Chapter 12
Allison woke to the smell of coffee she hadn't made.
That was wrong. She was the one who made coffee. She'd made every pot in this compound for the last week, brewed it dark enough to strip paint because that's how operators liked it and she'd stopped pretending she wasn't one of them.
But the mug on the nightstand was steaming, and Static's side of the bed was empty and cold.
She found him on the back porch.
Not walking the perimeter. Not checking positions or mapping sight lines or doing any of the hundred things he did to keep himself between the world and the people he'd decided mattered.
Just sitting on the top step with his own mug cradled in his hands, watching the morning light filter through the pines like he'd never seen a sunrise before.
"You made coffee," she said from the doorway.
"Couldn't sleep."
"You slept for nine hours."
He looked over his shoulder at her, and something in his expression made her chest do that dangerous thing again. The thing it had been doing since a parking lot in Fayetteville, getting worse every day, building toward a conclusion she'd stopped trying to avoid.
"First time in years," he said. "Felt strange."
She sat beside him on the step, close enough that their arms touched. The morning was already warm—Carolina May didn't believe in gradual—but his skin was warmer. She pressed against it anyway.
"Strange good or strange bad?"
"Strange like waking up and not knowing what to do with myself.
" He stared at his coffee. "I've spent every morning since I left the Army running threat assessment before my feet hit the floor.
Checking positions, cataloging exits, calculating what could go wrong.
This morning I woke up and..." He trailed off.
"And what?"
"And all I could think about was that you were still breathing." His voice was quiet. Raw. Morning-honest in a way that night never allowed. "That's it. That's all that mattered. You were breathing and you were next to me and everything else was noise."
Allison's throat ached.
"That scares me," he said. "More than the assault. More than Kendrick. The idea that one person could matter enough to replace everything else in my head—that's the most dangerous thing that's ever happened to me."
"More dangerous than jumping out of planes?"
"Planes can't break your heart."
She set her coffee down because her hands weren't steady enough to hold it.
"I need to tell you something," he said. "The full thing. Not the version I gave you on the perimeter."
"About Martinez?"
"About me. About what happened after Martinez.
" He shifted on the step, angling toward her, and she saw the effort it cost him—the deliberate dismantling of walls that had been standing for years.
"When we recovered his body... what they'd done to him.
Three days. Three days because I pulled out thirty seconds early. "
"Static—"
"Let me finish." Not sharp. Desperate. Like if he stopped, he'd never start again.
"After that, I couldn't stop. Couldn't stop checking positions, running withdrawal scenarios, planning extractions for situations that didn't exist. Every waking minute was rear-guard.
Every sleeping minute was Martinez behind that wall. "
"PTSD."
"The Army called it that. Gave me a diagnosis, offered me pills and a counselor who'd never heard a shot fired.
I called it doing my job." His laugh was bitter, edged.
"Because if I was always watching the six, always covering the withdrawal, then nobody else would get left behind.
That was the deal I made with myself. My back didn't matter.
My sleep didn't matter. My life didn't matter. As long as the formation survived."
Allison listened. Not with the polite attention of someone hearing a story, but with the focused stillness of someone receiving a confession.
"I brought that to the club," he continued.
"Legion saw it. Gave me tail gunner because he understood—put me at the six where I needed to be, let me cover the formation, let me burn myself out protecting everyone else's back.
And it worked. For years, it worked. I had a position and a purpose and I never had to think about what I wanted because wanting things is how you get hurt. "
"And then?"
"And then I started eating breakfast at a food truck."
The words landed softly. Simply. Like the most obvious thing in the world.
"Three years," he said. "Three years of watching you through that window, telling myself it was just routine.
Good food, convenient location, nothing personal.
" He shook his head. "But I memorized your schedule.
Knew what days you wore your hair up and what days you let it down.
Knew when you'd had a hard night because your smile got bigger to compensate.
Knew the exact pitch of your laugh when it was real versus when you were performing for customers. "
"You never said anything."
"What was I supposed to say? I'm the guy who sits in your parking lot for hours because leaving means I can't watch you?
I'm the man who has nightmares about failed extractions and spends his days calculating how to keep people alive who don't know they're in danger?
" He looked at her. "That's not a dating profile. That's a restraining order."
She laughed. Couldn't help it. The sound burst out of her, raw and real, and his eyes widened like he'd said something profound instead of accidentally funny.
"You idiot," she said. "You absolute idiot."
"That's not the response I expected."
"You spent three years eating my burritos and studying my schedule and memorizing my laugh, and you thought that was creepy?
" She grabbed his arm. "I gave you extra jalape?os because you liked them.
I started brewing a darker roast on Tuesdays because that's when you came earliest and looked the most tired.
I kept that truck parked in that spot even after the city offered me a better location because you might not find me if I moved. "
He stared at her.
"We're both idiots," she said.
"Apparently."
"Three years of dancing around each other because neither of us had the guts to say it."
"To be fair, you were also busy running a business—"
"And you were busy staring at me from a pickup truck and pretending it was coincidence."
His mouth twitched. Almost a smile. Then wider. Then—
He laughed.
Real. Full. A sound she'd heard exactly once before, in their bed the first night, rough and unfamiliar like an engine turning over after years of sitting idle. This time it came easier. Richer. The laugh of a man discovering that he was allowed to find things funny.
She leaned into him and let herself enjoy it.
They sat there for a while, shoulders pressed together, listening to the compound wake up around them. Brothers moving in the garage. Engines being checked. The distant clang of Forge doing something aggressive to sheet metal.
"I need to tell you my part too," she said eventually. "If we're doing this."
"Doing what?"
"The full-honesty thing. The part where we stop pretending we're fine and actually talk about the weight we're carrying." She pulled her knees up, wrapping her arms around them. "You showed me yours. My turn."
He waited. The same patience he'd shown at her truck, at the safehouse, every time she needed space to find the right words.
"I built Perry's Pit Stop because I needed to prove I could do something alone," she said.
"My whole life was defined by someone else's service.
Sergeant Major's daughter. Military brat.
The kid who moved every three years and learned to make friends fast because she'd lose them faster.
" She rested her chin on her knees. "I wanted something that was mine.
Not my father's career, not the Army's schedule, not some husband's identity. Mine."
"And you built it."
"From a truck that didn't run and recipes my grandmother wrote on index cards.
" She smiled at the memory. "First six months, I barely broke even.
Worked eighteen-hour days. Learned to fix a generator at three in the morning because I couldn't afford a mechanic.
Smiled at every customer even when I wanted to cry because cheerful sells burritos and crying doesn't."
"The cheerful endurance."
"That's a good name for it." She exhaled.
"My mother was the master of cheerful endurance.
Deployments, relocations, the constant low-grade terror of being married to a man who jumped out of planes for a living.
She smiled through everything. Made it look effortless.
I thought that's what strong looked like. "
"And?"
"And it's exhausting." The word came out heavier than she intended.
"Smiling when you're scared. Being cheerful when the generator dies and the rent's due and some customer is screaming about cold eggs.
Pretending everything's fine because admitting it's not means you're weak, and military women don't get to be weak. "
Static's hand found hers on the step. Warm. Steady. Not gripping—just present.
"The loan was the worst of it," she continued. "I knew better. My father would have told me to wait, save up, expand slowly. But I was so tired of slow. So tired of scraping by, of cheerful endurance, of making it work on nothing. Kendrick's terms sounded like freedom. Like finally getting ahead."
"He designed them to sound that way."
"I know that now. But when I signed..." She closed her eyes.
"I felt like I was finally doing something bold.
Something that said I was more than a sergeant major's daughter with a food truck and a smile.
And then the interest changed, and the payments doubled, and everything I'd built started collapsing, and I couldn't tell anyone because admitting I'd been conned meant admitting I wasn't as strong as I pretended to be. "
"You threw coffee in a man's face and fought him off alone. That's not pretend strength."
"That's survival instinct. Different thing." She opened her eyes and found him watching her with an expression she hadn't seen before. Not protective. Not possessive. Something deeper.
Understanding.
"We're the same," she said quietly. "You burn yourself out covering everyone else's back because you think your own doesn't matter.
I smile through everything because I think admitting I'm struggling means I've failed.
We're both running ourselves into the ground for people who'd help us if we just asked. "
"I'm not good at asking."
"Neither am I." She turned her hand over in his, lacing their fingers together.
"But I'm asking now. Whatever this is—whatever we're building—I don't want to do it the way we've done everything else.
I don't want to pretend I'm fine when I'm not.
And I don't want you walking perimeters at three in the morning because you're too stubborn to tell me you're hurting. "
"What do you want?"
"I want to watch your six." She squeezed his hand. "Permanently. Not because you need protecting—you're the most dangerous man I've ever met and you could probably survive anything. But because you shouldn't have to. Not anymore. Not alone."
He was quiet for a long time. The sun climbed higher through the pines, painting the compound in gold. Somewhere inside, brothers were eating breakfast she hadn't made, managing without her for the first time in a week.
The world kept turning even when she stopped holding it up.
Imagine that.
"I want to watch yours too," he said finally.
"Not from a parking lot. Not from a distance where I can pretend it's just habit.
" He turned to face her fully, his eyes holding hers with a certainty that felt permanent.
"I want you at the compound. At my side.
In my bed. I want your truck parked where I can see it and your voice in my ear and your face as the last thing I check before I close my eyes. "
"That's very specific for a man who's not good at asking."
"I'm not asking." His hand tightened on hers. "I'm telling you what I want and finding out if you want it too."
"I've been watching your six for three years without realizing it," she said. "I think you know the answer."
He pulled her into him then—not with the desperate urgency of last night or the careful tenderness of the first time. This was steady. Certain. A man wrapping himself around the thing he'd chosen with the absolute commitment of someone who didn't make choices lightly.
She held on with equal certainty.
"No more cheerful endurance," he murmured against her hair.
"No more midnight perimeters."
"I can't promise that."
"Then take me with you." She pressed her face against his neck, breathing in leather and coffee and morning air. "If you're going to walk the fence at three in the morning, I'm walking it with you. That's the deal."
"That's a terrible deal. You hate mornings."
"I hate you not sleeping more."
His arms tightened. She felt his chin rest on top of her head, felt the rise and fall of his chest as something settled in him—something that had been unsettled for years, maybe decades, finally finding a resting position.
"Okay," he said. "Deal."
No vague promises. No someday-maybes. Just two people who'd learned the hard way that words without specifics were just noise, choosing each other with the precision of people who'd survived enough to know exactly what they wanted.
Allison closed her eyes and let the Carolina morning hold them both.
For the first time in her life, she didn't have to smile through it.
She was already smiling for real.