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“Dig in.” She sat next to him, gesturing at his plate with her fork. “This isn’t my best work, but I should get hella extra credit for using mostly packaged military rations as ingredients and cooking with one pot, a hot plate, and a freaking microwave.”
He cleared his throat, feeling like he had to apologize for the accommodations. “My apartment used to be the former owner’s staff break room.”
“Ah. That explains why there’s a full-sized refrigerator but no stove or range.” She took a bite, gesturing he do the same.
Ryker shoveled the egg stuff into his mouth. Flavors exploded on his tongue and, like it always was with Bryce’s cooking, eating erased everything else. There weren’t enough cylinders in his brain to handle anything other than this culinary enjoyment.
“Wow. You used my MREs for this?” he asked, mentally attempting to catalog what had been in his cupboards, fridge, and freezer besides frozen berries, kale, egg whites, and milk for his protein drinks. The MREs were there as a last resort if he had no leftovers from dinner at his mom’s or takeout. “This is incredible.”
“Thanks. You finally fell asleep about four-thirty this morning and really started snoring around five.” Her abrupt shift in topics made him swallow hard as she continued. “So I thought it was safe to leave you. I went through your food and pretended I was in a Zombie apocalypse–style cooking competition. I’m naming this dish either MRE breakfast medley or stressed-the-fuck-out soufflé. I haven’t decided which.”
Ryker carefully set down his fork. It was time. No more pussyfooting around. He owed her an explanation.
“I don’t usually drink. Especially at night. Because sometimes when I do, I have vivid dreams. PTSD episodes, where my mind relives memories.” He reached for her hand, not daring to breathe until she took it, squeezing lightly. Her direct, “don’t bullshit me” gaze held his and he continued. “Those episodes usually center on that night in Afghanistan. April nineteenth.”
“When you lost part of your leg?”
“When we lost Paul. Almost lost Tarun, too, and my leg was the least of our worries.”
Her gaze never faltered. “Would you tell me the story?”
So he did.
He told her of their training to scan the area for IEDs, and the fact that they were the second team through this blown-out section of Sangin, Afghanistan. How they’d been up playing cards the night before.
“We weren’t at our best. I’d goaded them into a poker competition, and we pulled an all-nighter. I figured we deserved the mental health break. Cards all night is frowned upon, but it’s not forbidden, either. I was razzing Paul about being the night’s biggest loser, and he turned to flip me off when I saw it.”
“A bomb?” Her gray-blue eyes were wide, the rest of her breakfast forgotten.
“A wire. Sticking out of the ground as we rounded a blind corner. Perfect place for an IED, and we were all trained to spot the signs. To be wary. But our guys had already cleared this the day before. And we’d been up all night messing around, and I spotted it a half second too late.” He paused in his story, the picture of that moment frozen in his mind, how Paul’s expression had gone from hilarity to a blankness full of horror. Ryker shook his head, willing the image away like erasing a giant Etch A Sketch in his mind. “My buddies say I grabbed Tarun and tossed him behind a burned-out hulk of a 1970s VW bus in some feat of jacked-up strength, and I’d begun to leap behind the VW myself when the device exploded, a half second too late for my left leg. And way too late to save Paul.”
Bryce swallowed. She took another bite of her egg, motioning for him to do the same, but in a distracted way, like she was playing for time. Her eyes slid to the VW next to them.
“Is this the same VW bus? From Afghanistan?”
Ryker shook his head, his finger reaching out to trace the emblem, the pocked area where a bullet or a bit of shrapnel from the IED had put a hole close to the center.
“No. After…Tarun and I had been medevaced out, the guys in our battalion had to clean up and sweep the area for any other devices. Our buddies pried this and the mirrors from the VW that saved our lives and sent them over to Tarun and me at Walter Reed. Tarun got the driver’s-side mirror and I got the emblem and the rearview mirror. I was at the scrapyard one day looking for car parts for a ’sixty-eight Camaro, and I saw this VW front end. Same model as the one in Afghanistan. I figured it was a sign. I brought it home and drilled it into the brackets on my wall, welding the emblem on and installing the rearview mirror as a daily reminder of why I’m alive. Or at leasthowI’m alive.”
He wanted to tell her more. Tell her how the VW was his reminder not to let his guard down again, because when he did, bad shit happened like it did with Paul. Like it could have last night when he was in his night terror. What if he had hurt her?
Bryce reached over and squeezed his hand, the gesture centering and calming him.
“Thanks for sharing that with me. It’s awful, what you went through, and I’m thankful for your service. But Paul’s death was no more your fault than it was mine when Bentley died.” She grimaced, her eyes swimming with sudden tears she sniffed away, almost angrily. “But I get the allure of an easy target. Self-blame seems to be our specialty, huh?”
Ryker put another bite in his mouth, but it tasted like dust because he still had to ask the hard question. Putting on his mental Kevlar, he finally blurted it out. “My extracurricular activities last night…they didn’t scare you?”
Bryce cocked her head. “Did June’s first period scare you? Or Cici’s lack of bathing? Addie’s plastic sword to the nuts?”
“Those aren’t in the same category,” he hedged, feeling his mouth twitch a little at the memory of the littlest Weatherford girl’s cutlass attack.
“Says who? A lot of guys would’ve been running for the hills in any of those situations, but you stuck around. I think I can handle an all-nighter as your sentry. We’re a team. Right?”
“Are we?” He immediately wanted to take the question back, especially when her eyes grew wary. “I mean, is that…allwe are to each other?”
Some of the frost thawed from her expression. “If this is your way of passing me a note saying, ‘Do you like me? Check YES or NO,’ then I’d be checking, circling, and highlighting the hell out of ‘YES.’ But I get the sense you’re not…at the same place I’m at, relationship-wise, which totally makes sense. My current situation with my nieces and my job makes the thought of committing to one more thing tough. Honestly, I didn’t intend to start anything with you, but you sort of snuck up behind my defenses. My time with you has been amazing.” She paused for a long moment, her cheeks going pink. “Now would be a good time for you to say something. Anything.”
Ryker took another bite, stalling for time as he got his words to line up. Hell, yes, he liked her. But he wasn’t sure she was as chill about his baggage as she pretended to be. Hell,hewasn’t as chill about his baggage as he pretended to be. He decided to give as much of an answer as he could. “Relationships haven’t been my strong suit for…a long time. I’m rusty. And I’m pretty sure I’m going to screw this up.”
