The edges of Beau’s mouth turned down, and he looked almost as sad as I felt. He and Axel had always gotten along pretty well, probably because my brother lived halfway across the country and didn’t have to see Ax’s hands and lips on his baby sister on a daily basis. “Maybe you’ll feel differently one day. You’re going to be this amazing doctor, and you’re hot, so men will be falling all over themselves for you.”

I smirked. “You think I’m hot?”

“Uh, negative. You’re my sister, and that would be weird. But I do think you’re very beautiful,” he said, making me blush. “My friends think you’re hot, though.”

“Your friends actually told you that they think I’m hot?”

“Well, no. Not in so many words. Because then I would have to strangle them. But I can tell. You remember Tank?” Waylon Hanford, a.k.a Tank, was one of Beau’s SEAL buddies that I had met a couple of times.

“Uh, yeah. It’s a little difficult to forget a mountain sitting in your living room,” I said with an eye roll. “He ate an entire bag of spicy pork rinds in one swallow.”

“He told me a couple of weeks ago that he thought you had pretty eyes, and Hawk…”

We got to the front of the line before he could finish, and the salesclerk asked how she could help us today. “I need a new iPhone, please.”

“We offer a rebate if you turn in your old phone.”

“Yeah, well, it’s kind of destroyed.”

“Oh, we take them in any condition,” she said with a smile.

Beau piped up. “Well, there was a vomit incident. I have the phone in the car in a hazmat bag if you want me to go get it.”

He took a step back and started to turn toward the door, but the woman’s voice reached dog-whistle levels as she shrieked, “No! There’s no need for that.” She cleared her throat and blinked rapidly a few times before continuing in a conciliatory tone. “I’ll just give you, say, a hundred dollars toward a new one?”

Beau practically glared a hole through her skull as he grunted, “Make it two hundred, or I’m bringing the puke phone in.”

The woman’s eyes widened, and I was pretty sure she peed her pants a little. “Okay, two hundred sounds super great,” she chirped with false enthusiasm, turning back to click around on her computer. “Would you like to keep the same number? We can transfer all your contacts, as well.”

I thought about how tempting it would be to call Axel once I calmed down. Or how easy it would be for him to call me, and I decided to take the chickenshit way out. “No, I think I would like to start fresh,” I told her, and Beau squeezed my shoulder gently.