I blinked up at him. “Your last tour?” I parroted. “Gwen told me that you’d already done that,” I said, then caught myself sounding like I’d been asking Gwen about him. “You know, she mentioned it. In passing. And she was excited about it. You not going back to wars. Where you have the possibility of getting shot.”
His eyes flickered with something, something that betrayed what was beyond those chocolate orbs rippling with desire. Something that I recognized as the chaos I also cloaked behind a still surface.
“Yeah. She was. Considering it’s the same place her brother never came back from after he visited her here.” His voice was flat, but not empty. I recognized it. What lay beneath.
Pain.
A lot of it.
“So, you lied to her,” I deduced. There was no accusation in my tone. Nothing actually. It was flat like his.
His eyes didn’t leave mine. “I didn’t tell the woman I promised my brother I’d look after before he died that I’d be going back to battle. Because I know her. She’d worry. I don’t need to be responsible for putting any more of that heaviness in her eyes when she’s finally got a reason to let most of it go.”
I couldn’t take my eyes off him. The words, though easily spoken, were not something I guessed he shared with many people. But he was sharing it with me. For whatever reason.
“I get that,” I said finally. “You’re protecting her.”
He nodded. “Best way I know how.” There was a pause as he rubbed the back of his neck.
“I won’t say anything,” I reassured him. There was code about lying to your girlfriends, but I was agreeing with Keltan on this one. Gwen had been through enough for a lifetime. If this little untruth would make it easier for her to get through the day, I’d keep it to myself.
“I know,” Keltan said simply, confidently. Like he trusted me. Like he knew me. Not like I was a stranger he’d met the previous night at a biker party and then made out with against a car at an ungodly hour of the morning.
“So, you’re leaving to go back? To the war?” I clarified.
He nodded once, glancing to his watch. “A war,” he corrected. “This world doesn’t just have one. Shit, it doesn’t even have a hundred. One of many, babe.” His words were littered with double meaning and too much poignancy for that point in the morning. Or my life.
I didn’t answer.
Silence was usually the best option.
But not with him, it seemed. Stillness with him was dangerous because it gave whatever this was more chance to grow, evolve. And even though I was aware of how incredibly insane it was, it didn’t make it any different.
“Need to do that. Leave. About now,” he said, breaking the silence with his deep voice and rough accent. His eyes didn’t leave mine. “Not that I want to. You make a man forget about duty to his country. About anything but the way you taste.” His dark eyes traveled to my lips. “But I’ve got to. They don’t shoot deserters anymore. Which is a shame, because I’d risk a bullet for you in this instance, without hesitation. If there’s anything I fear more than not tasting more of those lips, it’s a cage. Which is what I’d get. They court-martial deserters.”
Maybe it was the talk of leaving, far too familiar and hitting an exposed bone that I thought I’d buried, but it jerked me out of my stupor so I could paint a mask of ice on my face.
“Yeah. You should go,” I agreed sharply. “Because accosting some woman on the street and talking to her like you know some sort of secret isn’t behavior set for this country. And I’m certainly not the person to be doing that. I’m not right for you.”
His eyes hardened. “I disagree.”
“Well then, you’re not right for me,” I argued, pushing past him to open my car door.
“Snow, the way you kissed me back tells me I’m exactly the right man for you. Even if you don’t admit it. We’ve got time.” He gave me one lingering look before he turned on his heel and walked the short distance to his pickup. I hated that I watched every second of his retreat.
That I wished for it not to be happening.
But I did.
And then he was gone.
And I was fucked.
Two Months Later
I thought of him every single day for the months after he was gone.
Which was insane. I had a handful of words with him, eighty percent of which were sarcastic (me) or teasing (him). And I’d stared at him all night, stoking whatever strange fire was burning between us.
Then there was the morning. The kiss. The kiss that was now a ghost, haunting my lips. Sometimes they actually tingled with the memory of his lips on mine.