Page 37 of Resilience

Mason returned the pitcher to the fridge, wiped his mouth on his forearm, and turned to Sam.

“You don’t want to be friends, we don’t have to be friends.”

“Fuck off, Mace. I told you why I didn’t want you to come, and you know it’s true. You’re a fuckin’ narc. Maybe if you hadn’t ratted me out to Dad about the ticket last month, I might’ve overlooked all the other times you ratted me out. But you did, and this is what we call finding out after you fucked around.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t do sus shit at the cabin, and you wouldn’t have to worry about getting ratted out.”

Sam pushed his bowl of milk away. “Son, if I started calling out the sus shit you do, Mom and Dad would put a Master lock on your bedroom door and you’d only get an hour of yard time a day.”

“What the fuck is this, now?” Dad said as he came into the room from the main hallway.

Immediately regretting his words, Sam looked up at their father. He was dressed for club work, already in his kutte, and his chest seemed fuller—he was wearing Kevlar.

That fact swept away the apology Sam had planned. “There trouble?”

Dad shook his head. “Nah. Just working a security escort with Gun and Fitz, and the company we’re riding with had a spate of armed ambushes, so we’re going in prepared.”

“So it could be trouble,” Mason said. He’d come to the table and was standing within a foot of Sam. He glanced Sam’s way, and they shared a look. The potential of danger for Dad was enough to close the gap between them.

Dad dropped his hand on Mason’s shoulder. “I said there’s no trouble. Every day at any time could bring trouble, and that’s why we roll ready. But we’re not expecting anything but a ride. Yeah?”

“Yeah, okay,” Mason said.

Dad met Sam’s eyes. “Okay?”

“Yep. Understood.”

“So what’s goin’ on between the two of you?” Dad asked.

Sam and Mason shared a glance. Then Mason said, “Nothin’. Just a squabble. Not important.”

Dad considered them both for a beat before he let the matter drop. “You goin’ in soon?” he asked, nodding at Sam’s uniform.

“I’m on in about an hour.”

“C’mon,” he said. “We’ll ride in together.”

And that was a huge reason Sam had changed his mind about a patch: he’d grown up alongside his mother, but his father ... they'd lost a lot of important years with Dad. Sam wanted them back.

So did Mason, and hurt cramped his face. But Dad still had his hand on Mason’s shoulder, and now he pulled him in for a quick, tight hug.

“Your mom in the field?”

“Barn,” Mason said. “She’s dressing Rollo’s ass.”

Rollo was officially Athena’s horse. He was a small buckskin Quarter Horse gelding, pretty as a picture and sweet as candy. But dumb as a rock. He’d opened a gash on his ass the other day because he’d gotten lost in the pole barn and tried to push his way out the back. They’d had to call in the vet to stitch him up.

Their pole barn had only three walls. They had one in the main pasture to keep the water trough in the shade and provide good shelter during rain. Maybe he hadn’t gotten lost, exactly, but nobody could figure out why he’d try to go backward through the corrugated metal wall instead of walking right out the open front, so they’d decided Rollo was exactly the kind of stupid who could get lost in an open room.

Sam hadn’t told Athena that her horse had given himself another dumb injury. He hadn’t talked to her as much as usual in the past few days. It hurt every time. For so many reasons. He knew she was hurt or confused or both, and he tried to smooth it over when they did talk, but it wasn’t going so well.

It seemed Sam was as bad a liar as she was. At least when he was lying to her. Not lying, exactly. Evading.

But she didn’t want his help to deal with Hunter, and he couldn’t tell her about his shit without adding to her shit, so he didn’t know how to talk to her right now.

“I’m gonna go out and say bye,” Dad said. “Mace, I’ll see you tonight. Sam, I’ll meet you at the bikes.”

He walked through the kitchen and out the screen door. As Sam and Mason both watched him cross the porch and make his way to the barn, their earlier fight seemed obnoxiously stupid. He pushed all his uncomfortable thoughts out of his way and made this uncomfortable situation with his brother stop.

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