Ty watched Tate grin slowly as he accurately deduced the meaning of Ty’s words.

Ty didn’t grin. He looked around his friend to the town.

Reading the mood, Tate fell silent for some time, shifting his body, turning his eyes to the town then he spoke softly, “Asked Laurie to marry me, right here.”

“Good spot for that,” Ty said to the view.

“Her last birthday, I brought her up here last thing just like that night,” Tate went on then, “Asked her to marry me on her birthday, decided last year this was where she’d end every one of them from now on.”

Ty didn’t respond. Tate being a romantic was surprising but not that surprising. He was married to a good-looking, kind-hearted woman. You didn’t win that kind of woman and keep her as happy as Laurie obviously was without treating her right.

Tate fell silent for another length of time and when he was done with silence, he turned back to face Ty and started, “Ty –”

Ty cut him off by slicing his eyes to him.

“Years ago, you weren’t ready to give up. I was buried under shit, couldn’t see my way clear of it. So deep under, couldn’t even hear you. Even if I could, I wouldn’t listen. My power was stripped; I was pissed, in pain and both made me stupid.” He held Tate’s eyes and whispered, “Shoulda listened.”

Tate shook his head. “Don’t go there, brother, you’re free, look forward and rejoice, do not look back and despair.”

“That isn’t what this is about, Tate. I feel no pain. Not anymore. That doesn’t mean the journey wasn’t torture but it led me to Lexie so I can live with that. What I need you to get is that you were right, I was wrong and you deserve to know that.”

“You don’t have to tell me this, Ty,” Tate said softly.

“Yes, I do, Tate,” Ty replied softly.

“Okay, then, you do,” Tate returned. “But, you will remember, I was in that pit of snakes and I shoulda done something about that years ago. I didn’t and you went down.”

“You hold no responsibility for what happened to me.”

“I don’t see it that way.”

“Brother, you had a son you needed to look after and pain in the ass pu**y who was making your life a misery,” Ty reminded him. “You had things you needed to see to and they were priorities. When you got out, they’d never done anything as bad as they did to me. You couldn’t foresee how bad it would get. But you tried to deal with it then and I pulled you back. That is what this is about.”

Tate fell silent.

Ty didn’t.

“Since the day I was released, you knocked yourself out. You had my back, you took care of Lexie when we had our thing then you did what you could to help me sort that. It’s important to me that you know I’m grateful. I’ve been tryin’ to figure out how I can show how much but, keep thinkin’ on it, nothin’ comes to mind and I know why. I get it. You’re a man who has everything so there is no way to show that appreciation because there is nothing I can hand you that you want or need. And I get that because I am now that same man. So the only thing I can give you are words and, my guess is, that’ll be enough. If it isn’t, you name it and it’s yours.”

“Friends do what I did for friends,” Tate returned.

“No they don’t, Tate. You did what you did for me because you’re you. That’s what I’m talkin’ about.”

Tate was silent a moment then he said, “Well then, you guessed right. Words are enough.”

Ty nodded.

Tate tipped his head to the side and asked jokingly, “We done with the near-midnight in the middle of f**kin’ nowhere heart-to-heart?”

Ty didn’t feel like joking and answered, “No.”

“Then what –?”

“Love you, man,” Ty interrupted quietly. “Learned the hard way not to delay in expressing that sentiment so I’m not gonna delay. You call me brother and I got one who’s blood who don’t mean shit to me and today, all this shit done, rejoicing and reflecting, it hit me that I got two who aren’t blood but who do mean something. And you’re one of those two.”

“Ty –” Tate murmured.

“I will never forget, until I die, what you did for me and my wife and until that day I will never stop bein’ grateful.”

“Fuck, man,” Tate whispered.

“Now, do those words work so you get what what you did means to me?”

Silence then, “Yeah, they work.”

“Good, then now we’re done with our near-midnight, middle of f**kin’ nowhere heart-to-heart,” Ty declared, turned, opened the door to the Viper and started folding in.

He stopped with his ass nearly to the seat and looked up over the door when Tate called his name.

“I don’t have a blood brother,” Tate said. “But you should know there’s a reason I call you that.”

Ty nodded.

But Tate didn’t need to tell him that. He already knew. His actions said it all.

Then he sat his ass in the car.

Then he got that ass home to his wife.

* * * * *

Lexie

Half an hour later…

I woke when I felt my man slide in behind me, his arm curled around me and pulled me close.

I snuggled closer.

I wanted to ask where he went but I figured he’d tell me if he wanted me to know.

Then I fell back asleep.

And I was so exhausted by a day of celebration and an evening of more energetic celebration with my husband and me alone, I didn’t notice the AC wasn’t jacked up.

* * * * *

The next day…

4:15 p.m.

I drove through our development with Ty following me and my teeth clenched when I saw them hanging out, some cars but mostly vans with big aerials and dishes on top parked everywhere but in our drive. I hit the garage door opener with the timing I’d perfected from experience, knowing right when the signal caught so that I could roll up and not have to wait for the door to open and glide right in.

I usually glided right in. My journey right then was slowed by the reporters and cameramen converging on my baby just outside our drive and if one of them put a scratch in her, I was going to have to break my promise to Ty and lose my mind.

I kept my eyes straight and my car moved at a crawl, I hit driveway and they fell back but I couldn’t exactly gun it and screech in as much as I wanted to.

Nina had warned that, regardless of the fact that she had made a statement to reporters outside her office in Gnaw Bone yesterday afternoon after the Governor of California issued his apology and pardoned Ty, and she also made another one late this morning after Ty and I woke up to a media maelstrom right outside our house, they wouldn’t listen to her when she ended both saying, first, “This will be the only statement made on behalf of Mr. Tyrell Walker. Mr. Walker and his wife are relieved justice has finally been served and would now like to put this revolting episode behind them. They ask that you respect their wishes to move forward with their life in peace,” and at the end of the second statement, “As I said yesterday, Mr. Walker and his wife do not wish to speak to the media. I ask again on their behalf that you please allow them to put this grueling event behind so they can carry on with their rightful but delayed freedom to enjoy their future unimpeded by further upheaval.”