Page 48 of My Forbidden Commander

“You better fucking believe them.”

Neither of us moves for a second. Then he reaches out and presses two fingers over the bullet wound on my shoulder, gently, like he’s convincing himself that it’s healing.

“You can’t keep joining patrols to babysit me,” he murmurs.

I clench my jaw. “I’m not babysitting you.”

“Then what are you doing?”

I look at him for a long moment, at the mud caking on his boots and the tired set of his shoulders. Then I give him the truth.

“I’m trying to figure out how to run this task force,” I say, my voice pitched low, “without losing my mind every time you walk outside the wire without me.”

Reyes goes still. Then the corner of his mouth curves.

“That’s the most honest thing you’ve said about us, sir.”

“Don’t get used to it,” I grumble.

“Too late.” He steps back, putting regulation distance between us before anyone can come around the corner and catch us otherwise. “For what it’s worth, Colonel, I come back. Every time.”

I clench and unclench my fist. “Did you come here with the intent to keep coming back?”

Noah’s back straightens. He looks at the ground, then back at me. “It’s different now, sir.”

I don’t ask him to explain what he means. I already know.

“Get some sleep,” I tell him instead. “Debrief at 1500.”

“Yes, sir.” He starts to turn, then pauses. “For the record, if you try to shove yourself into a patrol before Doc clears you for it, I will sic Okafor on you.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Try me, Colonel.” He grins now, the real one, even white teeth, brown eyes creasing at the corners. It does something to my chest that I choose to attribute to the healing bullet wound. “You know I’ve got the balls for it. I already volunteered for the most dangerous posting on the map. Threatening my commanding officer with a stick-up-his-ass sergeant is basically a hobby at this point.”

I sigh. “Go to bed, Reyes.”

“Going.” He backs away two steps, still grinning, then stops one more time. “Hey, Gabriel.”

It’s the first time he’s used my name outside the four walls of my hut, out here where anyone could hear, and the risk makes me freeze before I register no one is close enough to catch it.

“What?” I ask, my voice low.

“You’re not expendable either,” he says simply, and then he walks off toward the barracks with his rifle slung over his shoulder and his boots dragging mud, leaving me standing outside the med hut with my chest feeling lighter than it has in days.

24

NOAH

Iknock softly, as always, two raps and a pause, but Gabriel doesn’t answer right away tonight. When the door finally opens, his face tells me everything before he says a word.

“You look like you want to bite someone,” I whisper as I slip inside and shut the door behind me. “Does this have anything to do with the pull-up bar incident?”

He drops onto the edge of his bunk. “Of course you know. Walker saw. Which means Hayes knew fifteen minutes later.”

I cross my arms and eye the fresh dressing peeking out from the collar of his shirt. “So why did you do it?”

Gabriel sighs. “I wanted to see where I stood. Turns out it’s nowhere, because I tore a stitch on rep four and bled through my shirt.”