The four of them remained where they were—Cole in between Gabe and Drake on the couch, Mason on an adjacent chair he’d pulled close, all of them with their long legs stretched in front of them—and they talked, all four of them. They shared Mom stories, laughed, predicted what kind of patient she would be for the next week plus, started discussions of post-hospital care, joked about who could cook Sunday dinners that would meet her approval.

Easy answer was no one.

For those minutes that stretched into a couple of hours, Mason stopped directing, Gabe quit worrying about everyone, Drake turned off the eternal charm button and was just their brother, and Cole managed to quit acting like an asshole.

They rehashed dozens of times they’d gotten into trouble over the years, reminiscing about their mom’s reactions to the shit five boys could pull. She’d never hesitated to discipline them, both before and after their dad’s death, and there were times when she’d lost her cool, so many times, but what it came down to was that she was the best mom anyone could ask for. As different as the North boys were, they could all agree on that.

Mason brought up the time in grade school when Zane and Drake had pulled off keeping a squirrel from the yard as a pet in their walk-in closet for nine days. They’d fashioned a litter box out of a shoebox, fed it Planters nuts from the family snack stash in the pantry, and only gotten caught when their mom had gone in their closet to put something away and discovered that squirrels do not take to litter boxes. She wasn’t sure what kind of critter infestation they had until the squirrel, who’d been nesting down under a pile of dirty clothes, dashed out of its hiding place and scared the daylights out of her. The hours-long attempt to get the animal out of the house had elicited their mom’s most creative, epic streams of swear words that any of them had ever heard.

As the four brothers held their abs and wiped their eyes from laughing, a tall, built male nurse came in to tell them they could visit their mom one at a time. That sobered them up quickly, and Cole straightened, his mind filled with images of breathing tubes and wires and IVs and all the other crap the doctor had warned them about.

Mason stood, obviously thinking to go first, as was his way, but Gabe moved forward to the edge of the couch and held up a hand. He eyed Cole, then addressed Mason. “Let Cole go first.”

Mason’s brows crinkled together at Gabe, then he looked at Cole and shrugged. “Sure. Don’t wear her out, Cole. The nurse said two minutes.”