Page 54 of The Archer Brothers

“Everything is so awkward.” Ryley’s voice is low, but crystal clear. I want to shake her, ask her if she thought that Nate was going to disappear for the next six years so she wouldn’t be faced with this decision.

“Awkward?” I question. “You think this isawkward? How the hell do you think I feel right now?” She jumps back, causing Nate to stand. I look at him and point. “You don’t get to protect her right now. You knew where I was, Nate, and you did nothing. I know for a fact that there wasn’t a damn thing in the press about how or where we died. Just that four SEALs came home dead.

“You say you identified my body but how the hell could you not know it wasn’t me? I’m your fucking twin for God’s sake. Everything that runs through my veins runs through yours.”

I stop and turn away from them, my hands clenching at my sides. The anger soaring through my body right now is enough to cause physical damage, but I can’t with EJ in the house. The therapy sessions haven’t prepared me for this confrontation and I know I’m not supposed to lay blame, but I can’t help it. Doc Howard believes that there’s been a cover-up and everything appears to indicate the same, but I can’t get over the fact that my own brother believed that I was dead.

“We’ve all struggled with this news, Evan. But I don’t think Nate knew you were alive. He would’ve gone after you.”

Why is she protecting him? Does she love him so much that she can’t see he’s always pined after her? That this was the perfect opportunity for him to take my place in her life? To pretend that he’s me when he watches her close her eyes at night.

“Are you changing your mind about us, Ryley?” I turn and face them both.

I get a small sense of victory when I ask that question and see Nate’s face fall. He looks at her and his eyes beg her to tell him I’m wrong.

“Ryley?” she refuses to look at him. I should feel like shit. I should have some remorse for breaking him like this, but I don’t. He’s taken the one person I love and tried to make her love him instead.

“I don’t know,” she says meekly, avoiding eye contact with either of us. My head shakes as I bite the inside of my cheek.

“Seriously, Ry?” I ask, even more pissed off than I was before. “What about –”

“Not now, Evan,” she says sternly. Her eyes are like daggers as they pierce through me, tearing apart what little we had started to rebuild.

“I see.”

“No, you don’t. All you see is that Nate is home and we’re engaged. You see me, right now, but you don’t see me the way I need you to.” Ryley angles her body so she’s facing me, tears rolling down her face. “For years I battled through the pain of losing you and so did Nate. I didn’t set out to be with him, and he knows that. You were dead. We buried you, and yes there was a mistake, but we can’t erase the damage that has been done. We have to move forward and you have to have patience with both me and EJ.”

Ryley wipes angrily at her cheeks, smearing her tears. “And you,” she says, facing Nate. “If you knew your brother was alive, I’ll never forgive you. If this was some ploy or some act to be with me –”

“Ryley, why would you think that?” Nate’s voice is pleading, and I realize it’s probably how mine sounded too.

“I don’t know, but the thoughts are there, Nate. How could no one know they were alive? How could you have identified his body?”

Nate takes a deep breath. “Your face was mangled.” He looks at me as he says this. “Your arms were missing, so there weren’t any tattoos and I couldn’t match our birthmarks. Believe me that’s the first thing I looked for. They told me that a bomb had gone off and they had recovered as much of you as possible. They showed me your dog tags and a picture of Ryley from high school, that’s all there was. I asked for a DNA test and they swabbed my cheek right there. A few days later it came back as a match.”

“Did you ever think it was your own DNA?” I ask.

“No, not until you walked through the door. I trusted them. Why wouldn’t I?”

“Wealltrusted them,” I correct him as I pull my tags out from under my shirt. “But that doesn’t excuse you from taking over my life.”

I DIDN’T KNOW.

I didn’t know.

I didn’t know.

I repeat the same three words over and over again in my head while Evan blatantly glares at me. I can’t keep my eyes fixed on him, even though the warrior in me is telling me not to break eye contact. My eyes shift from him to Ryley and back again, trying to piece together what‘s been going on since I left, or since Evan returned from the dead.

“Daddy, are you coming?”

Evan turns sharply at the sound of EJ calling for me. His jaw tightens. His fists are clenched. I can’t blame him, but I’m not correcting EJ and neither has Ryley. Evan may be his biological father, but I’m his dad. I’ve raised him since he was born. I’ve been there through every illness, bump, scrape and I’ve earned the right to be bearer of the title. But as I look at my brother andmyfiancée standing in front me, together, I’m not sure that’ll be enough.

“I’ll be up in a minute, buddy,” my voice cracks as I call up to EJ. He’s the one who is going to suffer the most. The adults can push everything under the rug and move on, but EJ is too little to understand. He’s not going to be able to grasp the difference between Evan and myself.

And I refuse to tell EJ I’m not his dad.

“Are you going to answer me, or just stand there?” Evan moves to sit down, crossing his leg over his knee like him being here is no big deal, when it in fact, it’s monumental. I close my eyes tightly and pray that I’m having an out of body experience. Maybe I was exposed to something and it’s causing hallucinations because by all accounts Evan Archer should not be sitting onmycouch, inmyhouse. The simplest answer to all of this is that he’s an imposter and is infiltrating my family. My brother is dead, buried six feet under about fifteen miles from here. I know because I was just there talking to him.

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