Page 10 of Rhodes

"You're not. I'm offering it."

He finishes his beer without a word, keeping his eyes forward.

"It's Tallulah," I say after a few minutes. "She's practically my sister, too. Your family's my family, man. I'm responsible enough to make sure she comes home at night, isn't getting herself into trouble, and goes to class."

The beer's gone warm in my hand somewhere in there. I don't drink it.

He's quiet for a long moment. Then he sets his empty bottle down on the rail and puts the heels of both hands against his eyes and lets out a breath with a crack running through the middle of it.

"You know, that isn't a terrible idea."

I smile, satisfied with myself. I look at the woodpecker's tree, studying the little holes he's drilled into the pine bark.

Neither one of us says a single word about the fact that he's crying a little on my porch, or that I'm fighting back the frog rising in my throat. My old man never had a word for it either, and Granger raised his kids and half-raised me the same exact way. So we just sit in it, and let it be a thing that's happening, and wait for it to pass.

"I trust you," he says, once the voice comes back level. "I've run every version of me leaving in my head for the last week, and your idea is the only one where I might be able to go and not worry myself sick."

"Thank you, Bro. You can trust me."

He drops his hands. His red eyes are dead serious. "Let me think about it a little, but if you're serious, I might take you up on it."

"I'm serious as a heart attack."

He nods slowly, like something is settling back into place. "You know our families have always stepped up for each other, right? Looking out for Tilly is exactly what my folks did for y'all."

I don't answer because that's exactly what happened. Of my five brothers, I was the closest to the Maybanks.

My mother died when I was four. I don't remember her, not really, just the stories other people tell about the two of us before she was gone.

What I have instead is the Maybank house. Lizzy set me a place at a table that was already crowded. Granger pushed a rod into my hands and told me not to embarrass him on the water.

And when somebody murdered my father three and a half years ago, making me an orphan for real, the Maybanks closed around us again without anyone asking.

Cooper's right. It's just what we do for each other.

"How about this? I'll talk to her this weekend about it. Fair warning, though, brother, she is going to be hot about it."

"She gets all twisted about everything. I know how to handle her."

He grins, tired and hollowed out and lighter by half all at once. "Good luck. She's gonna eat you alive."

My phone buzzes twice against my knee. I turn it over.

The first one's from Reeves, one of my five older brothers. I'm glad he's finally back close to the family, so we get to see each other more. Mostly, we come out here and ride dirt bikes. He left for the military as soon as he graduated from college and didn't look back.

See you in two hours, dickhead.

Two hours puts us both downtown for the capital allocation meeting, all six of us in a room on the fiftieth floor to raise our hands about a number that got settled before anybody walked in the door.

For most of my childhood, Reeves was a signature on a Christmas card, and that was about the extent of our relationship. He's now out of the Navy for a couple of years and living an hour outside the city with his girl, Charli, and their two kids, which is nice having him closer.

Of the five of them, he's the one I've got the most in common with, which mostly means neither of us talks, and we would both rather put our hands on a thing than sit down and discuss it. We repointed the chimney at the cabin together last summer, and I doubt we traded forty words in two days.

He's also the only one who has never once looked at me like I'm the baby.

The second text is from Ridge.

Stay after today. I want ten minutes with you.