We were supposed to be family, damn it.

All she’d done was offer me a ride home, and I’d acted like a drunken fool. Par for the course these days. When I was sober, I was disciplined. I held myself tightly, and never forgot who I was and what I was supposed to be doing at any given time. But when I was drunk…yeah. It was the complete opposite.

Last night was the perfect example of that.

“Damn it,” I muttered, covering my face with my hands.

I’d already taken advantage of her kind heart once, and I refused to do it again. But on that note, damn it, why did she make me so hungry for her? All we’d shared was a short kiss seven years ago, but the second I saw her again…I wanted her. Wanting her might not be wrong, ethically speaking, but it felt wrong.

And I carried enough “wrong” all on my own.

Rolling over, I picked up my phone and swiped my finger across it. I’d missed a call from Tyler at nine this morning, so I returned it immediately. I had to be at my therapist’s in twenty minutes. And for the first time in forever, I actually had something to talk about. Lilly, and our parting, and what to do to make it up to her.

“Hello?” Tyler said.

“Hey.” I rubbed my throbbing forehead and got out of bed. Naked, I padded barefoot across the bedroom and into the attached bathroom. “I’m sorry about last night.”

Glasses clanged in the background. “What was up with that, man? Why did you punch that guy? I know you drank a lot, but come on.”

I opened a bottle of ibuprofen and dumped three into my hand. “I know, and I’m sorry. But that girl…I know her. And the jackass was being aggressive with her. Even if she’d been a stranger, I woulda reacted the same.”

Tyler sighed. “I know, but next time, maybe exercise some of that superhuman self-control we both know you have?”

After I swallowed the pills, I nodded, even though he couldn’t see me. “I will. I swear. It just threw me off, seeing her like that. And he touched her, and I just…”

“Who is she to you? An ex?”

“Hell, no. No. No.” I snorted and scratched my head. “She’s my stepsister. The one who used to write me all the time overseas.”

“Oh.” Tyler fell silent. His silence was more telling than any words could have been. He, more than anyone, knew how much those letters had meant to me. And how much I’d missed them once they stopped. “Damn, man, she’s hot. You didn’t tell me that when you were waxing poetic about her smile all those years.”

“No.” I rubbed my aching temples. The last thing I needed was Tyler chasing after Lilly. “No. She’s not. No.”

“I think one no would have sufficed,” Tyler said drily. “Methinks the asshole doth protest too much…or whatever the hell Shakespeare said in that play.”

“Piss off,” I muttered.

But he was right.

The first time Lilly and I met, she looked up at me with hopeful eyes, my favorite cookies on a plate in her shaking hands. When she said hello, her voice low and shy, I softened, the shell around my heart cracking. It scared me, that crack, that new weakness.

So I tried to push her away.

Even back then, I had a feeling she could make me break my rules. Make me care. So I left her behind, escaping into the military life, and pretended I never gave her a second thought. I became pretty damn good at it. So good that she probably believed she never meant anything to me at all, when in fact she was the only one I’d cared about.

That was, hands down, the shittiest thing I’d ever done.

And the hardest.

Even at eighteen, my path had been laid out in front of me. I knew I had to get out of Arlington, away from my mother and my new stepfather, who’d already proven to be quite an asshole. I planned to make a name for myself in the army. Be a hero. Retire after I’d served my twenty years. That was the plan. It wasn’t anymore.

Life had a way of doing that to you.

But now I was being given a second chance to know Lilly, to try and be the stepbrother I never considered being, and I wasn’t going to take that lightly.

I frowned at myself in the mirror. My reflection stared back, judging me and finding me severely lacking. There was no avoiding it. I had to apologize to Lilly.

And I would.

Scratching my head, I turned away from my reflection. “I gotta go. I have to see Doc Greene in fifteen.”

“All right. See you later.” Tyler hesitated. “Tell her about last night.”

“I will,” I said.

Since coming back, Tyler had been my support system. He’d offered to let me move in with him, but he had an endless parade of women coming in and out of his apartment. It was how he coped with his PTSD, and I didn’t want to get swept into that.

I was doing just fine on my own.

Setting my phone down, I brushed my teeth, avoiding the mirror. I knew what I’d see. Dark eyes, darker hair, and a world full of fucked up in my soul.

I didn’t need to see it again.

When I got to my therapist’s office, I had two minutes to spare. She was an army doctor, but had an office in the swanky section of Arlington. Every time I came here, I worried I’d see someone from my old life. My mother. Walter.

Lilly.

So I breathed a sigh of relief as I entered into the office unseen. Walking up to the secretary, I gave her my name, showed her my DOD card, and sat down on the brown leather chair. Within minutes, the door cracked open. “Jackson, come in.”

I forced a smile and stood, walking past her. “You’re looking lovely, like usual, Doc. Gray looks good on you. It brings out your eyes.”

“Oh, you.” She waved a hand and smoothed her gray hair, her brown eyes shining with amusement. She was well into her sixties, and her husband had died in war. She’d been helping soldiers ever since. “You’re too much. Flirting with an old woman like me.”

I grinned and settled in on the couch, throwing an ankle over my knee. “I can’t help it. You make me forget all about numbers, Doc.”

Flushing, she sat. “Tell me, how’s your week been?”

“Ugh.” Dropping my head back on the couch, I sighed. “Diving right in, are we?”

“Jackson.”

“Fine, fine,” I muttered. “I didn’t tell anyone I’m back yet, but—”

“It’s been a month.”

“I know.” I hesitated. “Though, I saw Lilly last night. At the bar.”

She leaned forward. “Your stepsister.”

“Yeah…so she knows I’m back now.”

Nodding, she waved her hand. “And how did it go?”

“Nothing like I wanted it to,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck.

“You wanted to make it up to her. Show her you were a nice guy, and that you were sorry about the past. About running, and not writing back.” She tapped her pen on her knee. “I’m taking it that didn’t happen.”

“No. Because I’m not a nice guy. I’m an asshole.”

Doc tsked. “What did I tell you?”

“That I’m not an asshole.” But I was. History didn’t lie.

“Correct.” Doc nodded. “So, tell me what happened.”

“She was nice. Perfectly polite. But I was drunk, and I said some things I shouldn’t have said. Some inappropriate things.” I glanced at her quickly, not going into too much detail. “I want to make it up to her, but how can I make it right again if I can’t even manage to act like a nice guy for ten minutes with her?”

I’d told her all about our past. It kinda became necessary when it came to explaining to her why I didn’t want to tell my mother I was home. That damn kiss…and my cruel abandonment afterward. Lilly actually asked me if I had used her. She thought I was that guy. Maybe I was.

Sometimes, I wasn’t so sure.

Doc tapped her fingers on her chair arm. “I don’t know. How do you think you can do it?”

“Shit, I don’t know.” I dragged a hand down my face. “Apologize for kissing her in the first place? For never writing her back? Spend more time with her, without being a jerk? Be nice? Show her I do like her, despite my actions all those years ago?”