Chapter 95

“Yeah, thanks. I will be.”

“You know you can stay here as long as you want,” he said.

“Yeah, I know. I think I am gonna stick around for a while.”

“You wanna talk about it?”

“Yeah, I do. But not right now. Not today.” He gave me a look that said “Whenever, bud,” and I smiled at him, the better to fight the tears. Standing next to him, smelling him on the coat he had brought me, I felt the love for my kid brother actually move through me, warming me more than any denim jacket ever could. If you overlooked the fact that we had been brought up in the same house by the same parents, I should have had very little in common with this straight, small-town kid who lived with his parents and ran a feed store. But for all the apparent contrast in our values and lifestyles, Bertie had loved me with a wide-eyed devotion since he was in a crib, and had always had a gut-level understanding of the inner workings of my heart and mind.