“Nate! Hurry up! Nate, we’re already running late!” I yelled up the stairs. “Mom and Dad left over an hour ago!” Standing in the foyer, waiting on my brother to hurry his ass up, I watched as Ryan Axston sped down the street in his brother’s old truck and my heart broke all over again. Ryan was my brother’s best friend and a few years older than me. We had all grown up together, and I couldn’t even begin to wrap my head around the fact that one of us was dead. Cameron was like the token big brother to all of us, and now we were going to have to face the next stages of life without his words of wisdom or stupid jokes. He’d never buy us beer for a bonfire or take us mudding in his Bronco again. He’d never give me a hard time for still having braces when I was sixteen or the fact that I was scared to death to drive on the interstate.

“Nate!” I shrilled as I tried to fight the tears that were threatening to waterfall down my face.

“Jeez! Don’t get your panties all twisted. Ryan told me it goes for six hours. Why the hell do we need to stand around surrounded by crying people for that long? Cam would have told us to make an appearance and then get the fuck out of there.” My brother jogged down the stairs as coolly as possible. Even though he was right, I was pissed that he was being so disrespectful.

“How are you not fucked up over all of this?” I grabbed my car keys and swung open the front door, nearly hitting Nate in the face as he started to follow me.

He just shrugged while locking the door behind us. “I have to keep it together for Ry. He’s the one that lost a brother. I’m going to miss Cameron as much as anyone, but I don’t want to be selfish.”

I narrowed my eyes at Nate while grabbing his dark blue tie to straighten the knot. “I just don’t get you sometimes.” I smoothed out the skirt of my black dress, wishing I had listened to my mother before she left when she warned me that my dress needed ironing.

“No one is going to be looking at your wrinkles, sis,” Nathan said gently, reading my mind as he hooked his arm around my neck. He tucked me into his side to guide me down the front steps and to my car. “Let me drive. You’re in no shape to be behind the wheel right now.”

I shoved my keys into his hand and went around to the other side of my Jeep Cherokee. “Have you talked to Ryan at all?”

Shaking his head, Nate got into the front seat. “He isn’t returning anyone’s calls.”

* * *

“Have you seen or heard from Ryan?” my mother asked in a whisper as she met me in the front room of the funeral home. She gripped my hand in hers, kissing my cheek. “I don’t think anyone can find him and I’m starting to get a little worried about him.” Her chilly fingers laced with mine as her brokenness leapt from her hazel eyes. My mother was a fragile woman, and this tragedy was hitting her hard.

“Only him driving a little while ago. He should have beaten us here,” I answered, walking over to the dark funeral parlor. Stopping in the doorway, I scanned the room; Ryan was nowhere to be found. His tall, stalky frame and almost midnight black eyes could be picked out from a crowd in an instant.

I turned to find that my brother was right behind me. “Nate? Should we go look for him?” I asked, rotating away from my mother.

My brother rubbed his hand over face while groaning. “I’ll step out and call him real quick. Let’s not start worrying all of the parents here just yet,” he whispered into my ear.

“Yeah, good idea. Thank you.” I squeezed Nate’s hand quickly as I watched his eyes go from calm to worried instantly.

I heard him mutter, “Fuck,” under his breath as he walked out the large oak door.

“Come on sweetie, let’s see if Mrs. Axston needs anything.” Hooking my arm with hers, Mom ushered me into the middle of the room.

Cam’s and Ryan’s mother was the last person I wanted to see, but my mom was right—it was the right thing to do to check on the grief-stricken mother.

Her eyes were bloodshot, hollow, and puffy, her light brown hair was pulled into a disheveled ponytail, her skin was pale, and she looked like she’d lost fifteen pounds in a week. I had never seen Susan Axston without makeup on. She was always so prim, proper, and put together—she was the general’s wife, so she had to be.

Squeezing me to her bony chest, she wept, “Cameron always spoke so highly of you, Cassidy. Thank you so much for coming. I know it would have meant the world to him to have you here today with us.”

I hugged her back with all that I had. I wanted to put the pieces of her broken heart back together. In that moment, I would have ripped my own heart out and handed it to her if I could, if it would have made things better for her. I could feel her anguish in every cell of her body. It buzzed and consumed, blanketing the entire room.

I felt a hand on my shoulder, pulling me away from Mrs. Axston. “I got it from here, Cass.”

Ryan’s face was twisted, like contradicting emotions were fighting to dominate his expression. There was something I couldn’t put my finger on, but it made me nervous. I kissed his cheek and left him to mourn with his mother. She wailed in his arms as he wrapped her tiny frame in his broad body.

I had always had a crush on Ryan. It was something I knew I could never act on because of my brother, but watching him stand in the middle of a crowd of people, holding his mother while she wept, he seemed like a real man, and my feelings for him ignited from a crush to much more.

The wake droned on and the number of patrons remaining dwindled. Nate and I awkwardly sat in the back row watching as everyone milled about. They cried, told stories, looked at old pictures.

“It doesn’t seem real, does it?” I asked, leaning my head on my brother’s shoulder.

“What do you mean?” He put his chin on the top of my head as he took a deep breath in.

“Doesn’t it feel like Cam is just going to walk through those doors at any second and yell ‘Gotcha, bitches!’, and it’s all just going to be one sick joke?”

“I fucking wish.” Nate sighed, loosening his tie a bit.

“Hey guys,” Ryan muttered, taking a seat on the other side of Nathan. “What ‘ya say about going to having a wake of our own, the way Cam would have actually wanted us to remember him?”

Nate sat up a little straighter, pulling his cell out of his pocket. “Give me an hour and we’ll all meet in the back field.”

My brother leapt to his feet, leaving Ryan and me uncomfortably sitting in silence for a few seconds. I had never been so tongue-tied around him before, but I was not able to say two damn words to him in that moment.

A small smirk spread on his lips as Ryan stared off to the front of the room where all kinds of pictures of his brother were displayed. There were a lot from his childhood, high school football, family memories, and hanging out with friends, and then some that his friends from the military had sent.

“Ryan? What is it?” I slid into the seat that was closer to him as he put his hand on my shoulder.

“Which pictures do you think Cam looks the happiest in?” Ryan questioned, his voice low in my ear.

The feeling of his hot breath sent chills down my spine as I squinted to analyze the lot of photographs. “The military ones,” I answered.