Page 99 of High Velocity

I reluctantly release my grandson to his father’s care.

Bruce Jonas Hart. BJ in short.

I about lost my shit when Stephanie announced it. Named for Jackson’s father and for me. Thought my fucking heart was going to explode.

Jesus. A new life, named after me.

I don’t know if Jackson and Stephanie realize what they’ve given me.

When Jackson disappears with BJ, I get to my feet and catch Bo’s eye, nudging my head to the front of the house. Fletch already caught on and is moving in the same direction, and I see James handing his granddaughter off to her mother. I’m not sure where Sully is, but he’ll figure it out.

Shrugging on my winter coat, I check the inside pocket for the cigars I packed in there when we left our place earlier, and step outside.

“Figured you’d find your way out here shortly,” Sully says, already perched on the railing.

The other three file out behind me, James with a bottle of bourbon.

“Forget the glasses?”

“Nah, figure we can drink it like we used to,” he suggests.

There were only a few occasions I can remember we’d actually have a nice bottle of liquor to share after an assignment—often times it was some cheap local booze with an alcohol level high enough to strip paint off walls. But those celebrations were just as important as the hard and dirty work we did every day, shoulder to shoulder in building this brotherhood we forged.

A brotherhood that still feels as strong as it was almost a lifetime ago.

I hand out cigars while James breaks the seal on the bourbon and passes it around.

This is what I wanted, all those years ago when I aged out and discovered I missed that brotherhood so fiercely, I had to find a way to get it back. And I did, with the ranch and High Mountain Trackers. That’s all I wanted.

But what I didn’t bank on was that each of us would find a way to make that life even better, and richer, when we let love in.

“We were so sure we had the world by the balls back then,” I suggest. “If our former selves could see us now—married, a fucking house full of kids, and now the start of a third generation—we’d have laughed so hard.”

Everyone nods in agreement, but it’s Bo who responds.

“We were fucking tools.”