Page 64 of All of You

“Why?”

“The song’s about you. It’s exactly about what you’ve been through, and singing it to you, it’s just… intense.” Her voice a little shaky, she smoothed her hands over her pants, tucked a strand of hair back from her face, took a sip of water.

I’d felt that, the intensity, and I’d felt it was about me—it related to my experience, or it could. It was a song I knew many soldiers valued, and I was no different.

“It’s incredible, Whit. It’s an amazing song, and I’m honored to have you play it for me.”

Her brow creased, two lines marring the expanse, and she started to speak. “No, it’s actually?—”

My phone rang. It was my mom.

“I’m sorry,” I said while showing her the phone.

“Don’t apologize. Say hi to your mom for me.”

She gave me a too-bright smile I couldn’t decipher as I tapped the phone and answered.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Whit

The moment had passed. He chatted with his mom, even put me on the phone. When we hung up with her, the time for confessions was gone.

I’d tried to tell him—I had told him, but he hadn’t gotten it. Of course he wouldn’t, because it wouldn’t make sense to him, but the swirling disappointment in me was twofold. The familiar sadness for him ever having been in that dark place, so dark he couldn’t recall it, and the secondary and now much more powerful feeling that I was too cowardly to own up to using him and his words.

Pathetic.

“Thanks for talking with her,” he said as he tucked his phone into his back pocket.

“Of course. She seems great.” Based on who Ben was, and on her attentiveness to him, she must be. My mother and I hadn’t talked in years. Literally years.

He nodded, a small smile tugging at one corner of his mouth. “She’s pretty great. She’s strong, determined. You remind me of her in that way.”

I stood and shoved my hands down into my back pockets.

“I remind you of your mom?” My brow quirked at that.

“You do, in that you’re strong and a little bull-headed, but in a way that means you go after what you want. Bridgette’s similar, though there’s nothing little about her determination to get what she wants.” He leaned his elbows on his knees and looked up at me.

I closed the distance between us in a few steps. That little sideways look he was giving me, those bright blue eyes, those lips, that face… I wanted to be right in his way.

“Hmm. I’ll choose to take that as a compliment.”

He settled his hands on my hips as I came to stand in front of him.

“You should. It is.” He looked up at me.

I inched closer and set my hands on his shoulders, let my hand run over the long column of his neck, the curve of his Adam’s apple, the once again smooth edge of his jaw.

I swallowed, then said, “I kind of miss your beard.”

A pleased smile creased his cheeks. “My leave beard was good, wasn’t it?”

His warm hands pressed into my lower back, then slid up and down my back.

“It was.”

“But the nice thing about this is, now when we kiss, you won’t get beard burn.”

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