Even Better (Stripped 2.50)

Then I hear it, the low voices of Blue—and West. They’re speaking in serious tones, private tones, but I don’t detect the kind of urgency that an intruder would cause. I push the sheets back and creep toward the door. He told me to stay put, but I can’t sit in that bed for one more second, can’t wonder and wait after feeling the strange moans vibrate under my skin.

The hallway is pitch-black, but the guest room is illuminated by the moon like the main bedroom. I stand at the door, a few feet behind where Blue is standing. Beyond him, West is sitting up in bed and rubbing his forehead.

“Christ,” he mutters. “Sorry to wake you.”

Blue shakes his head. “Don’t worry about it. Besides, after sleeping in the same bed with Hannah, I’m used to waking up several times a night.”

“Hey,” I say before I can stop myself.

He looks back and winks at me. “That’s what you get for eavesdropping.”

I give him a small smile, still tense from before. “Just checking on you.”

His expression softens, and he pulls me close. “Check away. We’re okay. He’s okay.”

Except that West doesn’t look okay. I can’t see his face at all with the shadows, but his body language tells me he’s tense and frustrated and maybe even scared. “West?” I ask softly.

His laugh is hard. “Okay is not the word I’d use to describe myself. I’ll move out tomorrow. Don’t worry. You won’t have to hear me again.”

I flinch, though I’m glad he can’t see me do it. Too many years with angry men have left me wary. Even Blue has an intensity that is unnerving, a single-minded focus that breaks through my walls. I don’t like being vulnerable. But that’s something we have in common. West doesn’t like being vulnerable either.

One step closer. Two.

“I can’t help but worry,” I say, sitting on the edge of the bed. It feels like an invasion of his space. Even if I live here and West is a guest. Because this is his bed. More than that, this is a moment of weakness. He would rather be left alone, would prefer never to have woken us up.

But turning my back on him now would be like turning my back on every soldier who had a bad dream. It would be like turning my back on Blue, and I can’t do that.

Instead I reach for him, my hand a dark slash against the white sheet. I’m giving the option to reject me, and I wouldn’t be angry if he did.

So it’s almost a surprise when he takes my hand.

A surprise when a strong, hard man takes comfort from someone like me. I’m too soft to really support them, these soldiers, these warriors. I know that, but it seems to help anyway. Some of the tension leaves West’s soldiers.

“Shit,” he sighs. “I thought it would stop once I left Fort Armstrong.”

“Flashbacks?” I ask quietly.

“Nothing as specific as that. Or if there are, I don’t remember them. I just wake up shaking and

sweating, my BP to the ceiling and copper in my mouth. Then I’m awake for the rest of the night, with nothing to do but lie here and think.”

“That’s the worst,” Blue says, coming to stand by the bed, his hand on my shoulder.

The men aren’t touching each other, but they’re both touching me. I’m the link between them, the comfort they struggle to offer each other. West’s hand is larger than mine, but it’s trembling. I squeeze, offering comfort, feeling the calluses—the general ones that cover his palm and the specific hills where skin rubbed against a part of a weapon. Blue has them too. Hours of practice and hours more of using the weapon in combat left their mark, as much a scar as knife and bullet wounds.

West squeezes back, and I know we can’t leave him like this—to face the darkness and his demons alone. He might leave tomorrow, like he says he will, even if we reassure him it’s okay. And at some point, he might need to be alone.

Not tonight.

“Scoot over,” I say.

I feel West’s surprise more than I see it. He doesn’t object though. He just scoots to the far side of the queen-sized guest bed, leaving plenty of space for myself—and for Blue.

Glancing over my shoulder, I ask, “What’ll it be? Do you want to be the cream or a cookie?”

He snorts. “What do you think?”

Then he’s pushing me into the middle of the bed, climbing in after me. Of course he’s the hard outer shell. I’m the middle, the one sandwiched between them. My body recognizes the two muscled male bodies around me and responds with heat. Mostly, though, I feel both safe and protective. These two men would defend me against anything, but they need me to keep them company, to hold their hand through the long, dark nights.