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The fear of losing her washed through him with an intensity he hadn’t felt in a long time. He’d locked down so many of his feelings in Banja Luka. Luckily, Karasu had snapped him out of his funk. He’d been able to go to Virginia and see Preacher and Christopher “Iceman” Snow, all his teammates. They had embraced him, allowing him to made amends for how he had acted when Preacher and Remington “GQ” Nash had stumbled on him in the street.
He was trying with all his might to make amends. So, they’d had a tough time as kids. Everyone had a story. They had lost each other to parental pressure and distance. There was no downplaying what had happened between them had been life-changing.
He could see a pattern here. He’d run from the street, from his old man, from who he had been defined as because of his birth. He’d run to prestige, honor, accountability, meaning. The Navy gave him everything he’d ever wanted. Losing it had ripped a wound in him that might never heal, but for Neo, he could bear that pain. For his brother’s life, he had been willing to give his own.
The brotherhood wasn’t just a collection of men who happened to find themselves on the battlefield. It meant something to each and every man. BUD/S put them through hell, but all of that meant nothing. What meant something was the guys who went through it with him, who weathered the storm.
She opened the door, blinking into the light. “What are you—”
Overcome with the sheer joy of seeing her, he stepped inside without thinking and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close. He caught the door with his heel and pushed it closed. Who the hell had he been kidding? No matter what baggage there was with O, there was always this… Just this feeling of home when he was near her, touched her, sparred with her.
It took a moment, but she finally wrapped her arms around him as he gently cradled her against his chest. “I’m all right,” she whispered, and he closed his eyes and breathed in the amazing scent of her.
“Just making sure, babe,” he murmured. They released each other just enough that he could look at her. A boulder of knotted emotion stripped him of his ability to speak. She sighed.
Her face was serious and reflective, the tough façade absent. Green, purple, black, and blue wisps peeked out from the neckline of her top. “How did you find out?”
Dean concentrated on the devastation the bullet had wrought against her skin, her chest, her body. Reaching out, he trailed his fingers against the edge of the bruise. Silky, even damaged. When he looked up, she was watching his face. Her mouth softened.
“Some guy at Metro told me. I thought…we could have lunch.”
“What did you bring? I’m famished.” She reached for the bag, and he jerked it back, wondering how she was really feeling.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes. It’s not like I haven’t been shot at once or twice.”
“But have you ever been shot?”
“That sure smells good,” she said, meeting his eyes head on, her expression telling him that she didn’t want to talk about it.
He was aware of the depth of that kind of trauma. It was common to change the subject. Talk about anything but feelings or what happened. Get it out of the way. He was aware because he’d been guilty of it the first two times it happened to him. Then he started to get the nightmares, waking up in a cold sweat, the memories that came out of nowhere when he smelled a similar smell. The denial would only make it worse. But it could be that O was experiencing it differently. It was a possibility.
“Always with your stomach, woman. We’re having a moment here,” he said gently.
She tilted her head and went for cute, but he still wasn’t buying it. “Aren’t you done yet? I want to know what’s in the bag.”
“Were you scared?”
She stared at him as if she’d seen a ghost. Dean stared back.
The last thing he wanted was to spook her or hurt her or make her face something she was still trying to come to terms with. But as a SEAL, he was aware that dealing with in-the-moment things was best done…in the moment.
“Can’t we—”
“Did you think you were going to die?”
The color leached from her face. She closed her eyes and drew a deep breath, as if it hurt her to do it. Dean waited, nonjudgmental. There was a sudden unfamiliar fragility about her. She tried to recover, to catch her balance. She folded her arms over her chest, her lips as colorless as her face. “It—” She paused and took another deep breath, then continued, “—happened so fast.”
Even though she didn’t want to talk about it, he was happy she had taken a step toward acknowledging it for herself. “I know, O. I know what it’s like. You don’t have to pretend with me.”
When he was quiet, she made a stiff, nervous gesture with her hand. “I was scared.”
“I know that feeling. Maybe after a few drinks, I’ll tell you why.”
“Not now?”
“No, because this isn’t about me. This is about you and how you move forward.”
