Page 68 of Military Daddies' Nanny

For his part, Drew seems to register very little beyond his harried, almost manic stare roving across the living room behind me. "Where is she?" he demands without preamble, voice cracked and hoarse like he's been rending his throat raw over these weeks. "I need to see Nancy. No more bullshit. I'm here to make this right, no matter what it takes."

The raw desperation simmering in his words takes me aback. This isn't the deluded, self-pitying Drew we've been butting heads with for weeks now.

No, this is a man undone, humbled to his core in a way I've seldom witnessed. It’s etched across his proud, disciplined bearing.

“Wait, hold on,” I protest, holding out my hands. “Why are you here? Where’s Karen? And why the hell do you look like you just fell headfirst down several flights of stairs?”

“Karen’s gone, Nate. Where’s Nancy? Where’s she at, man? I really need to see her. I know she’s home. Just, please, let me see her.” He’s looking over my shoulder, trying to see into the house.

Karen’s gone?

I don’t get time to process that, though. The desperation in his expression is worse than anything I’ve seen from Drew in thepast. Before I can even formulate a reply, Drew's gaze swings back to me with laser focus, and whatever he sees in my expression seems to drain what little remains of his composure.

With a ragged gasp, my brother pushes forward until we’re a hair’s breadth apart, his head bowed, and his shoulders slumped in defeat.

"Please..." he rasps out, the tattered remnant of a plea more strained exhalation than actual speech. His eyes gaze into mine, brown eyes that hold pain that he struggles to hide. Not even after the war did he allow me to see the torture behind his eyes. I can only gape, utterly taken aback by the nakedness of his surrender.

He blinks, and in the second it takes to open his eyes, he manages to hide the raw pain from me, but how can I get an image like that out of my mind?

There's a soft scuffle of motion beside me as Carlos appears at my side. His eyes narrow almost imperceptibly as he takes in Drew's broken expression. After a loaded moment, they soften with something that looks like pity or understanding.

Whatever trials or emotional gauntlets he's endured over these days, they've clearly shattered something deep inside him. Smashed that brittle facade of denial and delusion into so much wreckage and viscera laid bare before us.

I watch, rooted in place, as Carlos steps forward to touch Drew on the shoulder in consolation. There's no anger or recrimination in his bearing—only that faintly paternal concern and patience that has always defined him.

"Easy there,hermano," he murmurs, the gentle cadence in his tone almost shocking after the two weeks of strain between us. After we moved into Nancy’s place, we didn’t talk to Drew much, half because we were upset with him, and the other half because we weren’t sure how well we could keep the secret if we continued to talk to him.

"Why don't you come in and tell us what's got you so twisted up?" Carlos suggests.

Drew’s shoulders sag in obvious relief as he does as Carlos says.

"I fucked up..." Drew croaks out, the confession scarcely more than a hoarse rasp torn from deep inside his chest. He lifts his head then, and the utterly harrowed look smoldering in those sunken, shadowed eyes lances straight through me like a physical blow.

"I've been so wrapped up in my own shit, I nearly lost everything."

He doesn't need to elaborate for the implication to resonate like a thunderclap in the stillness between us. Everything—as in this entire family.

The family he awoke to and found fulfillment in, after years of treading water against the relentless tide of despair. The family he nearly let slip through his fingers in pursuit of one final, ill-fated grasp at redemption.

"Please," Drew presses on, words cracking with strain. "Just let me talk to Nancy. I need to make this right, no holding back." His jaw works soundlessly for a tense moment before he visibly braces himself, drawing in a deep, unsteady inhalation.

"I love her. And I can't keep lying to myself, to all of you, anymore." Another pause, and then he seems to reach some profound internal decision, squaring those broad shoulders in that stalwartly resolute way I recognize from a thousand battlefields. "So whatever it takes, I'll do it. Just...give me the chance to be honest with her this time."

The naked earnestness in his voice washes over me with the force of a physical blow. I search his expression almost frantically, that nagging spike of doubt warring with the profound desire to finally have my brother back, the real Drew, unencumbered by the shackles of guilt and regret.

I see haunted, hollowed-out desperation in him, as well as a sincere yearning for understanding and absolution from the mistakes that led him to this ruinous juncture.

Silently, I shift my stare to Carlos and find him already watching me with a carefully neutral expression plastered on his face. I have no idea what he’s thinking, but I’m willing to bet that it can’t be all that different from the maelstrom raging inside my own head.

A million fractious thoughts and impulses ricochet through my skull. I feel the all-too-familiar urge to safeguard Nancy from any further potential trauma warring with that desperate, ragged need to have my brother back as part of this family in full.

In the end...I find myself simply nodding once in muted assent. Because even after everything, I know Drew. I know the man's capacity for self-denial and closed-off stoicism is equally matched by his potential for profound grace and redemption, given the proper catalyst.

Who am I to deny him the opportunity to earn his way back into the fold? Especially when it seems like he's already paid such a staggeringly high cost in anguish and hard-won epiphanies.

With that silent acceptance passing between us, Carlos breathes a measured sigh, gripping my brother's shoulder in that same steadying embrace I've seen him offer a thousand times on the battlefield.

“There is one question I must ask you,hermano.Forgive me for being overprotective, but you must understand,” Carlos begins. “You were so hellbent on working out your relationship with Karen that you were willing to let go of Nancy. You said she was gone earlier, so are you only here because she left yet again? What would you do if she came back again?”

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