I was surprised when my phone rang while I sat in the boarding area, even more so when I read the caller ID.
“Hey,” I said hoarsely.
“You had to be rescued by SWAT?” he growled.
His voice sounded really good. Tense, but good. “It wasn’t as bad as it looked on TV,” I assured Ian, wondering if Morgan’s balls were in a vise at this exact moment. The news crew—all of them—made the entire situation, even without benefit of our names, sound a lot more dire than it was.
“You better be on your way home.”
“I am.” I swallowed hard. “Are you?”
“Yep.”
A two-week Special Forces op had turned into a just-over-four-months marathon, so him telling me he was coming home to our overpriced Greystone sent a shiver of anticipation through me. I’d missed him bad. “I’m just waiting to board, so I’ll be home in the morning. You?”
“Saturday night.”
My stomach, which had not reacted to imminent death earlier today, flipped over in response to those words. I sighed deeply. “I can’t wait to see you.”
“Me too,” he croaked.
“Ian?”
“Goddammit, Miro, you’re supposed to stay home when I’m not with you!”
“It wasn’t my fault,” I said with a smile he couldn’t see. “It was Phil.”
“Who?”
I explained about the nozzle who was in charge while our boss took a much-deserved vacation with his family.
“Yeah, well, I bet Kage had him killed already.”
“I seriously would not put it past him. Kage left orders and Tull disregarded them. We both know how well that goes over.”
He grunted.
“So you’re all in one piece?” I asked, trying to keep the worry out of my voice.
“I am.”
“Any new scars you want to tell me about?”
“No,” he said hesitantly, and I finally heard it, the pain in his voice. “But Sunday… I need you to go to a funeral with me.”
“Of course,” I breathed, waiting to hear who’d died.
“Buddy of mine.”
I’d been worried that maybe it was his father. Ian and his dad weren’t close, and the last time they saw each other had been a disaster, but…. “So your friend—”
“Laird. Eddie Laird.”
That was really fast. “He wasn’t there with you on the op?”
“No.”
It wasn’t the time to ask for specifics, but I was curious, I couldn’t help it. “Okay, so I’ll see you at home on Saturday. Call me from the—”
He coughed. “No, uhm, why don’t you pick me up.”
I was ridiculously touched. Never had I been allowed. Most of the time he didn’t know exactly when he’d show up, but also, Ian liked our homecoming scenes private. He was not a PDA kind of guy at all, and the reception of men returning home from deployment was loud. Artillery barrage, explosions, boots on the ground, all that big-ticket noise, Ian could do. Squealing high-pitched joy was beyond him.
“Miro?”
“Sorry. You just never want me at the airport.”
“Yeah, well, now I do.”
I was excited and nervous at the same time because if I went, it was possible I might meet other men from his unit. I had only ever met one in the past, and he transferred out not long after that, so this would be a first time for me with the group. But maybe I had it all wrong. Maybe it would just be Ian, and that was the reason for the invite. “Will it be just you or—”
“No, we’re all on the same flight.”
Interesting. “What’s the flight number?”
He gave it to me, and I heard his sharply indrawn breath, which told me it hurt for him to move. “Are you sure you’re all in one piece?”
“Yeah.”
A short answer was not good.
“So, M,” he began softly. “You been sleeping okay?”
Ian was a Green Beret who’d seen and done things that would have given me night terrors for years. I knew he’d been on secret missions to countries the US wasn’t supposed to be in, that there was blood on his hands and his horrors were legion, while mine amounted to one man, one time that showed me how futile struggle could be and how truly powerless I was. It made me feel ridiculously whiny and weak to ever complain to Ian about the PTSD I experienced after being kidnapped by Dr. Craig Hartley. Our department shrink diagnosed me while Ian was gone. Ian was actually the one who made me see the doctor, but really, confessing to the man I loved—who had real ghosts that haunted him—would not be something I ever did.
“Miro?”
“I sleep better when you’re here.” And that was not a lie. Between sex or cuddling, I slept like a rock when I had him plastered to my back.
“Same,” he sighed.
My voice was going to go if we kept talking. I missed him too much to keep the emotion out of it. “All right, well, I’ll see you soon.”
“Yes, you will,” he murmured.
There was a silence.
“Ian?”
He coughed softly. “I really… missed you.”