“I don’t understand,” I say.
Legend’s mouth tightens. “I’ve been told I handle family like territory.”
I glance at Derby.
He looks away, which means he agrees and probably said it or thought it loudly enough for Legend to hear.
Legend keeps going. “I don’t know how to be a brother to a woman who just walked into my life carrying Mike’s blood.”
I let out a shaky laugh.
“Yeah.” His eyes soften by one painful inch. “But I know how not to be Mike.”
The words hit both of us.
Me because Mike left.
Legend because Mike came back and stayed wrong. Left damage anyway.
“This ain’t a cage,” Legend says. “Yours fair and square. Or you leave. Or you move closer to town. Or you decide Kentucky can go to hell and take the long road back to Oregon. Your choice.”
My eyes burn.
“Why?”
He looks uncomfortable.
Good.
Men should have to squirm when being decent.
“Because my sister deserves it.”
My breath catches.
My sister.
He says it like a fact now.
I look at the keys in his hand.
Then at Derby.
His face is rough with emotion he refuses to name.
This hurts him.
I see it.
Moving out of his house hurts him.
It hurts me too.
Derby’s house had become cereal boxes and burned pancakes and cracked bedroom doors. It had become August sleeping safe and Derby pretending not to care that the dinosaur courthouse had taken over his living room. It had become the place I learned wanting did not have to cost me safety.
But I can’t go from Jeremy’s house to Derby’s bed to a life built only under another man’s roof, even if that man asks before he touches and gives keys instead of taking them.
I need a door that is mine. That locks. I take the keys from Legend. They are heavier than they should be.