“You’re too good for this life, brother.”
He smiles. “That’s kind of you,” he says. “But that’s not the word I’d use.”
“What is the word you’d use?”
“I’m a coward, little brother,” Sean says.
“That’s not fucking true,” I say, furious that he would even use the word.
He doesn’t take it back.
“If I weren’t a coward, I’d have stayed and spoken to the men. I would have found the girl, apologized to her myself. I would have said goodbye to Kian.”
“That doesn’t mean a damn—”
“Instead, I’ve passed the responsibility to you, my younger brother,” Sean tells me. “Because I know you’re twice the man I am.”
“Jesus,” I say. “Are you trying to make me fucking cry?”
Sean laughs. “I won’t tell if you do.”
The bus station is quiet when we arrive. There are three buses in the lot, only one of which is scheduled to leave in the next few minutes.
Sean buys a ticket. I walk him to the front door of the idling vehicle.
His expression warms as he turns to me. “I’ll see you around, kid.”
He hasn’t used “kid” on me since I surpassed him in height three years ago. My eyes mist up as I reach out and wrap my arms around him.
He returns the hug for a long minute before he finally breaks it.
When we part and he sees my unshed tears glistening in the overhead light, he smiles softly.
“If you tell anyone about this, I’ll fucking kill you,” I warn him.
He chuckles. “I believe you.”
“I’m practically don now,” I tell him. “I have unlimited resources at my disposal.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
He pats my shoulder and gets onto the first step of the bus. “Don’t hate me too much,” he requests, glancing back at me over his shoulder.
“Never.”
“And take care of them for me,” he says. “All of them.”
I nod. Sean mounts the final stair.
Turns.
Slips deeper into the bus.
Then the doors close on him with a final wheeze. I stand dead still as the bus slowly pulls out of the massive lot.
I expect the loss to engulf me immediately, but it doesn’t.
I just linger there, feeling numb.