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Noah heaved a shuddering breath. She wasn’t going to back off. Part of him loved her for that, because he would’ve done the same thing if their positions had been reversed. But their situations weren’t the same. Because he hadn’t weathered a lifetime of living with a father who had a habit of deciding he no longer needed his meds, which would lead to a sometimes months-long episode of troubling or even dangerous behavior that sometimes resulted in the police being called to assist in an involuntary hospital admission. But even when he was on his meds, Mr. Moore sometimes believed he was an undercover agent involved in covert investigations, investigations he’d actually pursue when he was out in public—though he only made admissions quite that revealing when he was doing worse.
Damn if Noah didn’t now have a helluva lot more insight into what Mr. Moore might’ve been facing all these years. It wasn’t the man’s fault that he perceived the world differently, and it wasn’t Noah’s either. He knew that. But that didn’t mean either of them were always easy for the others in their lives to handle. And the last thing Noah ever wanted to do was burden Kristina with his own mental health issues. She had enough to deal with.
And he was hanging on by a very thin thread.
“Kris,” he managed, hands fisting against his thighs.
“Sshh,” she said. “Just breathe for a minute.” She rose in a flourish of pink cotton, disappeared into his bathroom, and returned a moment later with a cup of water. “See if this will help.”
Hating the feeling that she was nursing him, he accepted the cup in his hand, knowing he wouldn’t be able to hold it steady even as a little water sloshed over the rim. Noah sucked half of it down in one greedy gulp. It eased his throat and cooled the hottest edge of the fire inside his chest.
“Thank you,” he whispered, his head dropping back against the wall. He closed his eyes and wished he could will the whole world away.
“Have you had panic attacks like this before?”
Noah kept his eyes closed and clamped down on the knee-jerk reaction to snap at her. He was going to have to give her just enough to get her to back off, wasn’t he? Fine. He’d go with the basics he gave his family.
“Have had panic attacks before. Normal consequence of the TBI, apparently,” he said, referring to the traumatic brain injury caused by an IED blast that had taken out a lot of his unit and stolen half of his hearing and sight.
The real shit of the situation was that the wiring in his brain was so fucked up not just because of that one blast, but also because he’d experienced dozens of blasts over the course of his military career. Maybe even more than a hundred. And it turned out that blast waves played punching bag with your brain coming and going and had a cumulative effect his neurologists said they were just starting to fully understand.
Which was apparently why the hit he’d taken had fucked him up as bad as it did. It’d been the final straw that had broken the already-beat-up camel’s back.
All that was a real bitch to learn after the fact for someone who’d served in the 2nd Combat Engineer Battalion, which handled anything and everything having to do with explosives—breaching doors and roofs, ordnance disposal, demolitions, minefield construction, and sweeping operations, to name a few.
He gulped more water. “Never this bad before, but it’s also the first time I’ve heard fireworks since I’ve been back.”
If he never heard them again, it would be too soon.
“And the fireworks…sounded like…shooting?” she asked carefully.
Noah lifted his head, guilt and embarrassment swamping his gut. “Look, I didn’t mean to freak you out. Especially given…” His gaze flickered to the bed.
“Don’t apologize, Noah. It’s not your fault,” Kristina said. “I only care that you’re okay. Are you at least…talking to someone about this?”
He nodded. “I got a guy.” And a bad habit of canceling appointments, but she didn’t need to know that. Problem was that the more he talked about all of it, the more the nightmares plagued him. And the last thing he wanted to do was waste his or the doc’s time by quietly staring at the carpet in the guy’s office for an hour a week. Being forced to talk didn’t help.
Which was why he needed to get out of this conversation right now.
“You can always talk to me, you know. I’m still the same old Kristina, and you’re still the same old Noah. Just like before,” she said. The smile on her face was so damn pretty…and hopeful.
He couldn’t bring himself to dash that hope, but he had none to give. “Right,” Noah said. “Thanks. I’m good. Actually, I think maybe taking a shower might help chill me out.”
“Yeah? That sounds like a good idea,” she said. They rose off the ground, and hell if he didn’t have to keep a hand against the wall to maintain his balance. Panic attacks and anxiety did shit for his equilibrium problems. “I could grab us some food and bring it down for when you’re out—”
“No. I mean, nah, I’m tired. I, uh, just wanna crash,” he said, forcing a false ease into his voice he didn’t feel at all. He’d be lucky to sleep. And what sleep he did get would likely leave him wrung out and exhausted. But Kristina didn’t need to know any of that, either.
“Oh. Right. Sure.” She smoothed her hands over the front of her dress, like she didn’t know what else to do with herself. “Well, whoa—” She took a step back and almost tripped over a pillow that had been knocked on the floor. Kristina caught herself on the edge of the bed and chuckled. “That could’ve been bad.” She picked it up and tossed it against the headboard.
Noah gazed from the pillow to her. “Sorry. And, uh, about that,” he said, glancing to the bed again. “I probably shouldn’t have… I mean, before, when I, uh, kissed you and…” Goddamnit, was it hot in this room or was he in the process of internally combusting? “I think…maybe…”
“It was just a crazy accident,” Kristina said, saving him from his apparent inability to string together a coherent sentence. “Heat of the moment.” She smiled.
“Yeah. Heat of the moment.” A gut check said it was more than that, but none of his checks and balances were working too good these days, now were they.
“Don’t worry about it,” she said, giving him a wink.
“Okay. Won’t happen again, ma’am,” he said, making a weak effort to inject some humor.
