Chapter 5
REID
Another double shift. That’s the third this week. The flu has decimated the staff, dropping medics like flies, so I’m picking up the slack. The overtime pay is obscene. I could probably buy a boat. I don’t want a boat. I want a nap. I want a new spine.
But if I stop moving, I have to think. And if I come home to a normal schedule, I have to sit in this house while the silence eats me alive.
So, I work. I drive the rig. I save citizens. I pretend I’m a high-functioning member of society and not a guy who is one bad Spotify playlist away from a total structural collapse.
The headlights sweep across the driveway. The porch light is burnt out, railing bowing out. The whole place looks like it’s holding its breath, waiting for the guy who actually knows how to maintain it to come back.
And then I see it.
The Ford.
My foot stomps the brake pedal, truck lurching, the seatbelt locking against my chest hard enough to bruise. I don't breathe. I don't blink. I just sit there, the engine idling, staring at the dirty black truck like it’s a ghost.
No way.
Maybe Hatch dropped it off. Maybe someone stole it and politely returned it. Maybe I finally cracked, the sleep deprivation triggered a psychotic break, and I’m hallucinating vehicular transport.
But then the door of the truck opens.
The adrenaline dump is instantaneous. It floods my system, washing away the exhaustion and replacing it with a high-voltage hum that makes my skin itch.
He’s alive.
The relief is so sharp it makes me nauseous. Like blood rushing back into a limb that’s been numb for months.
Then the anger hits. Hot, fast, and blinding.
I kill the engine and shove the door open. The cold air bites through my uniform shirt, but I barely feel it. I’m already moving, my boots crunching on the gravel.
He looks like shit. I probably look like I’m strung out on uppers, but he looks.
.. hollowed out. He’s bigger than I’ve seen him in a long time—broader in the shoulders, like he’s been doing nothing but lifting heavy things and carrying rucksacks for ninety days.
But his face is gaunt. The lines around his mouth are deeper.
His eyes are dead tired. He moves to the steps, and drops heavily onto the top one.
"Reid." His voice is rough.
I stop at the bottom of the steps. Three feet between us. Might as well be the Grand Canyon.
My hands are fists at my sides. I want to punch him. I want to grab him by the collar and shake him until his teeth rattle. I want to hug him until his ribs crack.
"You’re alive."
"Yeah."
"Three months."
He doesn’t flinch. Just holds my gaze, his face a mask of stoic acceptance. "Yeah."
"Three fucking months, Blake." I pace away from him, toward his truck, then spin back.
I can't stand still. If I stand still, I’m going to explode.
"No calls. No texts. Nothing. I had to call Hatch to make sure you weren't dead in a ditch. Do you know what that’s like?
Calling your former CO and begging for proof of life? "
"Hatch didn't tell me."
"I told him not to." I kick the tire of his truck. Hard. It fucking hurts. "I didn't want you to know I was checking. I didn't want you to know I cared. Not after you ghosted."
"You told me to get out, Reid." His voice is steady, calm. It pisses me off. "You said you never wanted to see me again."
"I was angry!" I shout it, the sound cracking in the quiet neighborhood.
A dog barks somewhere down the street. "I stood in that workshop with blood on my knuckles and I was angry.
But I didn't mean disappear. I didn't mean let me spend ninety days wondering if you were bleeding out in the Kandahar dust."
"What did you mean, then?"
The question stops me.
What did I mean?
I drag a hand through my hair, gripping the roots. I replay that night in the workshop constantly. The look on his face when he admitted he loved her. The betrayal that felt like a knife in my gut.
"I wanted you to hurt," I admit, the fight draining out of me, leaving something hollow behind. "I wanted you to hurt as much as I was hurting."
Blake looks down at his boots. He nods, once. "Mission accomplished."
He shifts over on the step, making room. The invitation is silent, heavy.
I shouldn't sit. I should go inside, lock the door, and pass out. I should tell him to go to hell. But my legs feel like lead and he’s here.
The gravity of him is pulling me in. For seven years, Blake has been the steady in my universe.
When I spun out, he was the anchor. When I broke, he was the glue.
I sit. Not close. But on the same step.
I can smell him now. Underneath the travel funk—stale airplane air and sweat—there’s the faint, familiar scent of sawdust. How the hell does he still smell like sawdust? It’s like it’s seeped into his DNA.
"Why are you here?" I ask, staring at the weeds poking through the cracks in the driveway. "You didn't come back for the weather."
Blake reaches into his jacket pocket. His movements are slow, deliberate. He pulls out his phone, taps it, and hands it to me without a word.
I take it. The screen is cracked in the corner. The text conversation is open.
Laine.
My heart does a stupid, painful flip. I gave him her number so long ago. Just in case. I can't stop myself from scrolling up to see if there's more messages. From before.
There isn't. I scroll back down, and read her text.
My throat closes up, but right behind the grief is a hot, sharp spike of jealousy.
She reached out to him.
After everything he did to her, after the way he treated her, she still thinks he's the one who can fix me. She wouldn't give me five minutes in a parking lot, but she texted the guy who blew up our lives. It makes me want to put my fist through the windshield.
But she’s worried about me. After I shut down, after I suffocated her until she was terrified of me, she’s still trying to keep me breathing.
"When did you get this?" My voice is thick.
"I didn't turn it on the whole time I was over there, until two days ago."
Two days. He got this text and deployed the chute. Dropped everything. Got on a plane.
"So you came back because she asked you to."
"I came back because she said you were drowning." He takes the phone back, sliding it into his pocket. "I gave you space. It didn't work. You're worse."
"I'm working," I snap, defensive reflex kicking in. "I'm functioning. My bills are paid. The patients are alive."
"You look like a corpse, Reid. You’re vibrating."
"That’s the caffeine. And look in a mirror, asshole. You look like you haven't slept since the Bush administration."
He huffs a dry laugh. It’s a rusty sound, but it’s real. "Fair."
I lean forward, elbows on knees, matching his posture. The anger is still there, simmering, but underneath it is the confusion that’s been eating me alive since the workshop. The math doesn't add up. It never has.
"Why didn't you say anything?" I ask, staring at the asphalt. "If you were struggling that much. If you were... in love with her. Why didn't you just say it? We talk about everything. We talk about poop, Blake. We talk about arterial spray patterns. Why couldn't you talk about this?"
"And say what?" Blake’s voice is low. " 'Hey, I'm in love with your girlfriend and it’s making me crazy'? You think that ends well? You think we high-five and grab a beer?"
"Better than this. Better than nuking all of our lives."
"Maybe. Maybe not." He picks at a loose thread on his jeans. His hands are rough, scarred, and usually steady. Right now, they’re trembling slightly. "I thought I could handle it. Thought I could shove it down until it went away. It was a tactical problem. I tried to solve it."
"By being a dick to her."
"By making her hate me." He says it simply, like it’s a completely rational plan. "If she hated me, she'd stop being kind. If she stopped being kind, maybe I could stop wanting her."
The words hang in the freezing air. For a second, my brain short-circuits. Then the rage hits, so fast and violent my vision actually spots.
"You used her." I'm on my feet before I even realize I've moved, standing over him. "That's your excuse? You used the woman I love as a fucking human shield against your own feelings?"
Blake looks up at me, his jaw tight. "It was a tactical—"
"Don't give me that military bullshit!" I roar.
I don't care if the neighbors hear. I don't care about anything but the absolute, calculated cruelty of it.
"You didn't just make her hate you, Blake.
You made her think she was crazy. You stood in that workshop and let me defend you while you systematically tore her down.
You let me tell her she was overreacting! "
"I was trying to survive it, Reid."
"At her expense! At my expense!" I kick the bumper of his truck, the metal biting into my boot. "You decided your guilt was more important than our reality. You played God with my life, and you broke her in the process."
Blake flinches. It's tiny, just a tightening around his eyes, but I see it.
I pace the length of the driveway, my chest heaving. The anger is burning me up from the inside out, but beneath it, the ugly, rotting truth I've been avoiding for three months finally claws its way to the surface.
"And the worst part?" I spin back to face him, my voice dropping to a raw scrape. "The absolute worst fucking part is that you got away with it because I let you."
Blake watches me, his face unreadable in the shadows. "What does that mean?"
"I missed it," I say to the darkness. "You were falling apart right in front of me. I remember now—the bottles in the recycling bin. The way you stopped eating dinner with us. The way you looked like you were haunting your own house. And I missed it."
"I hid it."
"Bullshit." I spin on my heel to face him. "I lived with you. I saw you every day. I’m a paramedic, Blake. I get paid to notice when people are in distress. I didn't see it because I didn't want to see it."
Blake watches me, his face unreadable in the shadows. "What does that mean?"
"It means it was easier." The confession's sour. It’s the truth I’ve been dodging for three months, the rot at the center of this whole fucked up situation. "Believing you were fine. Because if something was wrong with you, I'd have to deal with it. I'd have to fix it."
"Reid—"
"No, listen." I point a finger at him. "You’ve been carrying me since Jared died.
Years, Blake. You made sure I ate, you dragged me out of bed when I couldn't move.
You were the rock. The constant. And then Laine came along, and I got to be happy.
For the first time in forever, I was just.. . happy."
I choke on the words, forcing them past the lump in my throat. "And you became background noise. I wanted you to function like a toaster. Or a truck. Reliable. Maintenance-free. So I wouldn't have to worry about you while I was happy with her."
Blake goes still, but there's a little twitch at the corner of his mouth. "A toaster?"
"You know what I mean." My voice cracks. "I used you. For years, I let you carry the load. And when your knees finally buckled, I looked the other way because it was inconvenient."
"You didn't use me." Blake’s voice is firm. Hard. "I chose it. I needed a mission. After Jared... keeping you alive was the only thing that made sense."
"That's not healthy."
He rubs at his jaw. "No shit."
"So why didn't you leave?"
He gives me this look, and my brain starts sifting through memories from the few months before everything blew up. The time he mentioned the job in Seattle. Or re-enlisting. Or moving.
"Fuck!" I throw my hands up. "I talked you out of it! Every single time! Why? Why did you listen to me if things were that bad? You’re the stubbornest son of a bitch I know. Since when do you do what I say?"
Blake looks away, jaw working. He stares at the dark window of his workshop. He doesn't answer.
"Blake." I step closer. "Why couldn't you leave?"
"Because I promised him."
The words are barely a whisper, carried away by the wind, but they land like a grenade at my feet.
I freeze. The cold seems to drop ten degrees. "Promised who?"
Blake finally looks up. His eyes are wet, red-rimmed, and full of a pain so old it's fucking fossilized. "Jared."
His name sucks the air out of my lungs.
"Before the last deployment," Blake says, the words sounding like they're being dragged out of him. "He cornered me behind the barracks. He had a bad feeling. Said if he didn't come back, I had to watch your six."
I stare at him. He's speaking English. I know he is. But I can't seem to process the words. "He asked you that?"
"He made me swear." Blake wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. "He said, 'If I buy it, you take care of Reid. You make sure he doesn't follow me into the dark.' I gave him my word, Reid."
My knees feel weak. Not tired—weak. Structural failure.
"So every time you asked me to stay," Blake whispers, "I heard him. Take care of Reid."
I sit back down on the step, hard. The concrete jars my spine, but I barely feel it.
Seven fucking years.
Seven years of him putting me first. Absorbing my grief. Tolerating my chaos. Fixing the things I broke. Staying in this house when he wanted to run. All because of a promise to a dead man.
I look at him—really look at him—and I see the weight of it. He’s been carrying my brother’s ghost on one shoulder and my survival on the other. No wonder he broke. No wonder he has nothing left.
"You stayed for him," I whisper.
"I stayed for you, too." Blake’s voice is rough. "But yeah. I couldn't break the promise. Even when staying was... hard."
"Hard? You were destroying yourself." I grip the back of my neck, the muscles there locked tight as stone. "But you didn't have to blow up my life to keep your promise, Blake. You could have just talked to me."
"I didn't know how." He looks down at his scarred hands. "The mission was 'protect Reid.' Everything else was secondary. Including me. Including Laine."
We sit in the freezing dark. I feel small. I feel selfish, like I’ve been asleep at the wheel for half a decade. But the anger hasn't vanished. It's just mixed with the grief now, a toxic, heavy sludge in my chest. Knowing why he did it doesn't put Laine back in my arms.
"I should have seen you," I say, the words tasting like ash. "I should have looked past what I wanted and seen you."
Blake lets out a long, shaky breath. He leans back against the riser of the step, tipping his head back to look at the starless sky.
"Laine saw me," he says quietly.
My chest tightens. "Yeah. She did."
"She looked at me and she didn't see Jared's friend. She didn't see your keeper. She didn't see the guy who fixes the stairs." He turns his head, meeting my eyes, and the vulnerability there is terrifying. "She just saw me. And it scared the shit out of me."