Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
ELLIOT
Three years after Selection
Elliot’s phone buzzed against his thigh.
It was Wednesday afternoon, two days before Reed’s wedding. Elliot sat in a briefing that should’ve had his full attention. Colonel Marsh droned through an assessment of their last field exercise, picking it apart slide by slide.
It buzzed again. He ignored it. Checking your phone during a briefing earned you extra duty.
Elliot kept his eyes forward, posture perfect, hands folded on the table in front of him. Around him, fifteen other officers sat in similar positions, all of them pretending to care deeply about supply chain logistics.
Third buzz.
Someone had either died or Reed was spiraling over wedding logistics. Given that Reed had fired off four panicked texts last week about whether navy blue or charcoal gray worked better on Elliot and the other groomsmen, Elliot’s money landed firmly on the latter.
The briefing ended. Elliot gathered his papers and headed for the hallway, phone already out before he cleared the conference room door.
Three messages from Reed.
Reed: so don’t freak out
Reed: actually you're definitely going to freak out
Reed: Hudson's coming to the wedding. don't kill me. bye
Elliot stopped walking.
People flowed around him in the corridor. Officers heading to their next meeting, enlisted personnel moving with purpose. Elliot remained perfectly still in the middle of it all, staring at his phone.
Hale was coming to the wedding after all.
Hale, who Elliot had very consciously not thought about in years—give or take a few late-night exceptions. In fact, he had successfully compartmentalized Hale into a box labeled "Selection" and shoved it so far back in his memory that he could almost pretend it had never happened.
Elliot's hand tightened on his phone. His first instinct was to text back something controlled and professional—No problem.
Thanks for the heads up—but his fingers weren't cooperating. His second instinct was to call Reed and demand to know what the fuck happened to Hale’s deployment.
His third instinct was to get in his car, drive to the airport, and catch the first flight to anywhere that wasn't North Carolina.
He did none of those things. Instead, he walked to his office, closed the door, and sat at his desk staring at the three texts like they might rearrange themselves into anything less catastrophic.
His phone buzzed again.
Reed: I know I should have told you sooner
Reed: but I also know you would have spent three months spiraling about it
Reed: this way you only get two days of spiraling
Reed: you’re welcome
Elliot: I'm not spiraling.
Reed: sure you're not
Reed: look it’s fine. you're both adults. you can handle being in the same room for a few hours
Reed: also Sarah's parents have spent 80k on this wedding so you're not allowed to make it weird
Reed: just be normal
Reed: can you be normal?
Reed: Elliot
Reed: buddy
Reed: I know you're reading these
Elliot: I can be normal.
Reed: great! see you Friday. rehearsal dinner is at 1800. try not to look like you're attending a funeral
Elliot set his phone down and closed his eyes.
Two days. Forty-eight hours to reinforce the walls he'd built. To ensure that when he walked into that rehearsal dinner he would appear perfectly composed.
Reed had decided somewhere along the way that they were friends whether Elliot agreed or not, and this was not the first time he pulled Elliot into situations he'd rather avoid.
It started eighteen months ago in Germany. A corporal fucked up coordinates, Reed's team ended up in an active demolition site, and Elliot drove straight into the collapse zone with three guys and zero authorization.
They pulled Reed's team out with two minutes to spare.
When the adrenaline had faded, Reed showed up at Elliot's quarters with two beers, called him an idiot, and meant the opposite.
After that, Reed sought him out. Coffee before briefings. Runs when they were both off-duty. Bars when Elliot had spent too long in operational planning without coming up for air.
Elliot had never had a friend like Reed. Someone who treated his carefully constructed walls like a minor inconvenience, stepping around them without ceremony, completely oblivious to the architectural effort involved, and somehow making him feel lighter for it.
It was uncomfortable. Unfamiliar. It also sort of reminded him of someone else entirely.
Turned out, Elliot didn't hate it. In fact, he had come to appreciate it.
Six months later, Reed invited him to the wedding.
"You should come," he’d said, three beers in and getting sentimental.
"Come where?"
"My wedding. In March."
Elliot stared at him. "Why?"
"What do you mean why?"
"Why are you inviting me to your wedding?"
"Because we're friends?" Reed deadpanned.
"Are we?"
"Jesus Christ, Shaw. Yes. We're friends. Normal people invite friends to their weddings."
Elliot considered pointing out he wasn't normal, but he didn’t. "I don't do well at weddings."
"Nobody does. That's not the point."
"Then what is?"
"You show up, you drink free alcohol, and you celebrate because you're my friend and you give a shit."
"I don't give a shit."
"Liar."
Elliot almost smiled. "Fine. I might give a small amount of shit."
"I'll take it." Reed signaled for another round. "And just so you know, Hudson's not coming. Couldn’t get leave."
Elliot's hand tightened on his beer bottle. "Noted."
Reed shot him a look. "Shaw. Come on."
"I haven't thought about Hale in over two years."
"Right. Sure. Well, now you can not think about him at my wedding."
Elliot had spent the last year relieved that Hale wouldn't be there. Twelve months of thinking he’d dodged a bullet.
And now, two fucking days before the rehearsal dinner, everything had changed.
Elliot forced himself to focus on practical logistics. He had the whole weekend off, having requested leave weeks ago. His dress uniform hung pressed and ready. Haircut yesterday, shoes shined, everything squared away.
He could do this. He’d coordinated missions under hostile fire with incomplete intelligence and zero margin for error. A wedding was not a combat zone.
Hale was not a threat.
His phone buzzed, again.
Reed: also
Jesus Christ, what now?
Reed: still not bringing a plus one?
A plus one. Right. Because that was what people did at weddings. He suddenly wished he had one.
Elliot: No plus one.
Reed: you should try dating sometime
Reed: might improve your personality
Elliot’s mouth curved.
Elliot: My personality is fine.
Reed: your personality is terrifying
Reed: but I like you anyway
Reed: see you Saturday
Elliot set his phone down and clocked the interior of his office. Standard issue desk, filing cabinets, framed commendations. Captain's bars earned six months ahead of schedule.
He’d spent three years building a career that appeared perfect on paper.
He'd also spent three years having sex with men whose names he didn't bother learning, chasing thirty minutes of feeling anything that wasn't the hollow ache of going through the motions.
Elliot knew how to compartmentalize physical need from everything else. Meet someone at an app, go to their place or a hotel, keep it efficient and anonymous. No phone numbers. No second meetings. Nothing that could turn into expectations he'd inevitably fail to meet.
Except it never quite worked. Every encounter left him emptier than before.
The next forty-eight hours passed in a blur of work and runs that didn't quite burn through the tension coiling in his chest. Elliot memorized the itinerary, while his brain ran scenarios that all ended with him making Reed's wedding awkward.
By the time he pulled into the parking lot of the venue Friday evening, his hands were steady on the wheel and his face completely neutral.
That had to count for something.
The rehearsal dinner was at some Italian place—red and white checked tablecloths, string lights wrapped around fake grape vines, an aggressively charming atmosphere that was supposed to make people relax. Elliot’s shoulders tightened the second he walked through the door.
The restaurant had closed the back room for the rehearsal dinner.
Maybe fifty people scattered around tables, already loud with conversation and laughter.
Elliot scanned the room automatically, cataloging faces: Reed's family, Sarah's family, a handful of guys from Selection he vaguely recognized, several officers from Fort Liberty.
And there, near the bar, talking to Novak—
Hale.
It had been three years of Elliot telling himself he was over it, that it had been a temporary thing born from proximity and convenience. And yet, his breath stopped.
Hale looked different. Older, obviously, they all did.
Hair slightly longer than regulation but still professional.
He'd filled out slightly, shoulders broader under his white button-down shirt.
But the way he moved was exactly the same—that loose, confident energy that Elliot's pulse recognized before his brain did.
Hale had his head thrown back laughing at whatever Novak said, throat exposed, completely at ease in his own skin in a way Elliot never managed.
Elliot's hands flexed at his sides. Heat crawled up his neck.
He should leave. Should turn around and walk back out before anyone noticed he'd arrived.
"Shaw!"
Reed's voice, loud and delighted, cut through the noise.
Elliot turned. Reed wove through tables, grin wide enough to show he'd already had a couple of drinks. In his peripheral, Elliot caught the exact moment Hale registered who Reed was calling to.
Their eyes locked across the room.
Hale’s smile faltered for a second, a slight hesitation before he molded it back into place. But Elliot saw it. The three months learning to read every micro-expression on Hale’s face apparently hadn't faded.
"You made it!" Reed grabbed Elliot's shoulders, pulling him into a brief hug that Elliot tolerated because refusing would make it ‘weird.’ "I was starting to think you bailed."
"I said I'd be here."