The sound of an approaching vehicle didn't even do anything to spur me into action.
As the familiar truck rumbled and then shut off in the parking spot next to mine, the tears finally started to fall. Tears that I couldn't stop, even if I wanted to.
"Chloe." Ian's voice broke through my pain.
"Ian," I cried his name and reached for the only comfort that I could stand. "I can't." Unable to tell him anything else, I just cried.
"You can." His voice cut through the fear and the pain, forcing my brain to pay attention. "You have to."
I looked up to see him watching me, stubborn and perfect even in my grief, and like I couldn't stop the pain and the anger, I couldn't stop the words from coming out. "I still hate you."
As soon as they were out, I wanted to take them back. To apologize. To plead with him. To explain that I was in pain and acting like a child. But nothing came out.
"I know." He held me tighter to his body for just a second, before leading me into the building, and I clutched his hand to keep him from vanishing into thin air.
My mind had been doing that to me lately. In the middle of the night, I'd wake up and see him on the other side of the room, only to blink and have him be gone. Just a figment of my imagination, a shadow in the night that I couldn't even ask for comfort.
"I don't want anything from him." We were standing outside the office of Mays, Sharpe, and London, and I wanted to leave. "I don't want to be here."
"Me either," Ian admitted. "I thought about turning around with every mile that passed. I wanted to run. To jump on my bike and ride across the country or hide in my apartment and shut the blinds forever."
His words caught me off guard, but they shouldn't have. Ian had always been that way, especially with me. Painfully honest, even if it made him look like less of a man. But it never did. If anything, Ian's honesty was the first thing that caught my eye.
"Do you remember the day I tried to ride Kevin's motorcycle, and it crashed?" My question hit Ian, and the sad smile that overtook his face told me he did. Of course he would. It was the day of our first kiss.
"You know he knew, right? I'd had my license longer than him. I was a better rider than he was. He knew I didn't crash his bike. But he let me take the blame because it meant that much to you."
An errant tear leaked out from my eye, and I swiped it away before he could see it. "I know. He taught me to ride the next week, after it was fixed. I loved that about him."
"You're his little sister, Chloe. He'd do anything to protect you."
I couldn't answer him or apologize like I wanted to, though, because the door opened and Benton Mays stood there with a grimace.
"You made it." He looked behind us, biting his lip before turning back. "None of the others are here yet. Come on in, we'll have to wait for them before we can start."
"What others?" We didn't have any other family.
"The unit," Ian said quietly. "That's why I'm here. Kev specifically requested us to be here."
Right. They were his family.
"We're your family too, Chloe." Ian read my mind. "Even if you're angry. Even if you hate us. We'll always be there for you."
I nodded, trying to find the words to tell him that I didn't hate him. That I lied.
Instead, I walked numbly into Benton's conference room and took the seat that he held out for me, trying my best to keep it together.
"We're here," Remy announced as he walked into the room wearing a suit and tie.
Shocked, I looked down at the jeans that I'd slid on before coming and felt completely underdressed. I should have put on a dress or something, but the only one I had was the one from Kevin's funeral, and I never wanted to put it on again. I looked at Ian, who was wearing a pair of slacks and a button-down shirt that I'd somehow missed.
"Shit," I muttered as the tears began to well in my eyes again.
"You're dressed fine." Ian read my mind again, taking my hand and interlacing our fingers. "Remy's only dressed up because he had court this afternoon. And you know what they require for that shit." He motioned to his pants for emphasis. "You know I hate wearing this shit, but I have a patient to meet with after this."
He lied. I knew he did because he never met with clients in the evening. But I didn't call him on it.
"You're grieving," Remy said quietly from my other side. "You're allowed to wear whatever you want, Chloe. You could show up in pajamas with a bird in your hair, and it would be okay. Trust me."
"Kennedy didn't change out of one of Danny's shirts for six months after he died," Linc said from behind me. "And my brother was a smelly asshole. Trust me, Chloe. You're fine."
Those men. The same ones that I said I hated, doing their best to comfort me about something that I'd put on, broke my heart.
"I'm so sorry." I sobbed into my hands, pulling Ian's right along with mine to hide my face. "I'm so sorry."
Over and over again, I repeated the words. More for myself than for them. Ashamed at what I'd said. At how it must have made them feel. I cried, and they let me. Silent support.
Until one of them poked me in the forehead and I opened my eyes to see Logan crouched down in front of me. "Hey," he snapped playfully. "Your eyes are gonna dry out if you keep crying."
"Leave her alone, man." Dom growled from the other side of the room. "Let her cry."
"No," Logan countered, poking me in the forehead again. "What would Kevin say if he saw you crying? He told me once that you insisted on wearing jeans and a ripped t-shirt to homecoming your senior year because you were riding the crimson wave and didn't want to put on a dress."
Ian snorted. "Yeah, there are pictures of that in both of our houses."
"See?" Logan went on, completely uncharacteristic of him. "You're allowed to wear jeans and a t-shirt to a fancy dance thing at school, so you're allowed to wear jeans when you have to deal with the bullshit that comes with losing the closest person in the world to you."
"That's almost sweet," Linc whispered loudly. "Did anyone get that on video for blackmail?"
"Zip it, Ball Boy," Dom muttered under his breath.
"Okay," Ben said suddenly. "We're here for a reason, and we need to get down to it." As a whole, we turned our attention to him, and Logan turned around, sitting at my feet.
"You don't mind if I use you as a pillow, do you?" He didn't wait for an answer, just leaned back against my shins.
It took me a second to figure out what they were doing, but I caught on. They were flanking me. Dom at my back. Ian, Remy, and Linc at my sides, and Logan at my front. They were offering me the support that I needed to get through the hardest moments of my life, and I almost started crying again. Thinking back, they'd done the exact same thing at Kevin's funeral. Surrounded me, protecting me from anyone getting too close or trying to interrupt my grief and mourning.
I had a lot to make up for with them. With all of them.
"Kevin prepared his will ten times over the course of the last ten years." Ben went on. "When I passed the bar, he brought all of them to me, and signed a retainer so that I'd take him on as a lifetime client. I didn't even know what a retainer was at that point. Just kiddin'." He winked at me. "I knew what it was, but I was barely an associate. However, he helped me fumble through the ridiculous requests and stipulations he had at that time. And then, when he decided to take on another deployment, he came to me one more time. He told me that it was the last one. That he would be getting out, and that he'd have to come up with something boring after that. I told him there was no such thing, and he just laughed it off. I've got everything in writing, but in true Kevin fashion, he also recorded a video that he wanted me to play when I had all of you in the same room." He cleared his throat, clearly feeling just as emotional as the rest of us were.