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10
“T-cup,” Nick said, staring at her. He almost moved toward her, but as his eyes scanned her face, he stopped.
“Hey, Hawk,” she said flatly.
This was the problem with emotional numbness. Nick’s appearance should cause a reaction. She should feel sad or scared or maybe some kind of bittersweet remembrance. She should feel something.
Although she didn’t know Nick well anymore, she’d known him what felt like a lifetime ago. Before Jeremy died, Nick and her fiancé were on the same SEAL team. But through her time with the Evanses, she’d avoided this run-in with Nick because she knew her emptiness was hard for people to accept.
All the eyes in the room were on Taran, curious but smiling. That would all change in a few minutes when they learned about her connection to Nick.
Danny, tipped back in her winged chair, watched them. “Do you two know each other?”
Nick blinked and cleared his throat. “Hell, yeah.”
“What?” Clayton asked. “You two didn’t sleep together, right? Morgan’s pretty chill, but that could get awkward.”
There were a few uncomfortable chuckles.
“Somehow, I doubt you’ll believe me, because now I’m known as the gossip reporter of sports, but I wanted to be a serious journalist at one point. I did an internship with the Associated Press a couple of years ago.” Taran walked over and opened a drawer on the bottom of her bookshelf. The photo didn’t seem heavy enough to hold the weight of her old life in it. But her life changed twenty-four hours after it was taken. The girl in the photo didn’t look like Taran anymore. This girl stood in the middle of a team of male United States Navy SEALs and one male reporter. Her long ebony hair fell to her waist in waves. Big silver hoops hung from her ears, and bleached white teeth flashed around a perfectly made-up face, fake lashes included. She remembered the men laughing at her as she did her hair and makeup. Handing the frame to Nick, she said, “The guys called me T-Cup.”
She looked over at Nick and saw it flash in his eyes—that which could only be understood by someone who’d been there. Everyone else seemed confused.
“I traveled with Nick’s SEAL team for a few days,” Taran said, but she still watched the horror in Nick’s expression. In that split second as their eyes met, they relived it. Hours of hell.
She blinked.
“You’re different,” Nick said and continued before she could respond. “The girl these idiots keep telling me about isn’t that too-sweet, ditzy southern girl I remember. Man, you were so innocent, so shallow, so focused on seeing the good everywhere. Sunshine and rainbows in a war zone,” Nick said, describing the Taran in the picture. The girl she didn’t know anymore.
He shook his head like he needed to release that time, but the words that came out of his mouth were the words Taran had written. She was shocked he had them memorized.
“Not one of us got up that day thinking it was the last time we’d wake; not one of us knew that last dirty joke we told at breakfast was the last laugh we’d have; not one of us had a death wish that day. Yet half of us died. Not because we had nothing to live for; most of us had families back home. Each of us had an ‘If you’re reading this’ for that important person in our life, and half of those important people read tear-streaked letters later that week. We knew what we signed up for, and so that day, we did our jobs. When it was over, those who could walk carried the fallen home because we left too much of ourselves on that roadside to leave anyone behind.”
Taran nodded at her words and swallowed as she remembered the weight of the men on her back as she’d dragged them from the SUV after the roadside blast. The smell of blood and blast powder. Very rarely did she give any of the subjects of her stories a piece of herself, but with Nick, she couldn’t not. They were bonded by one thing.
“I don’t think any of us left those twenty-four hours the same person. Living through something like that changes you.”
Nick’s haunted eyes pierced her again. “That piece—that story you wrote.” Nick swallowed.
She’d written the story for the Associated Press, and it appeared in multiple places, but she’d refused a byline. Her name hadn’t appeared anywhere the article was printed. No one who wasn’t there that day would know she had written it.
“It was hands-down the best story ever written about what it’s like; what we’re like.”
“In Case You Didn’t Know,” she said, quoting the name of the monthly column she wrote.
Nick’s eyes widened. “Oh, fuck. I’ve read those, and I’ve never made the connection.”
She shrugged. No one was supposed to.
“That was an ‘In Case You Didn’t Know,’” Nick said.
“Looking back, yes. I never intended it to be. I didn’t want it to be.” She paused and shook her head. That wasn’t exactly what she meant. “I couldn’t be known for that day. Or that story. Before that tour, I wrote freelance ‘In Case You Didn’t Know’ articles for Sports Illustrated about athletes when I could get a big name to agree. I got offered a full-time feature position after I wrote that piece.”
Nick looked her in the eyes. “Thank you.”
She shook her head. “No. Thank you. I left. I wouldn’t go back. I couldn’t go back. You did it more than once.”
“We’ve all reached out so many times,” Nick said finally. “But you changed your phone number; emails started bouncing back. You changed your name—Murphy?”
