Protecting Her: A Romance Bundle

“No, the way I presented it was wrong. I should never have shouted and yelled like an idiot.”

A heat burns my cheeks as I think about how I acted. I couldn’t believe I’d been so cruel. Honestly, the thought that she could have died with those petty conversations being the last thing she remembered of me… it was a reality check, and one that I’ll take with me forever. I’m stunned to the core at my behaviour.

“Well, I wasn’t exactly great either. I said some things I didn’t mean as well. I think we both have to just move past what happened and look towards the future, don’t you? I know it was bad, but we’ve learned.”

“Oh, boy have we learned.” I nod knowingly. “But I don’t think we can move on just yet.”

“We can’t?” Veronica furrows her eyebrows in confusion. “Why not? Is something wrong?”

I feel like a jerk, especially when I’ve been kissing her in the hospital, but I truly believe that this is something that we need to address first. After everything we’ve been through I don’t think it would be wise to jump in with blinkers on. We need to make some conscious decisions and stick to them.

“Yes. We do. I think we need to discuss it all. We need to work out how we’re going to be together.”

“You mean…” All the color drains from her cheeks, making me feel even worse. I should have planned out this conversation better, this isn’t how I wanted it to go. “Don’t you want to be with me?”

“Oh no, it isn’t that at all. I don’t want you to think that, I just think we need to be smart. We’ve had issues, and our issues have come from our jobs. They’ve put us in danger. I hated it when you were in danger and I’m sure that you felt the same way about me.” She nods once more. “So, we should sort it, don’t you think?”

“Yeah,” Veronica murmurs back. “I suppose that makes a lot of sense actually. We want it to be right.”

I breathe out a sigh of relief. At least she gets what I’m saying. I’m not trying to say anything which will damage us here, I just want our relationship to continue down the right path. I want us to be truly happy from here on out. I don’t want it to all seem okay now, just for issues to come up later on. Issues that could have been avoided with better communication. This is us starting afresh, I want it to be perfect.

“I never got around to telling you before because we were in such a bad place, but I applied for a desk job just before you left. I didn’t want to go back to Afghanistan to fight for so many reasons, some of which I’m sure you understand better now, so now my career is back here in the US, so I can be home all the time.”

Veronica gasps loudly and clutches her hand to her chest in shock. “I never realized,” she garbles. “I didn’t know. I guess I was just waiting for you to go back again, to leave me.”

I take her hand in mine and smile at her. “I know. It’s my fault, I should have told you. We both just got so caught up in pettiness, it’s silly. I cannot believe I kept such an important life change from you too.”

“But how were you in Afghanistan for me? How did you save me? Were you not with a team?”

“I came over especially for you. As soon as I heard the news I demanded to be a part of the team.”

“You… you saw the video? Did they play it on the news or something?”

“I don’t know about that. I heard it through the military. They were keeping tabs on you the whole time for me. I might have been too much of an idiot to actually communicate with you myself, but that didn’t mean I didn’t care about you. I had people watching your every move so I knew that you were safe… until you weren’t.”

“Wow, that’s… that’s too much. I can’t believe it. I thought that you hated me.”

I stared at her searchingly. “Did you really think that? Because I could never hate you. I love you.”

“I love you too… it was just so bad. You didn’t even come to the airport with me. I don’t know what I thought.”

She looks so bewildered, I feel bad for over loading her with so much

information at a time when she really doesn’t need it. Maybe we should have waited a bit longer before unlocking this box.

“Well, I do, and now I want to be in this country for you, forever. This won’t happen again.”

“Well, if you’re staying here to be safe, then I will too, because obviously, I love you as well. I always have and I always will. No terrorist asshole is going to change that! I might even quit my job at channel six and find something else. I keep thinking it might be time to start looking at print media instead.”

“Are you sure that’s what you want? Because if you are, of course I will support you, but don’t feel like you have to quit because of this. I’m pretty sure Oliver will give you whatever you want because he’ll be so scared of you suing him. If you ask him to give you certain jobs, then he will do it. And he would have to be the dumbest idiot on the planet to send you somewhere dangerous again. I guarantee it won’t happen.”

“You think?” I don’t think she looks sure, but that’s okay. I don’t expect her to be certain of anything at the moment. “Well, I suppose I don’t need to make a choice right now, do I? I have time.”

“You have all the time in the world, babe. I don’t mind what you want to do as long as you’re safe. Nearly losing you like that killed me. I couldn’t stand it. It made me see what I was doing to you as well because you must have felt that way every single day when I was away, and you didn’t have anyone keeping tabs on me.”

I hate that this happened to us, I really do, but the fact that it has makes us see one another a bit clearer. I feel like we can both climb into one another’s heads a little better. We can’t have each other’s experiences, I’m not assuming that much, but we can have a degree of sympathy. Some good can come from this, if we let it.

“So, we’re no longer going to be the career-oriented couple with a terribly modern long-distance relationship?” Veronica asks me with a shove and a chuckle. “We’re going to be a boring normal couple.”