Rescue Me

we’ll have to get you a new jacket.” He hooked the kickstand with the heel of his boot and lowered it. “Maybe your mom will let us ride to the park.” Autumn hated the Harley, but Conner loved it so much she’d always let them ride in front of the house. No faster than fifteen miles an hour.
    Conner reached for the strap beneath his chin. “Maybe I can drive.”
    “When your feet touch the ground, we’ll talk about it.” He rose off the seat of the bike and swung his leg over. “Don’t tell your mom.”
    “Or Dad.”
    “What? Your dad doesn’t like bikes?” Figured.
    Conner shrugged and handed Vince the helmet. “I don’t know. He doesn’t got one.”
    That’s because the guy was a pussy. “Go tell your mom I’m leaving.”
    “I don’t want you to go.”
    Vince set the helmet on the seat. “I don’t want to go.” He knelt on one knee. “I’ll miss you.” The seams of his jacket popped as he hugged Conner. God, he smelled the same. Like the laundry detergent his mom used and like little kid.
    “When are you coming home?”
    Good question. He wasn’t quite sure. “When I sell the Gas and Go and make a ton of money.” Only this didn’t feel much like home these days. He didn’t know what felt like home anymore.
    “Can I have tons of money?”
    “Sure.” Who was he going to give it to?
    “And the Harley?”
    He rose and hefted Conner over one shoulder. “Unless I find another little boy to give it to one day.” His nephew screeched as Vince swatted him twice on the behind. Then he set him back on his feet. “Now run and get your mom.”
    “Okay.” Conner turned on the heels of his Spider-Man sneakers and headed toward the front door. “Mom!” he hollered as he ran up the steps.
    Vince opened the back of the moving van and pulled out a ramp. He wheeled the Harley inside between an outer wall and a leather sofa and tied it down. He’d been in Washington for three days. Drinking beer with old friends, hanging out with his sister and Conner, and packing up the truck with essentials like his bed, leather couch, and sixty-four-inch HDTV.
    “Conner says you want a little boy? I know that I am not one to talk, but you really should have a wife before you have the kid.”
    Vince looked behind him at the open door of the big truck. The misty morning sun caught in his sister’s red hair. “Wife?”
    “You need someone in your life.”
    “You’re forgetting Luraleen,” he joked.
    She made a face. “Someone without a smoker’s hack and pickled liver. I just hate to think of you lonely and living with Luraleen.”
    “I moved out of her house.” He thought of Sadie. He hadn’t been lonely since the day his truck broke down on the side of the highway. “I was never lonely.”
    “Never?” Lord, he’d forgotten that he had to watch what he said around her. She knew him so well and pounced on every word. “Did you meet someone?”
    “Of course.” He rose and moved to the open door. “I always meet someone.”
    Autumn crossed her arms over her chest, unamused, and stared him down—even when he towered over her—the way she’d always stared him down. Even as kids. “Have you been seeing someone for more than just a night or two?”
    He jumped down, grabbed the overhead door, and pulled it closed. He locked the door and shrugged. Autumn knew him better than anyone on the planet, but there were things even she didn’t know. Things no one knew.
    Except Sadie. She knew. She’d seen him at his absolute lowest. Helpless and locked in his nightmares. God, he hated that she’d seen him that way.
    “Vinny!” She grabbed his arm.
    She’d taken his silence as some sort of admission. “It’s over,” he said, hoping she’d drop it even as he knew she wouldn’t.
    “How long did you date her?”
    He didn’t bother to explain that he and Sadie never really dated . “I met her the night I arrived in Lovett.” He looked down into her green eyes. “It ended a few nights ago.” When she’d seen him naked and pathetic. She said she loved him. He didn’t know how that was even possible.
    She gasped. “Two months. That’s long for you. Really long. Like fourteen months in dog years.”
    Vince couldn’t even get mad because she was serious and it was more or less true. It hadn’t seemed like two months though. It seemed like he’d known her forever, yet not nearly long enough. He turned and sat on the edge of the truck.
    “Why did you break up with her?” Autumn sat