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She cupped his face. “I know. I promise you can have me tonight, but I want to talk first.”
He sighed and sat next to her, leaning against the headboard and lacing his fingers with her. “Today is the anniversary of Derek’s death, and it’s been a bad week, but I’ll be fine, okay? I just need to get through this day.”
She squeezed his hand. “I know what today is. Your nan told me earlier today. She also said you’d come home very drunk.”
He shrugged. “Didn’t feel like it this year. None of us did.”
They sat silently for nearly thirty seconds before he said, “I’m sorry, Hedra. I shouldn’t have pushed you away this week.”
She moved closer, her body touching his from shoulder to thigh. “It’s okay, honey.”
His tiger purred to her, and Hedra made a soft purr in return that did more to soothe his tiger than anything Boone had tried today. He swallowed hard. “My tiger never talks to me today. He retreats and barricades himself away, but now…”
“What?” she asked gently.
“You make him feel better. He… he loves you, little lamb.”
She pressed a kiss against his shoulder. “I’m glad he feels better.”
“Me too.” Boone smiled at her before kissing her. “I want you, Hedra.”
“I know,” she said. “But I want you to tell me about Derek.”
“I don’t want to talk about what happened when he died,” Boone said immediately. His tiger had halfway retreated but returned with a soft purr when Hedra climbed into Boone’s lap and hugged him close.
“I don’t mean his death. I mean his life.” She cupped his face and smiled at him. “Tell me what you loved about him, honey.”
He hesitated, and she gave him a soft and gentle kiss. “Tell me, Boone.”
“He was a single cub like me. He wasn’t that close to his mom and dad. He said they both worked a lot, and they weren’t… they weren’t bad parents, but they were absent parents growing up.”
She stroked his hair and gave him an encouraging look. “Keep going.”
He took her hand, staring at their linked fingers. “He was so fucking smart. Like, crazy smart. He was always reading or looking shit up on the Internet. He had this thirst for knowledge, you know? He remembered everything he fucking learned, even if it was the most random shit. He was the guy in the room who could tell you exactly how many miles the moon was from the Earth, or the mating habits of a sea turtle, or have an hours-long discussion on the theory of relativity.”
She smiled. “Derek sounds like a really interesting guy.”
“He was good and he was kind and loved animals. We found a fucking spider in our bed once, and he wouldn’t let me kill it. He carried the damn thing outside like it was a fucking diamond or something and put it in a tree. He studied animals all the time and wanted to be a vet tech once he got out of the military. He told me to be prepared - that we’d have a houseful of rescue animals once he got out, and he didn’t want to hear any shit from me about it.”
Hedra laughed. “Nothing wrong with a houseful of animals.”
Boone stroked his thumb along Hedra’s wrist. “Derek wasn’t perfect. He could be selfish sometimes, and he was way too serious, and he had a short temper, but he had a fucking amazing heart.”
His voice clogged, and he swallowed hard. “He didn’t deserve to die in the fucking desert because of a sniper’s bullet.”
Hedra purred to him, and he purred back, her slightly off-sounding purr soothing him and his tiger. She cupped his face again and turned it toward hers. “When did you and Derek become more than friends?”
CHAPTER 22
Boone stared at Hedra, and the look of love and compassion on her face had him admitting the truth to her. “About a year before he died. We’d come home from our last tour, and Derek’s apartment lease had ended. I told him he could stay with me while he looked for a new place, and one night, we just…”
Hedra reached for the bottle of water on the nightstand and handed it to him. He drank a few swallows before giving it back. She smoothed her hand over his hair and gave him an encouraging smile.
“Derek was bisexual. He didn’t hide that, and all of us - Cooper, Grayson, Wes, and me - we knew, and we didn’t care. We met a couple of his boyfriends, and it was no big deal, you know?”
She nodded, and he cracked his neck before taking a deep breath. “I was straight. Or at least, I thought I was until I started being attracted to Derek. I don’t know - maybe I am straight, and it was only Derek who I… I haven’t felt attracted to another man besides him, so I don’t really know what I am.”
She smiled at him. “I don’t think you need to put a label on what you are, Boone. You loved Derek, and he loved you. That’s all that matters.”
