Molly was curled up on his couch with a bottle of tequila and his hidden stash of Girl Scout Thin Mints.
"It's early to be drinking," he said. "What's wrong?"
"I'm not drinking-though I thought about it. I'm just eating." She shrugged. "And nothing's wrong."
"Then why are you robbing me blind?"
"I was hungry. Why did you have the cookies in the freezer behind the booze?"
"To keep them safe from you." He snatched the box from her and helped himself to a rack. Breakfast of champions. "How did you know to search for them in there?"
She gave him a long look. "I know all your secrets."
"No, you don't."
"I do," she said.
"Shit." He blew out a breath and sank to the couch next to her. "You want to talk about something. Just say what you need to say. We both know you're not going to give me any peace until you do."
She nudged her elbow into his side. "Look at you, understanding the female psyche. So you can do it."
Leaning back, he closed his eyes. "I don't have the time or patience to play guessing games, Molly. Spit it out."
"Okay," she said. "Whatever's going on with you and Kylie-"
"Nothing. Nothing's going on."
She raised a brow.
"It's not," he said.
"You blew it?" She looked him over. "You did. Dammit, Joe."
He decided to plead the fifth on that one. It was the only play he had.
"Fine, whatever, it's your love life. But she's got the right to confront this dickwad who's been terrorizing her. You can't cut her out. She'll never forgive you."
When he just narrowed his eyes, she gave him the look right back. No one, and he meant no one, could give him shit or call him on his shit like his sister. No one else was allowed. And actually, she wasn't allowed either. She just didn't care that she wasn't allowed. "I'm not cutting her out of anything," he said.
"Oh please. Don't forget, I work where you work. I run the office, for God's sake. I get the same texts and e-mails all the guys get. You're going in at dawn and you're doing it without her. My question is this-are you insane or just stupid?"
Honestly, there was a strong chance that he was both. His phone buzzed an incoming text. "Hold that thought," he muttered and pulled out the phone to look at the text in order to make sure it wasn't one of the guys or Kylie.
Dad: Did you talk to the asshole yet?
Joe: Dad, I think you texted the wrong person.
Dad: Yep, meant that for your sister.
Joe: Wait. What asshole? Did you mean me?
Dad: . . .
Joe shook his head and put his phone away. "What does Dad want you to talk to me about?"
"He wants you to fall for Kylie. We have meetings about it. I'm to report back."
Joe just stared at her, trying to absorb this. "And you're going to report back what, exactly?"
"That it's too late. You've blown it to smithereens."
Joe's eyes began to twitch. "I didn't-"
"Look," she said, mercifully cutting him off. "I'm going to tell you something."
He grimaced. "Do you have to?"
She shook her head. "You can't joke this away, Joe. You need to hear it. If you handle this without her and it all goes down and it turns out that this Kevin guy really is the one, you take away her chance of getting closure."
He opened his mouth, but she held up a finger and then pointed it at him. "Just like you took away my closure," she said.
He stilled in shock. "Fuck that, Molly. I didn't-"
"But you did." She nudged her shoulder to his. "I mean, yes, you came for me when I was in trouble. After they took me, you never gave up searching for me, 24 – 7, even when the cops told Dad that I'd just run away. You knew that I hadn't taken off on some teenage whim. You knew I was in trouble, and thankfully you were like a bloodhound on the scent." Her voice went soft and emotional. "And I'm so, so very grateful for that." She inhaled a deep, shaky breath. "You have no idea how grateful."
He closed his eyes, sick to his gut because she was grateful? He'd nearly gotten her killed. He was the fucking grateful one, grateful that she'd ever spoken to him again, that she'd kept him in her life. That she still loved him was his own little miracle. "Molly-"
"But you didn't give me closure, Joe. After you got me to the hospital, you went back and handled the situation on your own, and by ‘handled' I mean you went all vigilante on their asses and put your life in jeopardy in a very large way."
At the memory of her battered body lying still on the sidewalk after her fall, he jerked to his feet, unable to sit. "I'd put you in that situation," he said tightly. "You were innocent-"
"And so were you," she said, standing too, going toe-to-toe with him, her voice rising.
But his voice didn't. She was the passionate one in the family, the only one who let her emotions fly high and proud and loud. Very loud. He buried his, always. "I was never innocent," he said.
"You were! Joe, you never did what they wanted you to! It wasn't your fault that they were asshole punk-ass thugs. You got to me as soon as you could."
"Not soon enough."
They stared at each other. Finally, Molly broke the eye contact. She blew out a breath and they both looked down at the leg she still had so much trouble with.
"I got myself into trouble," she said quietly. "You know this. They told me if I just sat there and kept my mouth shut, they weren't going to hurt me. They just wanted to scare you. But I got impatient."
"This is a shock."
A small smile curved her lips at his quip and, relieved, he reached for her hand. It was the one thing he knew how to do for her, defuse her temper.
She held on and squeezed. "I got impatient," she said again. "And I got hurt because my fourteen-year-old self came up with the brilliant idea to try and escape. Please let that sink into your thick skull, Joe. When you went after them and nearly killed them, and then got in all that trouble because of it-"
"I couldn't just let them get away with what they'd done."
"Of course you could have!" she said. Actually, she was back to yelling. "The system would've taken care of them. You saw to it that they were caught, Joe, and that was amazing. You were just a kid and yet you still managed to do what no one else could. But then you took it upon yourself to mete out the justice." She dropped his hand and gave him a hard push to the chest. "And because of that, you were taken away from us. From Dad. From me. And I know you feel guilty, Joe. I get that. But don't you get it yet? I feel guilty too."
He was dumbfounded. "What the hell for?"
"Because every day that you had to be in the military and become even tougher and harder than you already were, that was my fault. Now you're so far removed from us that I can't even reach you half the time. I thought you weren't ever going to find your way back to feeling human, and then Kylie came along. She changed you. She brought you back to me. And now you're going to blow it all over again by taking away her closure too."
"How?" he asked, baffled. "How am I taking away her closure?"
"Because you're going to finish this for her, without her. I never got to look those asshole thugs in the eyes and say, ‘You did your worst and I'm still breathing'! And I needed to do that, Joe! And so does Kylie. She needs to be in on the play for Kevin. You have to see that, right? Tell me you see that."
Just bringing all this up had him feeling . . . raw. Hollow. And something else he hadn't felt in a long time. Emotional. "I wasn't trying to take away your closure," he said. "But God, Molly, you almost died. I had to-"
"Be at my side," she said. "That was all you had to do and all I ever needed." She took a deep breath and lowered her voice. "Listen, you can't protect me all the time, and no one expects you to. It's the same with anyone in your life, okay? Kylie's a big girl. She'd rather have you at her side while she fights her battles than have you fight them for her."
Shit. That actually made sense. Which meant she was right.
She stepped closer and put her hand on his chest. "I need you to really hear this, Joe, and believe me. And then let it go. And then I need you to understand you're doing the same thing all over again to Kylie and she's not going to be as forgiving as your sister. See, I have to forgive you. We're blood. I'm going to always love you whether I like it or not. But Kylie doesn't have to forgive you at all. And if she doesn't, and she dumps your sorry ass for real, I'm afraid you're going to go back to . . ." She clamped her lips tight together, her eyes going suspiciously damp.