"You made it," Nico said the second I stepped through the door, and then he was already pulling me by the elbow. "Jules. Hey, everybody, Jules is here."
"I can walk on my own," I said.
"I know you can walk," he said. "I have seen the reports from Georgia. Very impressive walking, very professional desk sitting."
The private room was louder than the bar outside, and warmer, and it smelled like beer and fried food and aftershave. Marines filled every chair and half the standing room besides, sleeves rolled, voices overlapping, someone laughing too hard near the back wall.
"You brought the cake in yourself?" a woman by the table asked.
"I did," I said. "It survived the drive."
"It looks too good to cut," she said.
"That is the nicest thing anyone has said about my driving or my baking," I said.
Nico steered me past two privates who moved aside like I was somebody's mother. He was in his element here, completely.
"Ramirez, you owe me twenty bucks," he called.
"I do not," Ramirez called back.
"You absolutely do, and now my sister is here to witness your shame," Nico said. "Jules, this man lost a bet about push ups and has been hiding for a week."
"I am not getting involved," I said.
"See?" Nico said. "Professional neutrality. That is the desk job training."
He said it with a grin, and I grinned back because he was happy, genuinely happy. His hand stayed light on my back, showing me off and teasing me, and I let him. I had come here to be only a sister tonight. I meant it.
The cake sat in the middle of the long table, white frosting, blue letters I had piped myself that morning in Georgia. Congratulations, Staff Sergeant Nico. Next to it, in a dark wood frame, sat his promotion chevrons, polished under glass.
"You framed them," I said.
"Mom said I had to," he said. "Then I liked how it looked, so do not tell her she was right."
"You would in a heartbeat," he said. "You live to tell Mom she was right."
A server squeezed through with a tray. Nico took a beer without breaking stride. I asked for water.
"Water?" Nico said. "At my promotion party?"
"Water," I said. "Someone has to remember your toast word for word and use it against you later."
"Fair," he said, and handed me the glass himself. "Hydrated and dangerous. That should be on your office door in Georgia."
"What do you think is on my office door?" I asked.
"Your name and a warning about paperwork," he said. "Maybe a small sign that says she will file it, do not test her."
He lifted his beer toward the room, then lowered it again when a young corporal stepped up, cap in his hands, polite in the way young Marines get when they are not sure where they stand in a room full of rank and relatives.
"Sir, I mean, ma'am," he said to me, then winced. "Sorry. Corporal Dylan Mercer. I work with Staff Sergeant Romano."
"Julia," I said. "Just Julia tonight. It is nice to meet you, Dylan."
"Yes, ma'am," he said. "Julia. Sorry."
"You are fine," I said. "How long have you known my brother?"
"Two years," Dylan said. "He was my squad leader when I got to Lejeune. He taught me how to pack for the field in the rain without crying about it."
"Did it work?" I asked.
"I still cried," Dylan said. "Just quieter, where he could not hear me and feel proud."
Nico laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. "Growth," Nico said. "That is growth, Mercer. Do not let anyone tell you different."
Dylan smiled, a little awestruck by nobody in particular, just by the room itself, the noise, the framed chevrons, the sense that he had been let inside something that mattered. I remembered being that young in a uniform. Rooms felt bigger then.
"Is Gunnery Sergeant Barrett coming?" Dylan asked.
"Later," Nico said. "He said he would swing by after he finished up. Probably making some poor kid redo a uniform inspection for fun."
"He scares me a little," Dylan admitted.
"He scares everyone a little," Nico said. "That is his love language."
Someone dimmed the music. Someone else tapped a glass with a fork, and the room began to settle in that uneven way rooms do, conversation dropping from the edges toward the center.
Nico stepped up onto the low platform by the table, beer in hand, framed chevrons at his elbow, my cake just below him, and he looked out at all of them with that grin starting to turn serious.
"All right," he said. "All right, listen up, because I am only saying this once sober."
Chapter 11: Sparkle Six