids. I file that away in the mental folder I have started this evening, without meaning to. The one labeled things I now know about Anna Garrison.

“So, umm, you’re foster brothers?” Anna glances between the two of us, then turns her focus back to her salad like it’s the most interesting thing in the room.

It’s not. Trust me.

Jax answers her question before I can, elaborating on how we became brothers.

“Yeah, I’m not too proud to admit Mark saved my ass my first day at the boys’ home. We were eight, no, nine. Anyway, Mark had been living there for a few months before I arrived. Knew the rules of the yard, you know? I didn’t have a clue, but I had one hell of a chip on my shoulder. My mom was a junkie, and I’d been through some shit before she overdosed. I thought I had it rough and hated the world and everyone in it. I learned real quick that I wasn’t as tough as I thought I was. The other kids, the ones who saw through my bullshit because they were just like me, only bigger and stronger, kicked my ass before my bag hit my bunk.”

“So Mark jumped in to protect you?” Anna is focused on Jax as he tells her about how we first met.

As much as I hate reliving our days in the boys’ home, that day is worth remembering. Jax isn’t my brother by blood, but by bond. That means more to me than any DNA.

“Hell no.” Jax laughs, picking up the story where he left off. “But he offered me a hand, helped me get up off the floor, and after I cleaned the blood off my face, introduced me to his friends. He’s had my back, and I’ve had his, ever since.”

“That was before your foster mom. Her name was Penny, right?”

This conversation is like picking scabs off a wound, but I get why Anna wants to know.

“Yeah, the older you are, the harder it is to get placed. The kids in the home used to say that if you weren’t fostered or adopted out by first grade, you were at the home until you aged out. But Penny had a soft spot for the troubled kids, and Mark and I sure fit the bill. So when the caseworker called, she came around to meet us. Took one look and knew we were a package deal, real brothers or not.” Jax clears his throat. He has a hard time talking about Penny too.

She asks more questions about what we were like as kids and how Penny managed to handle us as teenagers. Jax and I take turns answering them. It stings to share these memories with Anna because she should be hearing them from Penny firsthand.

But she can’t. Thanks to that son of a bitch, Patrick.

“Penny sounds like an amazing woman. You were lucky to have her.”

“She always said she was the lucky one.” Jax coughs, clears his throat, and coughs again. “I miss her every fucking day.”

“Me too. Fucking cancer.” Fucking Patrick Calhoun. I keep that to myself. No sense in reminding Anna of what almost happened to her.

I didn’t plan on sharing Penny’s illness with her. I doubt Jax did either, but she’s a good listener. She wants to know about our lives like our history is important. Before I know it, Jax and I are spilling our guts about Penny’s last days and last wishes, all the little things we did to make her comfortable. To make her last days the best days they could be. We laid our grief bare for her.

I’m still reeling from our trip down memory lane and the emptiness of life without Penny in it, that I don’t notice the tears tracking down Anna’s cheeks.

10

ANNA

“Sorry.” I scoot my stool back from the counter, knocking it over in my haste to escape Jax and Mark, and the embarrassment of breaking down in front of them, which only makes things worse. “I’m sorry.”

I’m at the peak of a complete and total ugly cry. I’m flushed and no doubt blotchy. I can almost feel the splotches spreading across my skin like a rash. Wrapping my arms around my ribcage, I try to hold back the sobs racking my body, but another manages to break free. My breathing is ragged, and my eyes burn from the tears currently in free fall over my bottom lashes. I squeeze my eyes shut in the hopes of stopping them, but the dam is broken.

Just like my heart.

Getting to know Mark and Jax, and listening to them laugh, poke, and prod each other with childhood stories was wonderful. It felt like I’d known them all my life. Like I’d been there beside them through the thick and thin of it. But when the conversation turned to Penny’s cancer, how hard it was to watch her suffer, and how they stayed by her side and took care of her until the end, all I could think about was my mom.

And how I’m failing her.

She must be worried sick. Worried sick? She is already sick. She’s dying, and I’m here doing what? Pretending to be kidnapped while I hide out from Patrick, shirking my responsibility to my family? Pretending to go on dates with two amazing, albeit misguided, men who took care of their foster mom, held her hand while she took her last breath, while I’m letting my mom die without her only child by her side? After all the sacrifices she’s made, the dreams she gave up so that I could chase after my own, just by being my mom?

God, I fucking hate myself right now.