Page 104 of His Surrender

“Ah, don’t feel guilty. You waited for the right man. Your granny hounded me too about finding a good girl and settling down. I partied and refused to settle with anyone.” Dad’s eyes glimmered with what I could only describe as love. “Then I met Nat and knew I’d found the woman I was gonna marry.”

“You knew that soon?” I asked. He’d never told me this before.

“Sure did. Mind you, at first the communication was… interesting to say the least.” He chuckled. “Nat barely spoke English, and the only Russian I knew was from movies. But we made it work. When we found out she was pregnant with you, I dropped down on one knee and asked her to marry me. I was a nineteen-year-old kid training to be a Marine and had no money to my name, but she said yes anyway. Until I could afford a proper engagement ring, I welded her one out of a piece of scrap metal and tied a brown leather strap around the band. She still has it.”

I knew the ring he was referring to. Mom still wore it sometimes.

“What about this one?” Remi asked my mom, pointing to a picture of me sitting on the ground with a bike helmet on and crocodile tears in my eyes. A tiny scrape was on my knee.

Mom laughed and touched the photo. “Jay asked so long for a bike, and we bought him one for his seventh birthday. He was on it for no more than five minutes before he fell and scraped his knee. Such a tiny amount of blood. He cried so hard, thinking the bleeding would never stop and that he’d bleed to death.”

Remi chuckled and met my gaze. My heart nearly burst at the tenderness in his eyes.

“Uncle Jay!” Foster ran through the front door and wrapped his arms around me before stepping back. His glasses were skewed on his nose.

“Hey, Foss the Boss.” I ruffled his hair like I always did and then looked at my brother. “About time you showed up.”

They had gone to their house before coming over so Foster could change out of his dress clothes.

“Sorry,” Ivan said, jabbing at my side before throwing his arm around Dad for a side-hug.

“Yeah, Dad was busy talking on the phone,” Foster said.

Pain flashed in my brother’s eyes before clearing. But I’d noticed it and pulled him aside.

“Talk to me,” I said.

“It was Megan,” he answered. “She wants Foss to spend the summer in New York with her and her fiancé. If he wants to go, I don’t mind. I want him to see his mom.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“Well, she mentioned if he likes it there, she wants him to move in with her. And I can’t lose him, Jay. I wouldn’t be able to hold myself together.”

“You have full custody,” I said, shaking my head. “She can’t take him away from you, and if she tries she’ll have to deal with me.”

“Thanks.”

“I would do anything for you. You know that.”

“I do.” He gave me a hug and quickly wiped at his watery eyes and cleared his throat. “There’s something else I need to tell you, but I don’t know how.”

“Is it about Megan?”

“No. It’s about me.” Ivan’s chin shook and more tears surfaced in his eyes. “Never mind. Forget I said anything.”

“Tell me,” I pressed, feeling a hollowing in my chest. I could count the number of times I’d seen Ivan get this emotional on one hand.

“I…” He sucked in a breath and scratched the side of his head. “I’ve held this in for years, Jay. It’s hard for me to talk about. I don’t know where to start.”

“From the beginning.”

“All right. So. When I was deployed, there was another Marine I got close to. You remember me telling you about Asher?”

The Marine who’d saved Ivan the day he lost his leg. “Yes,” I answered.

Ivan nodded. “Well, we were there for each other through thick and thin. He and I… well, I… I think—”

“Dad?” Foster called from the living room.