Chapter 26 #2
Shawl stood near the corral fence. Smart. He knew Than wouldn’t leave the buckskin like this. He was a captured audience.
He had no response to Than’s outburst, that Than was sure he and Fly cataloged. He simply watched, hands loose at his sides, posture relaxed in a way that wasn’t casual but settled.
Than detested it immediately. Fear spiked, and anger followed. It crawled under his skin.
Shawl waited until Than led the horse in a circle, cooling him, until his breathing slowed just enough to be dangerous. Then he spoke. “Why haven’t you named your horse yet?”
The question hit like a misstep in the dark.
His jaw locked, heat surging up his spine. He turned slowly, eyes hard, every instinct flaring to combat readiness.
“Are you probing me?” Than snapped. “You think because I lost Mei, I can’t name a damn horse because I’ve got attachment issues?
” He gave a short, humorless laugh. “I didn’t have a blankie when I was a kid either.
Want to dissect that next?” He grabbed a brush and went to work, strokes strong, efficient.
The words came sharp, precise. Weaponized. A warning.
Shawl didn’t flinch. Didn’t correct him. Didn’t defend himself. He only nodded once, as if acknowledging the force of the blow rather than its content.
Than waited. Muscles coiled. Ready for the counterstrike. It didn’t come.
Shawl’s gaze flicked briefly to the buckskin, still, patient, unbothered, then back to Than. “I asked because most men name what they intend to keep,” he said. “And avoid naming what they’re afraid to lose.”
Silence fell hard and heavy. Than’s chest tightened. Shawl let it sit there. Then, gently, not softly, gently, he added, “You don’t owe me an answer.”
Than swallowed, anger still humming through him, but something underneath it had shifted.
The buckskin nudged Than’s shoulder once, a quiet, grounding weight, and he noticed he’d stopped brushing. Than exhaled through his nose. “Yeah,” he muttered, trying to refuse to rise to the bait, but his mind was already in motion. “That’s what I thought.”
He turned back to the horse, hand still tight in the halter and finished.
Shawl wasn’t apparently done. “I don’t need to dissect you.
Your brother is a SEAL. They are a paradox.
They’re profoundly attached, and they learn to be strategically unattached to protect what they love.
The mental toughness isn't a lack of feeling.
It's the mastery of it.” Than paused in picking up the hose to wash the horse down.
Shawl pushed away from the fence. “Who are you protecting, Than? Mei? Yourself?” Than tensed.
Goddamn, Bear for bringing him here. His voice got heavier. “Fly?”
He started toward the house.
“Just for your information. The attached SEAL…is the foundation. Everything else is just tactical.” He said it so casually, Than wanted to punch him in the face. “If you want to walk with the truth, you know where to find me.”
Shawl, wisely, said nothing more. Than stood there, hand still on the buckskin’s neck, pulse hammering. He was going to make sure he was wherever that man wasn’t.
It had taken days of Than looking at him like he was already lost, like he’d chosen the wrong side, for the fracture to fully set.
Fly didn’t blame him. Grief did strange, territorial things.
But it still gutted him to realize Than thought he was sleeping with the enemy.
That he’d crossed some invisible line just by listening.
He was barely holding himself together as it was, barely staying on task, and now even the one person who’d always stood shoulder to shoulder with him felt out of reach.
Shawl’s question settled into his chest like a stone he couldn’t swallow. Every rep, every breath, passed through its impossible gravity.
Would she blame me?
The words weren’t just a thought. He wanted clarity, desperately. For a way to know Mei’s mind. One more conversation. One more chance to read the quiet intelligence in her eyes and understand what she’d seen, what she’d forgiven.
He glanced at Than, so familiar, so solid, and felt the shock of how strange that presence had become. Cold dread coiled low in his gut.
They were supposed to be in this together.
Instead, Fly was drowning within a question only he could hear.
An answer from a dead woman. How was that possible? He thirsted for clarity, for him to just know Mei’s mind. But, of course, how could he? They were friends, and he had to wonder how they didn’t know her better.
The realization dawned on him of how much they had missed while she was alive. Had their perfectly balanced trio been built on a foundation of unspoken secrets? That fucking killed him.
Was she afraid that she would give away her crush on Than?
Ruin their friendship. If she talked about her art, would that be the way she slipped up?
All those sketches showed how much she loved him…
from a distance, and he mourned for their loss.
All that time wasted. He was sure they would have weathered that storm just fine.
It made him angry for the first time since he faced Hollis across the witness stand.
It was a new anger, different, more personal, more painful.
It wasn’t directed at Hollis anymore. It was directed at the universe, at themselves for being blind.
At Mei for fucking dying and leaving them with this damn unresolved grief.
The question opened up new layers of pain.
He’d give anything to go back and do it differently.
“Spot here!” Than grunted.
Fly snapped out of his thoughts and grabbed the bar. “Sorry, I was distracted.”
“By what?” Than sat up. He was looking gaunt, and Fly was wondering who he’d see if he looked in the mirror.
“By a question Shawl asked me.”
Than’s jaw tightened, but for a fraction of a second, something flickered in his eyes before the anger slammed back into place.
“That’s a trap.” He turned his back on Fly, a dismissive gesture that felt anything but.
He chalked his hands with sharp, aggressive strokes, the powder dusting the dark bar like frost. “Of course it’s a trap.
That’s what guys like him do. They twist things until you don’t know what’s yours anymore.
” He wasn't looking at Fly. He was looking at his own reflection in the mirror, a man he no longer recognized, trying to convince himself as much as Fly.
“Than, this is enough for today. We’re overtraining and it needs to stop.”
Than scoffed. “Let me guess. He asked you something off the subject.”
He jumped for the bar anyway. Fly sighed.
“Yeah,” he said. “At first.”
“And then he hit you with the kicker.”
Than hauled himself through thirty pull-ups, muscles flexing, breath harsh. He dropped from the bar and wiped his face with a towel. “You’re not going to let this go until you tell me what it was, are you?”
Fly watched him too closely. The edge in Than’s voice was more than anger. It was defense. His gut tightened. He hated this part. The suspicion. The walls. The way grief turned people into strangers.
Fly drew a breath. The words felt like broken glass in his throat, but he’d been carrying them too long to keep swallowing them. “Do you think Mei would blame me?” The silence that followed was a vacuum, sucking the air out of the room. Than froze.
Startled, stricken. Like Fly had reached into his chest and clenched. The color drained from his face. The hand holding the towel trembled, just barely.
“How the fuck would I know?” Than snapped. “You’re buying into his head games.”
“Why is it a head game if it’s real?” Fly asked. His voice stayed level, but something in him was starting to splinter.
Than shook his head, sharp and furious. “You don’t get to do this. Mei is dead. She’s dead, Fly. She doesn’t get to answer questions.”
“I know,” Fly said quietly. “That’s why I’m asking you.”
Than rounded on him. “You don’t get to drag me into this.”
Fly just stood there and let it hit him.
“This isn’t about Shawl,” he said. His voice cracked despite himself. “This is something I’ve been carrying. I can’t ask her. I don’t get that. So I’m asking you.”
For a moment, Than looked like he might explode again.
Instead, he collapsed.
He sank onto the nearest bench, shoulders caving, anger draining out of him and leaving something raw and unbearable in its place. He scrubbed a hand over his face and squeezed his eyes shut.
“I had a week with her,” he said hoarsely.
The word week broke him. “Seven days. That’s all.
I didn’t know her, not really. I just knew how much I wanted her in my life.
” His throat worked. “That’s all I’ve got, and I don’t even know if it was enough.
” He looked up then, eyes bright with tears he refused to let fall.
“So don’t ask me,” he said. “Don’t ask me to speak for her.
” Than grabbed his gym bag. “I’ll get a ride-share home. ” He walked out.
Fly stayed where he was. The question was still there, unanswered, echoing in his chest. Now he understood something he hadn’t wanted to admit before.
This was a weight he was going to have to carry alone.
That night Fly got into bed. Than spent his time outside, first grooming and feeding the horses, then he was quiet when he took his food to his room. Bear and Bailee exchanged worried looks, and Fly was incensed at what he was doing to his big brother.
But how could he tell Than how to feel? He couldn’t. He wouldn’t want anyone to tell him how to feel. It was an uncomfortable situation, and for the first time in his life, Fly wasn’t sure how to fix it.
Fly saw that Shawl noted the way Than refused to look at him. He met Fly’s gaze with a neutral one.
His mind and body were exhausted when he climbed the stairs and went into his designated room. He closed his eyes, suddenly homesick for Texas and his M&M and Clint. Their warm arms and support. Maybe he would fly out to see them in a couple of weeks. That seemed to settle him.
The sound of the wind against the windows followed him down.
The wind was perfect.
Mei felt it first in her chest, the lift and pull that told her they were in sync, the boat answering Fly’s hands the way it always did.
He stood braced at the helm, steady and calm, voice carrying without ever needing to rise.
She loved that about him. The way command sat on him like it belonged there.
She wanted to be like that.
She glanced back at Than, saw the familiar focus in his eyes, the quiet strength that always made her feel safe. He never rushed her. Never made her feel small for needing time. Fly was the future she admired. Than was the ground beneath her feet.
Her guys.
The boat cut clean through the water, fast and sure, her hands working Fly’s order, the main sails her domain. She laughed, breathless, exhilarated. This was it. This was the moment when everything worked. Where the three of them moved like one body.
Then the world tilted.
It happened too fast, a violent shudder, the line snapping, the deck pitching under her feet. The sky vanished. The wind roared.
She hit the water hard.
Cold slammed into her like a living thing. She surfaced once, gasping, the boat already pulling away, Fly shouting her name. She tried to answer. Tried to kick. The tether burned against her leg.
The second wave took her under.
Panic exploded through her chest. Animal and immediate. She fought, arms flailing, lungs screaming as the water pressed in. She knew then with terrifying clarity.
I’m going to drown. Her thoughts scattered, then narrowed. Fly, please don’t blame yourself for the weather. You did everything right. You always do.
Her chest tightened, not with water yet, but with grief.
Than, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to leave you. You’re allowed to grieve, but don’t trap yourself there. Let me go. Let me live in you forever, not as loss, but as something that made you brave.
The water forced its way in.
Fire tore through her lungs. The world went dark at the edges. Her body convulsed, desperate and failing, the cold now everywhere, inside her, filling her.
Her last thought wasn’t fear. It was love.
Fly woke up choking.
Air tore into his lungs in ragged gulps, his body thrashing against the sheets like he was still fighting the water. His chest burned. His throat ached. Tears streamed down his face before he could stop them.
He curled forward, arms wrapped around himself, wrecked.
Mei’s voice still echoed in his head. Don’t blame yourself. Let me go. His hands shook. Was that her answer? Or was it just his own mind giving him what he wanted so he could survive?
Than knew this couldn’t last.
The sulking. The edge. The way he’d been carrying himself like a drawn blade. It was ugly, and it was beneath him. Worse, it was hurting people who didn’t deserve it.
Bear and Bailee had opened their home to him, given him space, patience, grace. And Fly…Fly had been trying, quietly and relentlessly, to stay connected.
That workout. That fucking question.
It had brushed too close to what Than was trying to keep buried. He had blamed Fly, in his thoughts, in the broken places of his heart. The realization sickened him. Not just because it was unfair, but because it was true enough to scare him.
The other wound was just as bad.
How little he’d actually known Mei. How much he’d wanted her, how much he’d imagined, how much of her life had remained closed to him.
That moment at the fundraiser when he’d nearly choked on his own jealousy, resenting Fly for taking her from him, only to learn later that she’d loved Than all along.
He clenched his jaw, forcing himself to face it. That hadn’t been the only time.
Fly drew women easily. Not because he was careless with them, but because he chose ones who didn’t ask much of him. Women who fit the space he had, who didn’t press too hard or demand more than he was ready to give. Than understood that. Respected it, even.
Mei wasn’t like that.
She would have challenged Fly. Asked for depth. Required presence. The thought that Fly might not have been ready for what she carried, what she deserved, twisted something sharp and ugly in Than’s chest. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t Fly’s fault, and it still haunted him.
It tore at him from both sides, grief and shame twisting together until he could barely tell where one ended and the other began.