The Brotherhood of Ash and Iron
The screen door slapped shut behind us with a tinny, familiar crack that echoed off the porch boards. The morning air was already beginning to shimmer with the promise of a humid July heat, but out here, away from the suffocating tension of the kitchen, I could finally draw a full breath.
Anthony didn't sit down. He paced the length of the narrow porch like a caged wolf, his heavy fire boots thumping against the wood. He still had that manic, wide-eyed look—the one he got when a call went sideways or when the adrenaline from a twenty-four-hour shift refused to leave his system.
I leaned my lower back against the porch railing, crossing my arms over my chest. I didn't rush him. I knew Anthony. He needed to move; he needed to burn off the static electricity before he could actually hear what I had to say.
"Fifteen weeks, Nick," Anthony finally rasped, stopping his pacing to stare out at the overgrown hydrangea bushes.
He slammed a fist into the porch railing, not hard enough to break it, but enough to make the wood groan.
"She's been home for weeks. Carrying that. .. and I didn't see it. My own sister."
"She didn't want you to see it, Tone," I said, my voice low and steady. "She was protecting you as much as she was protecting herself. She knew you'd want to drive straight to the city and put Brandon in the ground."
Anthony let out a sharp, jagged laugh. "Damn right I would've. I still might. Chloe too. How do you do that? How do you throw away ten years of friendship and a life over... what? Some thrill? She's carrying his kid, Nick!"
"He's a coward," I said simply. "Cowards don't think about the wreckage they leave behind. They just run."
Anthony turned to me then, his anger shifting from the ghost of Brandon to the man standing in front of him.
He looked at me with a raw, bruised kind of confusion.
"And you. You've been at the station with me every third day.
We've pulled twelve-hour shifts at the garage together on the weekends.
You had a thousand chances to tell me you were. .. that you were seeing her."
"It wasn't my secret to tell," I replied, unblinking. "Aubrey needed a place where the world wasn't asking her questions. I gave her that. If I'd told you, the peace she had would've vanished under your 'protection.' You know I'm right."
Anthony huffed, dragging a hand through his hair, finally sagging onto the top step. He looked exhausted.
Most people didn't realize the toll our lives took. Between the Willow Creek Fire Department and our side-hustle at Harrison's Garage, we didn't have much time for a personal life, let alone a scandal.
At the firehouse, we were family by necessity—sleeping in the same bunks, eating the same charred steaks, and trusting our lungs to the man holding the hose next to us.
It was a high-stakes, full-time grind that paid the bills but ate your soul.
That's why we spent our weekends at my shop, buried under the hoods of classic cars.
Grease and steel didn't scream at you; they didn't have heartbeats that stopped under your hands.
The garage was where we went to feel human again.
And now, I'd brought the intensity of the firehouse into the sanctuary of the garage.
"I'm not mad that it's you, Nick," Anthony admitted, his voice barely a whisper.
He stared at his boots. "If it had to be someone.
.. I'm glad she has you. You're the only man I know who's as stubborn as she is.
But God, man... the timing. She's pregnant.
She's vulnerable. Are you doing this because you feel sorry for her? "
I moved from the railing, stepping over to sit on the step beside him. I didn't look at him; I looked at the street, watching a neighbor's dog chase a squirrel.
"I don't do anything out of pity, Anthony.
You know that," I said, the words coming from a place deep in my marrow.
"I didn't choose to feel this way. It hit me like a backdraft.
I saw her drowning, and I realized I was the only one close enough to pull her out.
Then I realized I didn't want to let go. "
I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees. "I'm in love with her, Tone. Not the version of her that was in the city, and not the 'little sister' version you have in your head. I love the woman she is right now—scars, baby, and all."
Anthony was silent for a long time. The only sound was the distant drone of a lawnmower. Finally, he reached out, clapping a heavy, soot-stained hand on my shoulder. He squeezed, hard enough to bruise.
"She's my sister, Nick," he said, his voice thick.
"She's the only thing I have left that's pure.
If you break her... if you walk away when that baby starts crying at three in the morning and the reality hits you.
.. we're done. I don't care if we're in the middle of a four-alarm fire. I'll leave you in the building."
"I know," I said, turning to meet his gaze. "But you won't have to. I've spent forty years looking for a reason to stay put. I finally found two."
Anthony studied me for a heartbeat longer, then nodded slowly. The "flip" I'd seen in the kitchen—that frantic, violent energy—was gone, replaced by the grim, protective acceptance of a brother who knew he'd been beat.
"Fine," Anthony muttered, standing up and brushing off his pants. "But if I catch you making her cry, Ma won't be the only one you have to worry about. And Nick?"
"Yeah?"
"You're buying the beer at the Black Horse tonight. I need to get drunk enough to forget I'm going to be an uncle to a kid who's probably going to look like that prick Brandon but have your grumpy-ass attitude."
I let out a short, rough bark of a laugh, the first real one I'd had in weeks. "Deal."
As he headed toward his truck, I stayed on the porch for a second longer. The weight on my chest hadn't vanished, but the architecture of the lie had finally crumbled. We were standing in the open now.
I looked back at the screen door. Aubrey was in there, probably still shaking, but safe. I had my best friend back—mostly—and I had the woman I was willing to burn the world for.
Now, we just had to figure out how to be a family in a town that was about to have a lot to say about it.