Page 70 of Anything for You
We’d come a long way this afternoon, but I worried maybe it wasn’t all settled. Particularly, what had set off the nightmare and whether I could help with that in any way.
“You don’t have to talk about this at all. Please hear me say that. But I do want to circle back to what happened last night.”
Subtle, Dove. Super subtle. Don’t say the word “nightmare” and it totally won’t spook him.
The gas stove clicked on and he drizzled oil into a stainless steel pan, then turned to me as he nestled breaded chicken breasts into the pan.
“It was a twist on a recurring nightmare. I’m back at the spot where a mission went wrong. Same place Kenny lost his fingers. He was dealing with the explosive, but Baseline, one of our team, got shot in the neck. I did what I could, but Doc was already working on someone, and I held him while he bled out.”
Horror and grief shrouded my mind as I moved toward him. He seemed remarkably calm considering the awful events.
“That’s the part I relive. Those last few minutes. The words I said. The look in his eyes. But sometimes, the person dying isn’t Baseline. And last night, it wasn’t. Or, it was… until it shifted to something new.” He swallowed, gaze on the contents of the pan, before he finished. “Last night, it was you.”
Tears welled, and I wrapped my arms around him. He turned, accepting the embrace.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything,” he said, his cheek resting on my head.
I moved so I could see him—so he could see my face and understand me. “No, I wasn’t thinking that at all. I’m heartbroken you had to live through that in the first place, let alone dream of it. I’m so sorry, Dorian.”
He let me hug him a while longer before he pulled back and moved to the stove, neatly turning the chicken, then gathering me right back into him.
“Sometimes, I feel kind of… foolish for the way I’ve struggled with that memory. Even now, when I’ve processed a lot that I simply couldn’t for years, I wonder why I’ve been taken to my knees by that one. Of course it’s awful, but it’s this gut-level knowledge that death comes for us all that shook me so deeply then.”
I stayed quiet, eager to understand what I could.
“So much of what you do in the EMU is based on years of training and rehearsal and preparation. There comes a sense of invincibility, almost an arrogance you have to have to do the job. It’s part of compartmentalizing. And when that breaks down…” He squeezed me tight, then released me and stepped back, keeping his hand at my waist. “When it broke down for me, it broke down there. In that moment.”
“I can’t even begin to imagine what that was like.”
He stepped forward, crowding me and brushing hair back from my face. “I don’t want you to. This is what a therapist is for. They’re trained to take the burdens. And I promise you, I’ll talk with my doc about this, okay? I’ve learned the lesson that letting things fester or convincingmyself I’ve handled them when all I’ve actually done is shove them down into a hole I think I can ignore has consequences.”
“I’m glad. I’m sorry you had to learn that, but I’m proud of you. That said, I don’t want you to feel like there are things you can’t tell me. Only what you want to, of course. I’m sheltered in a lot of ways, I guess, but I don’t want to be kept separate from the hard things. I don’t think it’ll work that way.”
His eyes softened, and he dipped his head, straining to press a kiss to my lips before pulling back and turning to the stove again. “If the same goes for you, I’m in.”
And amazingly enough, I was, too.
I hadn’t talked about my past much at all. He already knew as much as my friends did. I didn’t tend to keep things to myself, but I had no desire to talk about my life growing up in a cult. Maybe it was because I didn’t want to look too hard at how it’d shaped me. Lately, it’d been because I’d been so busy with work and stressed about getting Nan settled, so the girl who got to be with her friends didn’t want to dwell on how her creepy cult upbringing might’ve hampered her ability to connect with men or even attempt dating.
Yet, here we were. Shining light on the dark places and clearing them out a little. And even though we’d covered some awfully hard ground, I felt nothing but hopeful for what lay ahead if we kept going.
CHAPTER FORTY
Dorian
Kenny was, as usual, beaming with a toothy white grin as we left the Saint building.
“I love all of this. Every bit of what’s happening is justgood.” He patted Cookie on the back.
Beast grumbled his assent. “You’re doing good things.”
“They’re right. Proud of you,” I said, hoping my sour mood wouldn’t bleed through. I’d been joyful for the surprise engagement he’d ambushed his now-fiancée with, but this morning had knocked some of that from me.
“I’m excited. Happy everyone else is happy,” Cookie said, accepting another rough thwack from Beast as we descended into the parking lot.
Prepared to slip into my truck and stew while I booked it back to Bear and my house and eventually Dove, three shadows stretched across the vehicle.
“We going to pretend there’s nothing going on here?”Beast said, crossing his arms and settling into a wide-legged stance.
