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Holt was simply the icing on the cake.
“You all right?” Holt asked, kissing the top of her head. “You’re being quiet. That’s an anomaly all by itself, but you’re also sighing.”
“I’m fine. Just…thinking.”
He tugged on a piece of her hair. “About…?”
“Us. Life. Choices.” She rested her chin on his c
hest and studied him, her concentration turning to his scars. “All sorts of things, really.”
He followed her line of vision, a frown coming over his face. “Like my scars.”
“Well, yeah.” She blew her hair out of her face. “It’s something I think about. I’m not going to lie. Not the scars, per se, but the things that caused them…and the ones I can’t see.”
He stiffened. “They’re just marks from war. Nothing else.”
“I know.” She bit down on her lower lip. “But they are more. I can see the shadows that haunt you. I’m not blind, you know.”
“Yeah, and they’re going to stay where they belong—behind me. Buried and hidden and mine. Just mine.” He shifted away from her, both mentally and physically. “They come with the nightmares, and the headaches, and the episodes.”
She knelt beside him, refusing to back down. “I know. And it’s all a part of you.”
“Yeah, the bad parts,” he muttered. “Stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you want to fix me.” He dragged a hand through his hair. “I can’t be fixed with a tender conversation and a kiss. This is me. This is what you get. The good and the bad.”
“I know that,” she said, pressing her mouth into a tight line. “I wasn’t implying I could fix you. As a matter of fact, I don’t even think you need to be fixed at all.”
He snorted. “Yeah, you do. That’s a lie.”
“I think you should tell people about your migraines, but that’s about it.”
He glowered at her. “So I can get fired for being unable to do my job properly? Yeah, that sounds like a great idea.”
“You might not get fired, though.” She curled her hands in her lap, forcing herself to remain still, because he kept pulling away from her when she pushed too hard. “Maybe, just maybe, your boss would understand, and give you time off when you needed it. If you rested when the episodes started up, instead of working through them, I bet they’d be more manageable. And you just might be more useful to him in the long run.”
“I’m sure they would be very manageable,” he said sarcastically. “Because I’d be out of a job half the month. Something tells me that Cooper, no matter how understanding he might be, wouldn’t be okay with that. Just…just leave it, Lyd.”
She held her hands up. “Fine. But you act like your condition is something to be ashamed of. Like your injuries are this awful thing you have to hide.”
“Because they are.” He stood up and grabbed his pants, stepping into them angrily. “You have no idea what I went through. What I did.”
“You’re right. I don’t, because you’ve told me in no uncertain terms that you’ll never talk to me about it. And that’s fine. I would never force you to talk about something if you didn’t want to.” She crossed her arms, watching him dress. “But you can’t throw it in my face how I don’t understand if you don’t want to talk about it.”
He yanked his shirt over his head. “Obviously, you want to know all about it. Or we wouldn’t be fighting about it.”
Wait, what? “We’re not fighting.” She grabbed his hand. “We’re not—”
He snorted. “I might not know much about relationships, but I know a fucking fight when I see one.”
He’s right. We’re totally fighting. “Holt—”
“And I also know that fights always end with the man giving in, so fine. You…you want to hear all the gory details? Want to hear how I watched every single guy around me die? Want to hear how the one guy I was friends with, who I was closest with, begged me to finish him off as he bled out on the field?” Shoving his arms into his sleeves, he glared at her through his glasses. As he’d spoken, his voice got louder and louder until he was practically shouting at her. “The animals were howling in the woods, so he knew it was only a matter of time till they came looking for food. And he didn’t want to be alive for it.”
Her stomach turned at the thought of what he’d gone through. What he’d seen…and yes, done. It wasn’t too hard to guess whether or not he’d done what his friend had asked. “Holt…”
