“Yeah. I could—well. We could do this. If that’s what you wanted. Stay in the Green Monstrosity. Start here.”

“What about the Kid?”

I took a deep breath and said the one thing I never thought I’d say. “We can’t let him decide what our future is going to be. He’s… old enough. To make his own decisions. To make his own mistakes. The best we can do is be here if he needs to come home again. And I’m probably going to contradict that daily, so. Fair warning.”

“Even if he wants to go back to New Hampshire?”

“Even if,” I said.

Liar, it whispered.

THE KID was in love with Dominic.

I knew that.

I knew that.

It still took me by surprise.

But I was even more surprised when he started picking himself up.

Putting himself back together.

Piece by piece by piece.

I made sure he knew I was there.

But I still stepped back and let him do what he could on his own.

It hurt.

It was the right thing to do.

HE WENT back to therapy with Eddie Eagan.

I would have thought his license would have been revoked by now.

The damn beads still hung from the doorway.

And on and on it went.

WE CELEBRATED the Kid’s birthday.

My family plotted something against Gross Tree Bush Thing.

I had to step in to stop them because I loved it almost more than any of them.

“I WANT everything to go back the way it was,” he told me.

“It wasn’t always that great.”

“We had our moments, you and me.”

“We did, didn’t we?”

“Yeah, Papa Bear.”

“I’ll kill him, you know.”

That startled him. “What? Who?”

“Dominic.”

“Bear—”

“If he hurts you, I’ll kill him. I don’t care that he’s family. I don’t care that he’s one of us. You were mine first, and I swear on all that I have, if he does you wrong, it’ll be the last thing he does.” I said this because no matter how much I disliked the idea, no matter how much I wanted him to be better before it happened, even I could see where they were headed. Dominic and Ty, it was just…. It was almost like it was inevitable.

We’re brothers, right?

Sure, Kid. Brothers.

And brothers stick together no matter what.

No matter what.

I CLUTCHED him close the morning he left for Tucson, eyeing Dominic warily over his shoulder, thinking, Please don’t hurt him. Please don’t hurt him.

And as they drove away, it felt like the end of one thing and the beginning of another.

HE WAS going to her.

I thought I was going insane.