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“Joel, I can’t do this anymore.”
He sighed. “You’re right. We’ll talk at home.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
An icy flush covered his face. “Whatdoyou mean?”
“Joel—”
“Sydney,” he lowered his voice, “we were fine when we left. Fine. Yeah, we had another argument about me flying out with the team, but we were fine. What the fuck could have happened between then and now?”
“You’re getting belligerent, and it’s hard to talk to you when you get like this,” she said.
He took several steadying breaths. Once he felt his anger had calmed to a manageable level, he tried again. “I guess I’m just confused,” he continued. “Where is this coming from?”
“If you have to ask that, you haven’t been listening.”
“I listen to every word that leaves your mouth, Syd. I’ve loved you since I was sixteen years old. I fucking live to make you happy, keep you happy. So what did I do?”
“Joel, it’s not just one thing. I want you home every night. I don’t want to go months without seeing you, sometimes days without hearing from you, worrying whether you’re alive. Then, those days I don’t hear from you, who’s to say I’ll ever hear from you again? And who’s to say that when you’re gone, you don’t get lonely? These are the things I spend hours agonizing over.”
A record screech sounded so loud in his head, it shocked him no one else heard it. “Lonely? Like…cheating on you? I know you’re not talking about mecheatingon you. Syd, when I’m out here, I think about two things—protecting my brothers and walking through the front door into your arms. That’s it.”
She returned to silence. At least, this time, her sniffling let him know the call hadn’t dropped.
“Sydney, don’t do this.”
“I’m not at home. I’m in Forest Hills.”
“At your parents’ place?” he asked. “Okay, I’ll come straight there after I land. We’ll talk. We’ll work this out. Wecanwork this out.”
“I got an apartment.”
There was no more controlling his feelings. No more hiding his agony. She wasn’t “leaving” him. She’dlefthim. She’d fooled him into thinking everything was fine, kissing him at the private airstrip like she wanted to take him to the backseat of the car and ride him until his eyes crossed.
Nothing that he could pick at or pinpoint from the last several months—hell, the last year—pointed to this.
Nothing.
Now, he sat in a room full of soldiers, preparing to rescue children in significant danger, with fucking tears in his eyes.
Like a jackass.
Vision blurry, he looked out at the room. Dez had carved out a space in a low-traffic corner, his head on his pack and his eyes closed. Mike had gone in search of somewhere less chaotic to meditate. Julien and Benarld continued to examine the projection model of the building, and Gage had moved near the front door, smiling, his phone to his ear.
“Joel,” pain distorted her voice, “I’m so sorry.”
He cleared his throat and covertly swiped at his eyes. “No, you’re not. If you were sorry, you’d do this face-to-face. Admit it, Syd. You planned this.”
“You think this was easy for me?”
He didn’t know if he cared.
Not right now.
“Joel, how didn’t you know? We’ve done nothing but argue, and not just in the last year. Our relationship? It hasn’t been good. No one should have to workthishard to make a relationship work. Then I look around and see Gage and Tayler, Larke and Dez, Julien and Ari. That’s when I knew something was wrong with us. We’re not like them.”
“Relationships are different.”
