Page 1 of Never Say Yes To Your Brother's Best Friend

Chapter one

Aspen

I’m one of those people grief should have killed, but I’m still here.

My brother was twelve years older, and the thing about having a sibling so many years apart is that they become an adult before you do. They experience far more life before you even begin to figure out what living is. Jace saw more of life than I’ll ever hope to know. He joined the military at seventeen because he graduated early. I was just going into kindergarten then. My dad was so proud. My mom too. She wasn’t even Jace’s real mom, but she loved him like she was. I remember all of us standing there, seeing him off. My parents. Jace’s mom. We all got along well, which wasn’t something I really understood to be a thing when I was five, but I know it’s a thing now. We all waved Jace off when he joined the military. Everyone put on a brave face, even though the three adults were terrified something would happen to him. I was just proud because they acted like they were proud too. I didn’t know that under those forced smiles,their hearts were aching, and there would be so many sleepless nights to come, worrying about him.

Jace trained here first, but I was still just a kid when he went overseas. There were letters and videos, emails and texts. When my parents hung up the phone, there were so many tears in private, even from my dad. I thought it was because they missed my brother, but even when I was young, I started to see what the reality of having someone in the military meant.

Proud or not, we all missed Jace so freaking much.

When he came home, we thought maybe it might be for good.

It wasn’t. Over the years, the details became sketchier and sketchier. Jace stopped being able to tell us anything, and my parents stopped asking because they didn’t want to put him in that position. All we knew was that he was in Special Forces, and he was doing the kind of stuff we shouldn’t know about.

Even at eighteen, I knew Specials Forces wasn’t the kind of spy shit you saw in the movies. It was dangerous. I told my brother that if he ever got killed, I’d be so mad at him, and I’d never forgive him, so he had best never do it. He promised me he wouldn’t.

For six years, life went on. I went to college, graduated, got my first real job, had my heart broken a few times, and worried constantly. I did life while Jace wasn’t here to see it, and I always, always wished he was. Missing him was a perpetual ache.

Last year, he broke that promise.

It was a joke kind of promise. I wasn’t serious. He knew I wouldn’t hate him. It was just my plea to please, please, please come home safely.

We didn’t get his body back. That’s the worst part. Because it makes all this feel less than real. Except I know it is real because my parents have aged ten years in the past twelve months. My life has been on a frozen, paused hold where nothing feels real,yet everything is so real all the time that it could freaking crush me.

I’m twenty-five now. But Jace is always going to be thirty-seven. Until the end of time, he’ll never grow old in my mind. Until the end of time, I’ll do anything and everything I can to keep him alive in my memory, no matter how much it hurts. No matter how, sometimes, I could die or scream with the anguish of it. There are days, even a year later, when I have to lock myself in a bathroom or step into an alley and give in to the private, heart-wrenching sorrow. Some days, I can smile and laugh, but other days, the grief eats away at me. I want to celebrate Jace. I want to celebrate each and every minute we have spent together, but at the same time, it’s so hard knowing there isn’t ever going to be another.

No, that’s wrong.

A few days ago, my life changed. It was like Jace was speaking to me from the grave. No, more than like. He was. Is. I can imagine him right here with me, on this plane, flying across the country. I can imagine him smiling at me and giving me those dopey thumbs up and telling me I rock like a sock.

There’s only one letter. There isn’t going to be another. When the lawyer gave it to me the day after the anniversary of Jace’s death, he told me there was just one letter. It was left in his care, and Jace gave him instructions.

I have to say, I wouldn’t want to carry out final notices like that, but this guy? He was a pro. It was like he’d never had an emotion in his entire life.

The letter is folded safely in my backpack, which is tucked under the seat. I couldn’t bring myself to put it in the overhead bin. I got a window seat, and it felt too far away. If I couldn’t reach for it at all times, I thought I might go insane, and going insane on a four-hour flight from Atlanta to California just wasn’t an option I wanted to consider. If there had beenturbulence, I might have turned into a hot mess anyway, but so far, the flight has been totally smooth. Just some ear popping when it took off and some snoring from the extremely old man next to me, but that’s it.

I’ve read and reread the letter enough times in the past twenty-four hours that I know every word by heart, but the letter is precious, just like the few things I have left of Jace.

He wrote those words. He touched that paper. He thought about dying and what would happen after. He thought about me and everything he wanted to do for me and wouldn’t be able to do. He wanted me to be safe, happy, loved. He wanted me to be protected, to find adventure, and to live with an open heart. He imagined all this for me—a golden kind of future—all while knowing that if I ever read the letter he was writing, it would mean he was gone and that he had no future, no love, no life, and no family of his own.

My nose starts to burn like I’m going to sneeze, which is always the first sign that I’m going to cry. And not just a regular cry but a massive ultra-ugly cry.

I make myself take shuddering and gasping breaths to try and keep it together.

It’s hard to get myself under control.

For one, I miss my brother like crazy. His letter opened up the box I’ve tried to cram and ram and jam all my grief into for the past year. And two, the letter was pure craziness, but here I am, less than twenty-four hours after getting it.

Let me start by saying I hated my job. So when I called in saying I needed a week for this one last mission and they were less than understanding, I quit on the spot. I would have given two weeks’ notice if I could have, but I just couldn’t. Jace didn’t put a timeline on it, but once I got his letter and read it, I knew I had to do this, and I had to do itnow. It wasn’t the kind of thing I could just sleep on for two weeks or a month or six monthsand then decide to do it. I knew I’d talk myself out of it because this was just…just the most insane thing I’d ever done, but it was what my brother wanted.

The little old man next to me suddenly wakes up with a snort and a grunt that also sounds suspiciously like a simultaneous fart. He doesn’t seem to mind. He takes off his super huge round glasses and rubs at his soft, dark eyes with two fists. He’s thin. Rail thin. He looks about ninety, and he’s rocking a bright pink T-shirt, purple suspenders, and a set of jeans that look to be from the fifties. They probably are. He’s also wearing those hiking-style boots that everyone wears now because they’re so popular. The ones from Australia. No, I don’t have a pair. They might last forever, but they’re not in my budget.

He seems like the kind of guy who expresses himself through clothing. I think that’s awesome. I’ve never had the talent for it. I’m a regular button-up blouse and black skirt at work kind of a girl, and when I don’t have to adhere to semi-formal attire in the office, I can regularly be found in jeans and nondescript long-sleeved shirts or plain T-shirts. I at least choose the kind that has some shape to them, but as far as designs go, I don’t know. I’m just not very inventive. I like to be able to throw on clothes in under a minute, sweep my hair up, and be ready for the day. I hate standing in front of a mirror, trying to decide if something looks good. I’m never going to be one of those people who berate themselves for not being pretty enough, curvy enough, tall enough, or buxom enough. I went there as a teenager, and it sucked. I’m not going back.

“You’re heading to San Diego too?” This old guy is absolutely adorable when he grins and beams at me. The smile does wonders for his wrinkles. Old person wrinkly face smiles are the best. I don’t really understand people who don’t like seniors because I would way rather sit and talk to old people than talk to anyone my own age. It’s not an old soul thing. It’s more a dislikefor pop culture and most things technology-related thing. Okay, maybe it’s an old soul thing.

“I am.” Shit. My eyes fill up with tears again, and I blink hard.

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