Garrett sat at the bar, staring at the mason jar. One of the girls had painted it. On one side was a white Bible and on the other, a gold cross. Inside was the best friend he ever had and although he’d been expecting it for months, he didn’t quite know what to do with it. Garrett was no stranger to death to be sure, but Saint was the first person close to him that he’d been on good terms with when he lost them. He knew that should make it easier, but it didn’t. There was a party going on around him, because that’s what Saint wanted...but he couldn’t bring himself to join in.

He felt Paige’s hand on his shoulder, and he reached up and covered her hand with his. “Hey, you okay?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. I guess I’m not sure how to process this. I thought I was ready...but fuck, baby, I’m going to miss the hell out of him.”

She laid her head against his back. “I know you will. And it’s okay to be sad.”

“He didn’t want me to be, though. He made me promise we’d have this big damned party and I’d get drunk...but all I want to do is grieve for him.”

“Then do that. Saint of all people would understand. Wasn’t he the one that told you to tell people how you felt, and be honest with your feelings?”

“You told me that too.”

She smiled at him in the mirror behind the bar. “I love you for remembering one of the million things I’ve said while lecturing you...but Saint gets credit for you getting in touch with your feelings, and I’m okay with that. I think he’d be okay with you just being sad today.”

“Paige?”

“Yeah, baby?”

“I don’t want to do this anymore.”

She slid her hand across his shoulders and sat down on the stool next to him. “Do what, baby?”

He looked around the club. “This...what I’ve done here and what I do for this club. I don’t want my life to be club first any longer. I want it to be family first and I want you and Jessie to be my family...and I want to make more, and I want to be a man that they can all look up to and be proud of.”

Paige had tears in her eyes. “Are you proposing something here, big guy?”

He smiled. “Kind of. As usual I’m ill prepared. I don’t even have a ring.”

Paige got the prospect’s attention behind the bar and said, “Can I have that O-ring there, the one next to the beer tap?” He handed it to her with a funny look. It was a black silicone ring that kept the beer from leaking out around the nozzle. She handed it to Garrett. “Will this work?”

He smiled again and took it. “I guess since everything else we’ve done so far has been so weird, this may as well be too.”

“Ask me to marry you, Garrett.”

He slid off the stool and put his knee on the floor. People partying around them stopped to watch. “Will you marry me, Paige?”

She put her hands on his face and kissed him. “I thought you’d never ask.” Then she held out her left hand and let him slide the O-ring on her finger. “It’s perfect,” she said, with tears in her eyes.

“Hot damn! Bear’s getting hitched!” Munchkin announced it to the room and everyone surrounded them to wish them congratulations. When it was Trigger’s turn he said:

“You’re getting a good man.”

Paige smiled. “I know, but thank you for saying that.”

“It’s true,” he said. “Except for that one time when he knocked my teeth out, he’s okay.”

Paige giggled. “I’m sorry, but that still makes me laugh.” Trigger glanced over where the quiet and moody Scrubs was sitting and said:

“You won’t be laughing if that sadist ever gets ahold of you. It’s a miracle I’m still so good-looking.” Paige rolled her eyes at that and turned her attention back to Garrett. He’d been watching the exchange and he was smiling.

“What’s that smug look for?” she asked.

“You were the only woman that ever chose me over that pretty boy, and damn, am I glad.”

“You’re not just keeping me to make him jealous, are you?”

“Mm-hmm.” She punched him in the arm and he laughed and wrapped her up, pulling her into his chest. “I love you, Paige, thank you for saving my life.”

“Back at you, kidnapper. I love you so much.”

* * *

A few hours later, they were all out near Hoover Dam. They’d piled into the two vans and one SUV the club owned, and the sober prospects had driven them out. Garrett was glad that most of them were drunk already because he’d been to funerals of brothers where people were sober, and they could get ugly. Garrett was the only brother that was stone cold sober. He’d thought about getting drunk, and chasing away some of the pain, but that seemed cowardly to him somehow. Saint wanted him to learn how to feel...and how to talk about his feelings...so today, in Saint’s honor, he was going to do both.

“Okay, let me have your attention up here,” Monkey said, like he was calling church to order. “I know a bunch of us would like to say a thing or two about Saint. But the thing is, it’s about to get dark and I don’t like being in the middle of the desert when I can’t see what the fuck is crawling up my pant leg. So, Bear’s gonna do the talking and y’all can all say goodbye on your own time, in your own way.”

Garrett felt like he was going to throw up as soon as all eyes were on him. He felt Paige reach over and take his hand, and there was something in hers. He looked down and saw that she had put Saint’s gold cross in his palm. She smiled up at him then with tears in her pretty eyes, and suddenly it didn’t matter who else was looking at him. He loved her so much, and he also felt like Saint was looking down at them. He opened his mouth and probably for the first time in his life, the words just poured out.

“I met Saint when he was about twelve years old. He was running to catch a train and ran right into a car. I didn’t even know him yet, but something made me insist on riding to the hospital with him. See, I’d noticed him earlier, sitting in the restaurant. He was a pale, skinny kid and he looked both fascinated by the rough-looking bikers and afraid to be out in the world alone. Saint wasn’t supposed to make it. The doctors told his parents to say their goodbyes. But that little shit had other plans. He wasn’t ready to go yet. For those of you who really knew him, you all know that Saint did more drinking and working than he did anything else. He never seemed like he was enjoying his own life...but he always seemed like he was enjoying everyone else’s.”

The people in the crowd nodded and there was a low rumble as they all agreed. Saint wasn’t necessarily a nosy guy, but he was always checking in to make sure everyone else was okay. Garrett just took that for granted, even after Beau. “Saint had me from the moment I saw him because he reminded me of somebody. That someone is a person that most of you have never heard of, because I’ve always found it too painful to talk about him. My own pain was always more important than anything else. But today I want to tell you about him. He was my little brother and his name was Beau.

“Beau came into my life at a bad time. I’d lost my mother and I was angry about it. I was resentful of him for having a mother and what I saw as trying to take my dad from me. He was a pale, skinny kid who was both fascinated by me and terrified. I was a big, scared kid, and I turned all that fear into anger and I focused most of it on Beau. But no matter what I did, or how I treated him, he kept following me around. It annoyed me and it just made me meaner. It seemed that the meaner I was, the more determined he was to break through those walls. Then one day I watched Beau die. I held him while he bled to death and in those few moments I thought of everything I wish I’d said to him.

“He was stronger than me. Not physically, but emotionally for sure. I’d been grieving over my mother for six years by that time. Beau lost his dad when he was only five and when I met him it had only been a year...but he was okay. He talked about his dad and he missed him, but he didn’t feel sorry for himself. Beau put everyone else before himself. He was just this little bitty thing and he was the baby. He could have manipulated anything he wanted out of his mom, or even my old man for that matter...but he didn’t. The fact is, he was one of the most unselfish people I’ve ever known. If there was only one cookie, or one cupcake in the house, he wouldn’t eat it, until he offered it to me first. Of course, I always took it.” Garrett’s voice cracked as he said, “I remember holding him in the ambulance while they were trying to pry him out of my arms and telling him if he wouldn’t die I would always let him have the last cookie.” He had to stop for a few seconds and compose himself. His heart felt like it was breaking all over again.

“Anyways,” he began again, “Saint was so much like him. Saint’s life before he came to us was shit, basically. He was abused and neglected, and he was told every day that he was going to hell. But what those people didn’t know or understand about my brother Saint was that he refused to believe them. It didn’t matter what happened in his life, he believed that he was going to have as much of a chance as anyone else of getting into those pearly gates. No matter what he went through, he held onto something that I lost a long time ago...hope. He always had a smile for you, no matter what. He always had something positive to say. Just like with Beau, I never saw it, until it was almost too late. Saint sacrificed his life for me, but that wasn’t the greatest gift I got from him. What I got was a second chance to be a decent big brother and according to him, I guess I did okay. The other thing I got was hope. He taught me that no matter how bleak things look, there’s always hope...you just have to accept what you can’t change and move past it, and keep on hoping for the best.

“Saint and Beau were the two bravest people I ever met and the hope I have in my heart isn’t for them, because I know they both charmed their way into heaven. Saint’s probably up there right now, making a toast. The hope I hold in my heart today is for me...that someday I might be as brave as the little boy who lost his father, had to share his mother, and looked up to a brother that treated him like shit...and never lost hope. And that someday, when I have to face the prospect of dying, I can do it with as much dignity as my brother Saint. Because in his immortal words...what choice do I really have? Thanks.”

Paige grabbed his hand again and squeezed it. Garrett hadn’t realized as he was talking that tears were rolling down his face. He reached up with the other hand and wiped them away and then he squeezed Paige’s hand and let it go, and opened up the jar. As he turned it over and let the desert wind take his best friend away he whispered, “I love you, brother, both of you.”