Chapter 17
“Chris?” Reese’s voice is small in the dark, fragile in a way I’ve never heard from her before.
“Yeah?”
“You said you left to save me…”
All of a sudden, the tent feels smaller, making it hard to breathe. I stare at the canvas above us. The ceiling sways faintly with every gust of wind, shadows stretching and shifting in rhythm with my pulse.
“Go to sleep, Reese,” I mutter, because I can’t do this. Not now. Not after what happened tonight.
But she doesn’t stop. Not that I actually expected her to.
“No,” she whispers, her voice pained with the need for answers. “Talk to me, Chris…”
God… It’s been years since I’ve heard her say my name like that. It slips past her lips like a plea, and before I can steady myself, she rolls toward me. Her fingertips trace along my jaw tentatively, trembling slightly. “Please.”
I exhale slowly. Every part of me wants to bury this, keep it locked down where I’ve kept it for the past decade. But the truth has been rotting inside me far too long.
“I left,” I start slowly, barely recognizing my own voice, “because I didn’t feel I was someone you could be safe with anymore.”
Reese pushes away a little, not out of fear, but so she can see my eyes. Her lips part, almost as if she wants to ask a question, but she waits. She gives me the time I need to find the words I’ve been wanting to tell her for years.
“The night we almost lost Mattis…” My voice comes out rough and broken at the edges. “I killed seven men that night, Reese. Not in the line of duty. They were on our side. And I didn’t stop. I couldn’t. Because… Abby....”
I feel her stiffen beside me. She frowns, confusion and hurt washing over her face. “You left… because of Abby?”
“No,” I insist quietly, wanting to touch her but afraid she’ll pull away. “Reese, no. Abby wasn’t—”
“You don’t have to lie, Chris,” she cuts me off, unable to hide the anguish in her tone, the cot creaking under her weight when she shifts to put more distance between us.
Reese sits up and doesn’t say anything for a moment.
Her eyes, still red-rimmed from everything tonight, stare into mine like they’re searching for answers.
Any answer. “So… Abby,” she says finally, quiet and uncertain.
When I look at her, I let her see everything I’ve been holding back for the past decade.
The exhaustion. The guilt. The love I tried—and failed—to bury.
She blinks hard, and a rogue tear breaks free, trailing down her cheek.
“Oh, baby,” I breathe, the old endearment slipping out before I can stop it.
“Is that what you thought all these years? That another woman…”
Her chin trembles slightly before she nods with her brow furrowing. “Then what—”
“What happened that night isn’t my story to tell. It’s hers,” I share before she can finish. “But it’s not what you’re imagining. I didn’t even think. I just… ended them, because she needed me to.”
The silence that follows is suffocating. When she finally speaks, it’s so soft I almost miss it under the howl of the wind. “So you left because of what you did?” she asks, trying to understand what I am so poorly explaining.
“I left because I couldn’t stand the thought of you looking at me and seeing a monster.”
She stares at me, trying to hold herself together as I struggle—and fail—to piece together the conversation I’ve rehearsed for years. “Do you think that’s what I would’ve seen?”
“Yes. Because that’s all I saw.”
Her throat works as she swallows. “And Abby?”
“Never… Abby is like a little sister to me.” The words come out easy now, like I’ve been waiting years to say them.
“There was never anything between us. Never could be.” I rub my hand against my pec, the ache in my chest nearly unbearable, realizing she’s spent years wondering if infidelity drove us apart.
“There was never anyone else. I never so much as thought about another woman when I was with you. You were it for me.”
She smiles ever so slightly, tears trickling down her cheeks as she sucks in a soft sob. The sight of her pain and relief hit me like a punch to the gut.
“After?” she whispers.
I drag a hand down my face, exhaling. “Eventually. Years later. After I’d thought I convinced myself you were better off without me.”
She hesitates, then asks, “Did you love any of them?” Her eyes fall to the empty cot between us as she waits for my answer.
I shake my head again, and the truth comes out without hesitation.
“No. Never.” Reaching forward, I slide my hand along her jaw until I’m cupping her cheek.
I swipe my thumb, wiping away her tears.
“There were other women after you, Reese,” I admit quietly, “but I couldn’t love them… Because none of them were you.”
Her breath stutters, and it ghosts against my skin. When she looks up, her eyes find mine, full of tears and something dangerously close to forgiveness.
Something inside me breaks, something I’ve kept buried under years of discipline and denial.
I should pull back. I should end this here before it goes any further, before I do something I can’t take back.
But she looks at me like she used to—like I’m still home and all our broken pieces fit together perfectly—and I’m lost.
Before I can talk myself out of it, I kiss her.
It’s not gentle. It’s not soft. It’s every unsent message and sleepless night.
Every ache of regret churning into what feels like a lifetime of need.
She tastes like the past and present colliding.
Her hands fist in my shirt, drawing me closer, and all the walls I’ve spent years building come crashing down.
The sound of her breath fills the space between us, shallow and uneven. When she kisses me back, I swear she’s shaking. Not from fear, but from everything she’s holding in.
The years apart disappear in a heartbeat. My hands move on instinct, tracing the curve of her waist, refamiliarizing myself with the body I still know by heart. She feels the same, familiar in a way that makes me ache. She feels like mine…
I pull back, both of us panting. With our foreheads resting together and labored breaths wafting over each other’s lips, I manage to whisper, “We shouldn’t…”
“I’m not a little girl anymore, Chris.” Tightening her hold on my shirt and pulling me back into her, her lips vibrate against mine. “I know exactly what we’re doing…”
But she doesn’t.
I’ve spent years pretending I could live without this. Without her. Pretending that distance was the same as peace. But here, now, with her breath mingling with mine and her pulse fluttering beneath my fingertips, I know it was all a lie. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to walk away from her again.
My heart pounds so hard it hurts. I cup her face, my thumb brushing the corner of her mouth before replacing it with my lips. Her lips part against mine, and I catch the faint sound of her shaky, desperate breaths. My tongue eases into her mouth, and the taste of her pulls me under.
With my arms snaked around her, I drag her body onto my lap as my tongue plunders her mouth.
She melts into my hold, her hands slide up my chest and over my shoulders like she’s relearning me piece by piece.
Her hands grip the back of my neck, daring me to kiss her harder. Daring me to take this further.