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“What doesn’t matter,” I murmur, purposefully staring out the window so I don’t have to look at him. “I mean, that noise. The way you reacted.”
“What about the way I reacted?” he says, his tone cold.
I swallow. I wonder if I’m being way too forward. He reflexively put his arm over me to keepmesafe, but it’s probably not specific to me. He would’ve done the same with any passenger.
“I don’t know,” I murmur.
“Tell me what you’re thinking,” he says gruffly. “You don’t have to be embarrassed. Don’t worry. I won’t bite.”
Unless you want me to, I imagine him saying.
“I just wonder if it had anything to do with your service, that’s all.”
He brings the car to a stop outside my house. That drive happenedwaytoo quickly. We must’ve been sitting in awkward quiet for at least ten minutes. Now I can feel him looking at me. Ifeelit as if his gaze is tattooing my skin.
Something forces me to turn and look at him. It’s like this tingling tinge of destiny, as crazy as that sounds. Buteverythingseems crazy with Fletcher, every single thought bursting to life in my mind.
“It’s happened twice this morning,” he says, his tone still cold. “Sometimes, I hear a bang. Sometimes, I react like I’m still over there. It’s not a fucking big deal. It’s just something that happens. It’s never caused any problems.”
He glares down at me. I’m sure I can see some vulnerability behind the hardness in his expression. His vein bulges in his neck as if he’s about to erupt.
“I’m not saying it’s a problem,” I murmur. “But…”
“You don’t have to be afraid totalk, Samantha,” he snaps, sounding disgusted with the idea that I’d have to hold anything back from him. I don’t see how he can sound so shocked, though. This is literally the second time we’ve ever spoken.
“But it must be horrible,” I go on. “Living on the edge. Always waiting for something bad to happen.”
“But what if that had been an explosion? Or a shooter? What if I was relaxed about the whole thing instead of trying to shield you? Then you would’ve…” He bites down. “It’s my job to protect you.”
His words light me up. I never expected him to say something so intimate. “Is it?”
“To protect regular people,” he says, and the starlight in my silly, immature soul turns to dust. “That’s what a soldier does. A good soldier, anyway. If I embarrass myself by reacting like that, then I’ll take that. It’s worth the risk.”
“How often does something like that happen?” I murmur.
“It happens, Samantha,” he growls. “The world is a nasty, dark place. Some things I’ve seen… Hell, I wouldn’t inflict it on you. There are monsters, sheepdogs, and wolves. The wolves are ruthless. They’ll do anything,anything, to the sheep. That’s why sheepdogs have to be ready.”
“Is that what we are, regular people? Sheep?”
Fletcher gestures out the window toward the end of the street. “Take that man, for example.”
A youngish man walks down the road, looking down at his phone, sucking on what looks like a colorful disposable vape pen. “What about him?”
“Do you know how easy it would be to rob him? He’s not even looking where he’s going. He’s not aware of his surroundings at all.”
“So because he doesn’t have situational awareness, you need to be ready all the time? Never let yourself relax?”
He flinches like my words have hit a sore point. Everything in me tries to force me to turn away from his gaze. His glaring doesn’t let up. It’s like he’s going to yell at me for attempting to chip away at his emotional walls. Since I have no frame of reference, it’s difficult to know if this type of conversation is strange, considering it’s the second time we’ve ever spoken.
“It’s better than the alternative,” he grunts. “Better than not being ready.”
“But can you be ready and still relax a little? Maybe there’s a middle ground.”
“In war, there’s no middle ground. Only under the ground and above it.”
“But you’re not at war, Fletcher.”
He sighs darkly. “It doesn’t matter anyway. I’m talking out of my ass. I’m talking like I’m always ready, but I wasn’t ready for the prick who took Loki. I wasn’t aware then. I wasn’t ready then.”
