Page 51 of What We Brave
I want to argue. Should argue. But the heat lamp is pouring warmth over us, and Blake's body is solid and warm against my side, and my fingers are tingling.
"Fine. Five minutes." This is my first winter. Maybe I am more like Bethany than I thought, because I chased the sun too. Accepting a post in the middle of winter anywhere was something I just didn't do.
Apparently, I still have a lot to learn about these temperatures.
"That's what I thought."
We sit in silence for a moment. Around us, the camp continues its quiet evening rhythm. Someone's playing guitar near one of the fires. A group of men are sharing a thermos of something that's probably not coffee.
"How's your stomach?" I ask finally. "No pukey pukey?"
The looks he shoots me cracks me up. I try to cover my mouth with my hand, but my whole body's shaking with laughter. Thank God he doesn't seem too pissed off about it. There might even be a little smile trying to hide at the corner of his mouth.
"No I didn't puke. For fuck's sake, a guy gets a little woozy once, and suddenly he loses all respect." He's grumbling under his breath, but that little smile gets a tiny bit bigger.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry! I shouldn't make fun. It's just—you went down so fast!" I'm still fighting giggles, wiping tears from my eyes. "One second you're all tough military guy, and the next you're sitting on the ground."
I take a deep breath, letting the last of the laughter go. It feels good to release it, but the reality of where we are—the freezing cold, the tents, the smell of woodsmoke and unwashed bodies—rushes back in to fill the space.
I look at Blake, really look at him. The gray in his stubble, the lines around his eyes that weren't there a few months ago.
"I guess you don't get the luxury of being soft where you were before. The armor has to be pretty thick to make it out alive."
"Has to be." Blake shifts slightly, adjusting his knee under my weight. "When you go through that kind of thing together, it either bonds you or breaks you. Sometimes both."
I think about Reid. About what he told me once, late at night, about the men he served with. The ones who made it home and the ones who didn't.
"You and Reid," I start, then stop. Not sure where I'm going with this.
"Me and Reid," Blake agrees. He doesn't push. Doesn't fill the silence. Just waits. It's something I appreciate about him, this stillness.
Reid's kind of like a toddler. If he's quiet, there's trouble. Not that I think of him like a child, but that exuberance, that busyness is all him.
"He never talked much about his service. I knew he was in the Marines, knew about Jared, but the details..." I trail off. "I guess I didn't ask enough questions."
"Reid doesn't like to talk about it. Never has." Blake's voice is quiet. "Some of us process by sharing. Some of us process by not sharing. Reid's the second kind."
"Which kind are you?" I almost want to slap my hand over my mouth. The Blake from before would have shut down this conversation. And by shut down I mean he'd have said something mean.
"I used to be the second kind," he says finally. "Kept everything locked down tight. Figured if I didn't talk about it, it couldn't hurt me."
"What changed?"
"Jared died," he says simply. Direct. Like it's the most obvious thing in the world. "After that, keeping it locked down stopped working. But I didn't know how to do anything else, so I just... stayed broken for a while."
My hand finds his. I don't plan it. But I can't not touch him. Comfort him. His fingers are rough, calloused, warm despite the cold. He doesn't pull away. The danger sign in my head is flashing, but I'm ignoring it. It's not that hard really. I've never been this close to Blake for this long. And I sure as heck never felt him under me like this.
Yep. That danger sign's short-circuiting now.
"You're not broken, Blake."
"Cracked, then. Chipped around the edges." He almost smiles. "Like that mantelpiece I was working on. Looks solid from a distance, but up close you can see all the places where it's been patched."
"That's not a flaw. That's character. That's proof of survival."
He turns his head to look at me then. His eyes are so dark in this light, the blue a stormy grey, and there's something in them I haven't seen before. Something raw. Something I can't look away from.
Darn it, Laine. This is so not smart.
