“And then you.”
“And then me.”
“And Lock.”
I nodded.
“Lock’s only fifteen months older.”
Sloane tilted her head.
“You two seem… intense.”
I let out a quiet laugh.
“We used to be really close.”
The memories surfaced before I could stop them: growing up, sharing a room, competing over everything—grades, sports, who could hold their breath longer underwater. Lock taught me how to throw a punch when I turned twelve, then made me practice until my knuckles bled because he said nobody in his family would ever lose a fight they didn’t start.
“He’s actually the reason I joined the Marines—well, him and our dad. Dad was a career Navy officer,” I said.
Sloane looked at me with interest.
“Really?”
“Yeah. He went first—Navy—came home on leave looking like some damn war hero.” I shook my head. “To seventeen-year-old me, that might have been the coolest thing in the world.”
“So you followed him.”
“Pretty much. Other than Fiona, all of us have served. Lock the longest, then Brenna did eighteen years; she just got out. Finn left after ten, and then me, the failure: four years and booked it.”
The porch creaked as Sloane shifted beside me.
“You said you grew apart.”
“Yeah.”
I rubbed the back of my neck.
“Lock stayed in. Reenlisted, did it again after that. Made it his whole identity.”
“A lifer.”
“Exactly. And I did my time, but I knew after my first tour it wasn’t what I wanted my whole life to be.”
Sloane studied my face.
“And he didn’t like that.”
I shook my head.
“He thought I had quit.”
Her voice softened.
“Did you?”
I thought about that—really thought about it, the way I hadn’t let myself in years.