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“Coop, I own half of this company. I think I can take a little money to treat us once in a while, bro. I don’t need permission to write a check.”

“No, what you do need is enough money in the checking account to cover the check. I can’t believe you’d be so stupid.”

Jeff nodded. “Stupid, huh? Was I stupid when I convinced my brother to get you into that medical trial? Was I stupid when I somehow kept this business going while you were in the hospital for six months? Maybe it was just a miracle we didn’t go out of business, maybe it wasn’t because I worked two G.o.dd.a.m.n jobs to keep us afloat so you could get your G.o.dd.a.m.n life back.”

Cooper’s face flushed. He looked away.

It was almost hard to remember what the lupus did to him: the fatigue, the swollen joints, the chest pain … all of it had threatened not only his ability to work, but his life as well. Jeff had stood by him. Jeff had called in all the favors he had with his brother, a doctor in Grand Rapids, to get Cooper into an experimental gene-therapy trial. The trial had worked. Most of Cooper’s symptoms were gone. As long as he went in every three months for booster injections, the doctors told him the symptoms would always be gone.

Still, the past was the past, and if they didn’t do things right, there wouldn’t be a future.

“Come on, man,” Cooper said. “You know I’m grateful for that, but it doesn’t help our business right now.”

Jeff reached up, flipped his hair back. “Saving your life doesn’t help our business? You ever saved my life?”

Oh, now it was Jeff who wanted to forget how things had been? He wasn’t the only one who could lay a guilt trip.

“Brock, my family is the only reason you have a life, bro.”

As soon as Cooper said the words, he wanted to unsay them. There were some places friends just didn’t go, no matter how mad they got.

Jeff and his brother had come from a broken home. When their father finally left them and their alcoholic mother, the boys had little guidance and even less help. Jeff’s brother had been sixteen; he’d been old enough to make his own way, to attack life and take what he wanted. Jeff, however, had been ten years old — he’d been lost. Cooper’s mom had all but adopted him, given Jeff love, support and discipline when his birth mother provided none of the above. Jeff had spent at least half his high school years sleeping at Cooper’s place. To say the two of them had grown up together was more than just a figure of speech.

Cooper felt like an a.s.shole. He could tell Jeff felt the same way. They’d both gone too far.

Jeff sighed. “Hungry?”

He opened the bag of food, offered Cooper a Styrofoam container.

One sniff told Cooper what it was. “Roma’s green tomato parmesan?”

Jeff raised his eyebrows twice in rapid succession. “Who’s your friend?” he said. “Who’s your buddy? I am, aren’t I?”

Cooper laughed. He couldn’t help it.

“Just because you’ve got a dead-on impression of Bill Murray from Stripes doesn’t mean we’re not broke.”