Page 3 of All The Way Under

CHAPTER TWO

brody

“I suppose I should say hello, but I’m not sure it’s worth the effort,” I chide when my twin brother scoots into the booth in front of me. “You’re late,” I add, raising one brow.

Nolan smiles.

“By two minutes, Brody. Late by two minutes. I was wrapping up at a job site and was training a new kid.” He shakes his head. “You’re in true curmudgeon fashion today. Is it normal cynical, ill-tempered disdain, or did something happen at work that you want to tell me about?”

Typical Nolan. Kind and good-natured in the face of evil. We’ve always been opposites.

“I mean, it’s my usual pessimistic sarcasm, though I wash it with a little love because you’re my brother. Why are you training the new guys?” I ask.

He’s an electrician, and business is booming.

Straight out of high school, he went to trade school for it, and I thought he was crazy.

I marked him as less than for pursuing a trade instead of college, like me.

Now, he owns his own company and makes more money than anyone we know who went to college.

I feel like no one talks about that enough.

Nolan runs a hand through his longish, rogue, wavy hair. Hair I can’t have in the Navy. It’s not to standard. Mine is clipped close with a few motley inches on top.

“I’m the boss, Brody. I want to make sure they’re doing things the correct way. My name is on the line. Literally.” He sighs, then flags the waitress when she passes by.

We order drinks and the same lunch we always order: two burgers, medium rare, extra cheese, with a side of BBQ sauce for our fries. She taps her pen on the receipt and nods before she leaves for the kitchen.

“We’re opening the fourth location this year. It’s more important now than ever before that our quality is the same across the board. I have to have my touch on everything, including the new guys.”

I nod. “That makes sense.” I sip the water the waitress just dropped off. “I’m on alert right now,” I say, exhaling, changing the subject to my work.

“That means you could deploy at any given moment, right? You have to be within a certain mile limit from the base?” Nolan asks, even though he knows he’s right.

He’s a good listener. Way better than I am. I’d say it’s something I’ve been working on, but I just don’t care, nor does anyone in my life dictate I have to.

“Yep. I had dinner with Mom and Dad yesterday, and we said our goodbyes. They never get used to me leaving,” I say. “It’s been seven years, and they still act like it’s the first time I deploy every time.”

I mentally cringe thinking about how sad they get. It’s awkward and makes me nervous and uneasy. I have no clue how to handle that from people who have loved me my entire life.

“Just because it’s not the first deployment doesn’t mean the outcome will always be the same.

That’s why it makes them nervous. Hell, it’s why it makes me scared, and I’ve been dealing with your daredevil personality my whole life.

You coming home safe all the times before doesn’t guarantee you will come home safe this time. ”

Nolan looks away, but I know what he’s feeling.

I’ve always known what he’s feeling. We have an extra sense when it comes to our connection.

It’s almost as if it’s a type of telepathy.

We leaned into that when we were kids and tried to distance ourselves from it when we were teenagers.

Somehow, now that we’re adults, we’ve circled back to appreciating the twin connection.

“Nolan.” I say his name to get his attention.

“I’m going to come back, okay. I’m too fucking mean and nasty to die.

You know this. It’s always the good men who don’t come back, the ones who people only have wonderful things to say about them.

What’s that saying? Only the good die young?

The bastards live forever.” I smile, happy with my analogy.

I’m a bastard. That’s the way the scales tipped the second we were born. Nolan was good, and I was not. I cried more. I needed to be tended to first. My ballad of discontent was the loudest.

Nolan doesn’t crack a grin. “You play a bastard as armor. You aren’t a bad guy. You’re not fooling anyone. Well, maybe you are fooling some people, but you don’t fool me. You are one of the good ones. We will always worry, brother. We love you.”

My chest tightens.

“Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard it all before. It’s fine. I’m going to be fine.”

Nolan cuts me off with a headshake as our food arrives.

“Repeat after me. I love you and will miss you too,” he says, tone slow and monotone, like he’s trying to get a baby to pronounce the words correctly.

Rolling my eyes, I dig into my meal.

“Right back at you,” I whisper around a bite.

I hate emotions. It doesn’t make sense because my brother and I were raised in a loving home by the same compassionate, nurturing parents. He obviously soaked it in, and I’m made of nonporous lead. Nothing enters. Nothing exits.

“Anyway…” I hiss, the end of the word. “How was the weekend at the lake?”

He exhales noisily, annoyed by my irreverence. “It was fun. You should have gone with us. Liddy brought his jet skis, and Sam towed in his boat, so we wakeboarded and buzzed around the lake. I don’t know why you’ve only gone once. I bought the house so we can enjoy it together.”

All our friends from high school seem like a distant memory.

I have a hard time connecting with my past life.

After becoming a Navy SEAL, a detachment formed from most of the things I used to care about.

I guess that happens when you understand real problems exist outside of yourself.

That, and living in life-and-death situations on a regular basis, forces a perspective not many people can understand.

I’d have to fake too much with them, and I suck at faking anything.

Swallowing, I speak. “You know I don’t have anything in common with them. I didn’t before, and I certainly don’t now. Nothing against Liddy and Sam. I know they’re great friends, but it’s just…it feels like…work socializing with them.”

I take a mouthful and chew with puffed-out cheeks.

“I’ll go with just you if that opportunity ever arises,” I add.

Nolan chews, eyeing me thoughtfully.

“You act like wakeboarding requires so much socializing. You know you’re going to have to wear a figurative mask and try to be normal if you’re going to have friends outside of the SEAL Teams…or get a girlfriend. You aren’t getting any younger, McBrode,” he says, eating his burger gingerly.

I scowl. “A girlfriend? Toss me to the kraken and call me dead. The last thing I need is someone telling me what to do or how to live my life. I like my routine and my work. The friends I have are just fine.”

He flashes a half grin, but it falls quickly.

“Your biceps aren’t keeping you warm at night, and the friends you have are just like you, so it doesn’t feel like work. Doesn’t that get boring? We’re turning thirty next year. Isn’t there something outside of work you want to accomplish? Don’t you want your life to be well-rounded?”

“Well, your multimeter isn’t keeping you warm at night, either,” I clap back, cramming more into my mouth. “You need to practice what you preach.”

He looks down, then away. A tell. He’s lying or keeping something from me.

“Wait a damned minute. Do you have a girlfriend you haven’t told me about?”

Nolan takes another bite instead of replying. Then another, his gaze on his plate. He drinks a sip of water, and by the time he finishes, my heart is pounding, and I don’t know why.

“Nolan,” I chide. “Tell me.”

“This was supposed to be your goodbye lunch. I don’t want to talk about myself. I wanted to try to crack your shell again, so you know you’re loved and cared about, even if you’d rather live in a one-room shack up in the mountains and never talk to anyone ever again.”

I ignore his emotional sentiment.

“About your new girlfriend?”

“She was at the lake house this weekend, Brody. You don’t do life normally these days, so I saw no sense in mentioning her until I’m sure if it’s going to work out.” He pauses and stares into my soul. “You don’t give a shit about minor details these days.”

My heart pounds a bit more.

“Of course I care about you. Tell me about her.”

He’s right about details, though. Most of them aren’t a value add, so I let them bounce off me.

It was always only a matter of time before Nolan McCoy found the right woman.

I’m shocked he hasn’t already, honestly.

He focused on building his empire. This would be the next logical step, even if it scares the shit out of me.

I don’t tell him, of course, because I can’t, but I’m afraid to lose him to whoever he marries.

She’s going to hate me. She won’t want me around.

I’ll be too brash and dangerous to be around his kids.

It’s a legitimate fear of mine, and these days I don’t have many of those.

I may not want a lot of things, but I want my brother in my life.

He clenches his jaw, working it back and forth.

“She’s a nice woman. She’s an RN at a pediatrician’s office in Sag Harbor, right by the main McCoy’s Power Pro office.

Her name is Catherine. She has her shit together and doesn’t have any baggage that she’s shown yet.

” He exhales after taking another sip. “She has no kids, and she’s never been married.

It’s been six months, so even if I’m not one hundred percent yet, I’m confident she’ll be around for a while. ”

Six months. My stomach sinks. He’s kept this from me for half a year because he didn’t think I’d care.

“I can’t believe I haven’t met her yet,” I say, homing in on something normal instead of the disconnected heartbreak I feel.

Has he seemed different these past months? Am I a bad brother? It’s one of the things I thought I was okay at. I haven’t had a girlfriend for a long time, when I was innocent and didn’t have to pretend.

“I want to meet her.”

He raises his brows. “You do?”