The Kane Brothers

Chapter 2 — Jax

"Man, come on. You can't sit around all day and just play... hold up, is this War Cry? When did it release?" Denver drops onto the couch next to me, picking up a controller. "After this round, add me. I want in." He settles back against the lumpy cushions.

"All right," I agree, emptying my clip into an enemy and waiting for my kill count to increase. Once I've secured the area, I pause the game, saving my progress, and navigate back to the main menu, so I can play against my brother.

"You know, for someone who's been in a real war, you think you'd get tired of this shit," he mutters, scrolling through battlefield options before selecting a jungle in Vietnam.

Our setting and players load and the TV screen morphs into a war zone.

Reality shifts as memories and forgotten moments suddenly flood my mind.

A blur of onscreen bullets transports me to overwhelming heat and loud noises. Fear swells in my gut, eating at my stomach like acid, as I try to dodge real enemy fire. Ethan flickers before me, his blood seeping hot and angry from his chest and I open my mouth to call out just as Den curses beside me. Jumping in my seat at his voice, I swallow back the dread creeping up my throat and try to quiet my breathing. Ignoring Denver’s concerned look, I shake my head to warn off his questions as onscreen me tosses a grenade.

We’ve only been playing a few minutes when Carter bounds through the door and presses power on the game console, ending our play and blacking out the television screen.

"What the fuck?" Denver tosses the controller onto the coffee table in front of us.

"Get up." Carter orders, kicking my feet off the coffee table and leveling Denver with a glare. "You've been home over a week." He turns his gaze back to me. "You can't just sit around all day and pretend to shoot fake people. You gotta get out and see your friends and act, I don't know, normal. This mopey shit is getting old.”

"Man, I'm sorry, Carter. I didn't realize that my being here, settling back in, is so difficult for you to fucking handle." I jump to my feet, my posture defensive, tone full of sarcasm.

Denver heaves a sigh beside me. "Let's go get a beer," he suggests.

I laugh, but the sound is hard and jarring, not like a laugh at all.

"Fine," Carter agrees.

Under the scrutiny of both my big brothers’ stares, I shrug, tugging hard on the back of my neck.

Following them out of the house and piling into Denver's old black SUV, I'm reminded by all the times we did exactly this: three brothers hanging out, driving around with the windows open and the radio blaring, searching for a good time. It used to be our norm, as customary as ordering pizza on Friday nights, eating the cold leftovers on Saturday mornings, and watching football on Sundays. But that was before.

Seven long years have passed, and I'm back now, feeling my way around a familiarity that is no longer comfortable.

Staring out the window, I watch the crummy shithole of a town I grew up in pass by. The houses are all the same—more worse for wear now, but still standing. I see the high school and football field and general store. The pharmacy and supermarket and old movie theater. Everything is exactly as it was when I left, but it feels different now, like it’s a façade. It should have changed. How could seven years pass, how could the world be ripped apart and parts of it haphazardly sewn back together, how could a man like Ethan die in a land so far from his family, and my tiny hometown in Georgia remain constant?

"You know, she might be there tonight," Denver says. His voice is cautious.

"Who?"

Carter and Denver exchange a glance that is so obvious, I'd have to be blind to have missed it.

"Evie," Carter says clearly, an undercurrent to his tone.

I continue to stare out the window, the cool glass pressing against my forehead. Even this, the silence that stretches between us, feels forced. They watch me warily out of the corners of their eyes, gauging my reaction to things, testing me to see if I'll smile or snap.

"I just wanted you to know, so you're not caught off guard."

"Okay."

"Sometimes, she meets her friends for a drink. Jenny Bailey and Miranda Harris from high school, remember them?"

"Mm-hmm."

"Jenny's a nurse now."

I close my eyes, feigning disinterest but hanging on to every word Carter mumbles. I've only been back a week, and since the second I learned she was in town, I've picked up the phone more than a hundred times to press the buttons for the Maywood Residence. Absorbing as much information as I can from Carter's nervous rambling, I soak up every detail he offers about Evie Maywood. The general's daughter. The all-around good girl who was determined to change the world the last time I saw her.

"Did you keep in touch with her at all?" Denver's deep voice catches me off-guard.

"Evie?” I work a swallow, just saying her name causes a surge of feelings and memories to unfold in my mind. “I tried. I’m not sure what happened. I reached out a few times over that summer and things between us were okay, not great but not awful. I called her the weekend before she reported to West Point and she blew me off. Told me to let her go, to stop playing head games by keeping in touch. She asked me not to contact her again.” I bang my forehead lightly against the window, a distraction from the pain of that conversation. Seven years ago it was devastating, today it’s still pretty brutal. Guess that saying “time heals all wounds” is bullshit.

Denver whistles lowly but doesn’t press for more details which is a relief but also irritates me. I miss talking about Evie. With the exception of Ethan, I never mentioned her to the other guys who were constantly bragging about the women they had waiting for them back stateside. One, because most of their brags were bullshit. And two, because Evie was never waiting for me. It’s been a long time since I’ve said her name aloud and now that I have, I want to keep going. My brothers knew her, know her, almost as well as me.

"Miranda works at a daycare," Carter supplies randomly, continuing to fill the silence with life details of people we've gone to high school with.

The entire time, my thoughts are caught on Evie. The thump in my chest grows louder, ringing in my eardrums as we approach Raf's. Suddenly, I feel both desperate to lay eyes on her and to never see her again. Will she be here tonight? Do I want her to be? Will she be happy to see me?

Nervous energy builds in my limbs, anxious for a release. My left knee bounces up and down while my fingers tap out a beat on the side of the SUV door.

Carter and Denver exchange another look as Carter pulls into a parking space and kills the engine. I exhale, trying to expel some of the electricity jumping around in my veins.

We're here.

* * *

Raf's is a hole-in-the-wall bar that's been around since the inception of our town, way back in the late 1800s. Sure, it’s changed a lot since then, but the general spirit is the same: old-timers bitching about new ways of life, has-beens and cougars trying to score a lay with the younger population, the usual military lot, and everyone in between who lives around here and hates it. But you can get a decent burger and fries, a pint, and, if the bartender likes you, a bourbon for eight bucks even. And even though it has been seven years, I’d bet my life that that hasn’t changed. What's not to love?

Walking in, the heavy smell of peanuts, stale beer, and frying oil, of something distinctly Raf's, hits me square in the chest and floods me with snippets of memories I’d forgotten about. Some of them are of me and my brothers kicking it here when we had nowhere else to go. Others are of the guys on my old football team and how we’d end up here for burgers after tough practices to bitch about Coach. But most of them scrape at old wounds and I wish I could just forget. Most of them feature her.

We take a booth in the back, near the darts. A couple of guys shoot pool in the corner. The speakers belt out an old throwback tune I haven't heard in forever but somehow brings me back to high school. The corners of my mouth tick up as a swell of nostalgia grips me.

Denver drops into the booth. "Glad we came?"

I slide in across from him. "Yeah. It was a good idea."

"Told ya," Carter says, ambling off to the bar to grab a few beers.

I take a look around, breathing in the familiarity of the place. A place that once was as consistent and comforting to me as my own home. Raf’s can be pretty rowdy at night but during the day, it’s full of old-timers reminiscing, families grabbing a bite, and everyone capping their meals with a piece of cherry pie on the days that Gladys baked. Scanning the bar, my eyes sweep over people I remember now that they're before me, but haven't thought of once while I was gone: Petey from the tackle shop, Jack from the bank, Vivian who won homecoming queen Denver's senior year.

My eyes settle on a girl toward the end of the bar. Her back is to me, her hair down. I pause, narrowing my gaze. A natural pull keeps my eyes trained on her. A realization sweeps through me, causing my palms to break out in a sweat.

Denver shifts across from me, following my line of sight. He whistles under his breath. "She's here."

I can't believe it's her. Even with her back to me, I can tell. I know the outline of her body, the way her dark hair falls around her shoulders, the delicate curve of her neck. Eons could pass, and still I would know her.

My eyes narrow at her thin frame, note the way her shoulders poke through the fabric of her shirt. She turns toward me then and I realize her skin is two shades too pale and a heavy tiredness hugs her eyes. She’s my Maywood, but not.

I feel bulldozed. As if the universe is playing a masterful trick on me. Is it really her? So much time and space are between us; we're different people than we once were, and still it's as if I'm transported back to high school, walking onto the football field. And instead of thinking about the next play, I'm trying to figure out how to approach and impress the beautiful girl that is so far out of my league, a ninety-yard Hail Mary couldn't bring her closer.

Her gaze sweeps over me suddenly, her eyes meeting mine as I stand, my focus zeroed in on her.

She freezes, her shoulders stiffening.

"You sure about this, Jax?"

I take another step, walking toward her. A flicker of uncertainty in her deep blue eyes has me pausing for just a second. Her face is impassive as she looks away. If it weren't for the clenching of her hands and her tight grip on the underside of the bar, I wouldn't think I affected her at all.

But I know I do.

I always have.