Текст книги "Falling for Danger"
Автор книги: Chanel Cleeton
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Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 14 страниц)
My body sagged against the bed, the orgasm wringing the last vestiges of restraint from me, my knees weak. I lay there for a moment, Kate stroking my chest, a feeling of complete and utter contentment that I hadn’t experienced in years filling me.
If I’d died, then this was heaven, this girl my own filthy angel.
Neither one of us spoke, as though words would profane the moment, as though we really had time traveled to a time and place when we could just be reduced to this. Minutes passed and then I rose from the bed, grabbing a towel from Kate’s bedroom, cleaning up before sliding under the covers next to her, feeling for the first time since I’d come back to D.C. like I’d really and truly come home.
Her hand reached out and found mine, our fingers linking together. I feel asleep with my hand in hers, and no dreams came.
She’d chased my nightmares away.
Chapter Seven
Rumor has it that Kate Reynolds is returning to the family fold …
–Capital Confessions blog
Kate
I woke to an empty bed, the pain in my side reminding me of yesterday, the slight ache between my legs a souvenir from last night.
There weren’t words for how amazing things had been between us. Weren’t words for how he made me feel. There would never be anyone else for me; I would never love anyone as much as I loved him.
I knew this had danger written all over it. Knew there was something wild in him that hadn’t been there before, that he wasn’t ready to give me more than his body, that somewhere along the way he’d hid his heart so he could get by. Maybe I’d done the same; as much as I knew what we were to each other, as much as I could face my feelings, I’d have been lying if I didn’t admit that I wasn’t wholly ready to throw myself back into what we’d been, that there was some survival instinct that held me back, that told me that in this case, going slow wasn’t the end of the world.
The loss of him had already destroyed me once; I wasn’t exactly eager to court that kind of heartbreak again. I wasn’t ready to throw in the towel, either.
As much as I hated to admit it, I was my father’s daughter. Maybe I wasn’t as ruthless as he was, but that didn’t mean that I hadn’t learned some valuable lessons at his knee. If you wanted something, you had to make it happen for yourself.
I wanted Matt. It might take us a while to get to a point where we trusted each other enough to let go, but if this was the opening to get us back to where we’d been before, then I’d take it.
All’s fair in love and war.
I got out of bed, wincing slightly, taking a couple more pain pills before heading to the bathroom to brush my teeth and get cleaned up. I heard the sounds of someone in my kitchen, and was definitely not ready to face Matt with unbrushed teeth and messy hair. Not after last night.
I cleaned up, my fingers lingering over the red marks on my breasts where his beard had abraded my skin, as I remembered the feel of his lips closing around my nipple, his teeth tugging on the tight bud, his tongue flicking back and forth.
I couldn’t wait until I was better and I could have him exactly how I wanted.
I left the bedroom, unable to keep the smile off of my face at the thought of seeing him again. He’d been home a little over twenty-four hours and I was right back where I’d always been. Head-over-heels in love.
I walked into the kitchen. “Come back to bed—”
I stopped short.
Blair stood in the kitchen, arranging a tray with juice and croissants. “Hey, you’re up.”
What the hell? Where was Matt?
“Um. Hi.” I gave her a hug, my gaze darting around the apartment. When had he left?
Blair gestured to the tray sitting on the countertop. “I was just bringing you some breakfast.”
“Thanks.” We’d gone to bed at around four a.m. It was now nine. How long had he been gone—and more importantly, was he coming back?
“So how long have you been here?” I asked, trying to keep my tone casual.
“Thirty minutes, maybe? I checked on you and you were fast asleep. I used my key. I hope that’s okay.” Blair cocked her head to the side, her gaze turning speculative. “You didn’t know it was me, did you?”
“Of course I knew it was you,” I sputtered. “Who else would it be?”
Fuck.
Jackie. It could have been Jackie. She had a key, too. Needed to learn to think more quickly on my feet. Clearly this was one of the reasons I’d been better suited to life as an analyst and not in the clandestine service.
“So if you thought it was me, why did you walk into the kitchen and say, ‘Come back to bed’?”
Mother eff.
Apparently, I failed in the face of older sister intuition.
“It’s the pain meds, probably,” I lied. “I’m all kinds of confused.”
The expression on her face told me she didn’t buy it for a second. “Right.”
“Can we go sit?” I gestured to the living room, figuring Matt’s earlier edict about staying away from the windows was pretty much moot since whoever was after me had easily proven that they could get to me anytime, anywhere without the finesse of a long-range sniper. Besides, if he really were so concerned about me, where the hell was he? Had he heard Blair coming and left? But how would he have managed it without her seeing him when he went through the front door? It wasn’t like he was Spider-Man.
Blair followed me into the living room, tray in hand.
“Didn’t you used to have a coffee table?”
I grimaced. “Um. Yeah, I did. I decided it didn’t really fit with my decor.”
Thank god Matt had the foresight to get rid of it yesterday before I’d gone to the bank.
“So did you see anyone hanging around outside when you got here? I thought I heard people in the hall or something.” I asked, trying my best for nonchalance.
Blair grinned. “Like the guy you had in your bedroom?”
I felt my face flame. “I did not have a guy in my bedroom.”
“Oh, come on. ‘Come back to bed’?” Her expression softened, the teasing lilt leaving her voice. “Are you seeing someone?”
Oh, god. I stuffed my face full of croissant, stalling.
I didn’t want to lie to her; I couldn’t tell her the truth. And the hardest part was that I saw the hope in her eyes, knew that more than anything, she just wanted me to be happy. After experiencing just a bit of what it was like to watch the person you loved suffering, I understood how difficult these past few years had been for her.
I took a deep breath, opting for somewhere between the truth and the lie.
“I’m not dating anyone or anything official, but there’s a guy, and we hooked up.”
Blair’s eyes widened. “This is huge.”
If she only knew.
“How do you feel about it?” she asked.
I took a sip of my orange juice. “Good.”
Great. Confused.
“It has to be tough. How are you doing with everything?”
Why? Oh, right, because she thought this was the first guy I’d moved on with since Matt.
I struggled to sober my expression. “Yeah. It is. It’s really tough.”
Which wasn’t totally a lie.
Blair reached out and squeezed my hand. “I think it’s a good thing that you’re moving on. I know it can’t be easy for you, but Matt would want you to be happy. And you know, maybe this guy isn’t the one, but you’re young, and more than anything, maybe you should just have fun with it. You’ve spent most of your dating years in a serious relationship, and then after that …” her voice trailed off. “I just think it would be good for you to let loose a bit.”
Well, that definitely happened last night.
“Is he a good guy?” Blair asked.
My heart clenched, my throat tight as memories flooded me. Building sand castles on the beach. Matt cheering me on when I learned to ride my bike. Sitting in the stands watching him play soccer, waiting for that moment in every game when he would look up at the crowd and wave at me. Dancing together at my prom. Matt on his knee asking me to be his wife on my eighteenth birthday as we watched the fireworks at the National Mall. My whole life, he’d always been there. My biggest fan. My best friend. The one I called when I had a shitty day or got into a fight with my parents or my sister.
“He’s the best,” I croaked between bites.
Blair’s eyes welled up. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted for you.”
“I know.”
That was part of the problem, why I’d always struggled to move on. Good guys were hard to come by. Great, perfect-for-you, rock solid guys were once-in-a-lifetime. Once you’d found a guy like that, it was impossible to entertain the idea of finding anyone else, of settling for anything less than a great love.
“How are you feeling today?” Blair asked, changing the subject. “How’s your wound?”
“Good, just a little sore. The meds are helping, though.”
“Do you want to hang out today? Gray’s going to a meeting.”
Blair’s boyfriend was an alcoholic and he’d had a substance abuse problem before he moved to D.C. and met Blair. He seemed to have it under control now, but I knew it was something he worked at, and he went to regular A.A. and N.A. meetings.
“We could see if Jackie’s free, have a sister day,” Blair suggested. “She mentioned that she had some wedding stuff to show us.”
Jackie and Will’s wedding was still several months away, but she’d asked us to be bridesmaids. I’d left most of the planning to Jackie and Blair since they both seemed to enjoy it; I weighed in when they asked my opinion, but Blair was way better at that stuff than I was.
“That sounds good. Could we postpone it for a few hours, though? I have some things I need to take care of first.”
Like figuring out what had happened to Matt.
Blair nodded. “Sure. Do you want us to come back around one?”
“Yeah. That would be perfect.”
“Okay.” She gave me a knowing grin. “I’ll get out of your hair so you can take care of whatever you need to. I’ll see you in a bit.”
“Thanks for the breakfast and for stopping by.”
“My pleasure.” She squeezed my hand. “I’m really happy for you.”
I waited until the front door shut behind her, and then I was up, scouring my apartment for any sign of where Matt had gone.
Last night had been amazing. I wanted to think that he wouldn’t have just left, that it had meant something to him, too, but I was confused. I couldn’t ignore what he’d said, couldn’t pretend like he hadn’t been clear with me and given the impression that he didn’t have it in him for anything other than casual. All I could do was hope that I had enough in me for the both of us, to hold on when everything around us tried to rip us apart, to change his mind about the danger of us being together.
I walked back into the bedroom, the memory of last night hitting me full force. And then my gaze settled on the white folded piece of paper on my dresser that I’d missed before, my name written on the outside.
I unfolded the note, the familiar sight of Matt’s writing causing another pang in my chest. The words skewered me.
I’m sorry. I have to do this. I’ll be back. I have a friend watching you. You’ll be safe while I’m gone.
I crumpled the paper in my hand, anger and fear rocking me. He’d gone to Afghanistan. Just like that. After last night, after everything, he’d just left without even a good-bye.
I sank down onto the edge of the bed, trying to get my thoughts under control, trying to calm my racing heart.
What if he was hurt? What if he was killed? He was searching for answers in a place that had nearly been his grave. He said he had contacts there, but would anyone have his back?
I tried to tell myself that he was good at what he did, that he could be lethal if he needed to be, but the problem was that I’d seen what the other side could do, knew what men like my father and his were capable of, knew the lengths they’d go to in order to secure their kingdoms.
No matter how much of his humanity Matt thought he’d lost, he lacked the ruthlessness that someone like my father possessed. There was too much goodness in him to play at their level, and I’d seen enough bullshit in this town to have a hard time believing that the hero always won.
We needed to do something, needed to make them hurt the way they’d hurt us.
You didn’t fight a battle by killing foot soldiers. You had to strike at the center of power, and more than anyone, I had the means to do it. I was done fucking around, done waiting for someone else to make the next move, done waiting like a fucking pawn in a game I didn’t know the rules for.
If Matt wanted to go off on his own, fine. He was a big boy, and as much as it pissed me off and scared me, there wasn’t a thing I could do about it. But I wasn’t the little woman, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to sit around twiddling my thumbs, waiting for him to bag big game and come home victorious. It was time to get on the board.
I pulled out my phone, my fingers dialing the familiar number, swallowing the bitter taste in my mouth.
Sometimes the ends justified the means.
She answered on the third ring.
I swallowed. “Hi, Mom.”
Matt
I stared out the window, regret coursing through me. Everything about this moment felt like déjà vu. Once again, I was headed to Afghanistan, leaving Kate behind in D.C. Once again, I was filled with the sense that I was doing something I had to do, and at the same time feeling like I’d left all of the essential parts of me behind, clutched in her small hands.
I didn’t want to love her.
It would be so much easier if I didn’t love her. If the sight of her, the sound of her voice, the feel of her touch, didn’t shatter my meager control. I’d learned the hard way that love could be a double-edged sword. Having it made you invincible; it also gave your enemies the ultimate chink in your armor. I lived in terror that someone would realize that I was still alive and that they would strike at me through the most obvious means—Kate.
I’d asked an old associate to watch over her, a guy who didn’t know me as Matt Ryan, simply as another mercenary, selling my skills to whoever would pay. I trusted him as much as I trusted anyone, and even though he didn’t know the full story, I knew the payment I’d promised him would secure his allegiance.
I hated leaving her.
I’d woken early and just lain in bed, watching her sleep. I’d thought about waking her and telling her that I was leaving, thought about sinking into her embrace and not leaving at all. But she was wrong—whether she thought it or not, I felt responsible for what had happened to her. She’d bled because of me, and I wasn’t the kind of man who could watch the woman he loved in pain and not do something about it.
I had to fix this. Had to find the missing pieces to connect our fathers to the death and destruction they’d wrought and put it behind us.
I tried to imagine a future with her, tried to envision a space for me in her life. Even if we managed to bring our fathers to justice, even if they were behind this, I wasn’t sure where that left me. This was bigger than two men; would I ever be able to stop running? Would she? I needed a fresh start, a new identity, needed to find a way to make a life that wasn’t roaming from country to country, traveling on forged papers, staying in shitty motels, taking jobs that left me feeling like no matter how many times I showered, I could never get the blood off of my skin.
When we were younger, we’d both had bright futures. I’d thought we could accomplish anything together, imagined raising a family; our life together had felt like the perfect fit. But now? I had nothing to offer her. She’d built a life for herself, had a prestigious career that I didn’t doubt she was great at. She had sisters she loved. I didn’t want her to give those things up to go on the run with me. Didn’t want her to know the feeling of constantly looking over your shoulder, of moving around every few weeks for fear that if you stayed somewhere long enough, your identity would be exposed and your life snuffed out.
All I wanted was to keep her safe, and I had no fucking clue how to do it, or if safe even existed anymore for people like us.
Chapter Eight
Kate Reynolds was seen at the Kennedy Center fund-raiser with her parents, Senator and Mrs. Edward Reynolds. Considering it’s been years since we’ve seen her in the company of her parents, we have to ask: Has the family rift finally been healed?
–Capital Confessions blog
Kate
God, I’d forgotten how much I hated these things.
Keep your friends close and enemies closer.
It had been three weeks since I’d been stabbed, since I’d last seen or heard from Matt, and I stood next to my parents, a champagne flute in hand, wearing a navy Calvin Klein gown that had wiped out my savings and probably meant I’d be skipping meals all month to avoid bouncing my rent check.
It was worth it to sneak back into their good graces.
I didn’t know if my father suspected anything; so far, he’d appeared genuinely happy to see me, the smile on his face broad as he stood bookended by my mother and me.
Considering how much of his platform included “family values,” the news that he’d fathered an illegitimate child had been a huge blow to his standing when Jackie’s paternity was revealed. Between that and all of the other things that made him impossible to deal with, Blair had withdrawn her support from his last Senate race, forcing him to campaign with only my mother representing the Reynolds family.
Losing Blair had been an irreplaceable blow considering she had always been the poster child for the Reynolds family—although the tarnish of her broken engagement and walking out of her wedding when she’d learned her fiancé was gay had taken some of the shine off of her utility to him.
I definitely wasn’t as valuable to his image, but I figured one daughter was better than none. Besides, I’d upped my game and put on the stupid dress and done my hair in a proper bun in an attempt to pave my way to reintegration.
I’d started with the phone call to my mother, figuring it was a little too obvious to reach out to my father directly. I’d played up my stabbing—sometimes you had to make the most of the cards you’d been dealt—and told her that the experience had made me think of my family and the rift between us. Apparently I’d sold it, because I’d wound up with an invitation to the Kennedy Center fund-raiser.
We didn’t have a big reunion. There had been no mention of the nearly four years when I’d basically had little to no interaction with either one of my parents.
We’d seen each other over the years—at Blair’s aborted wedding and assorted bridal events, at my graduation from Georgetown even though I hadn’t invited them—but it had all been more for appearances than anything else. And even now, we didn’t talk about any of it. The Reynolds family didn’t discuss their feelings or air their dirty laundry—unless someone else aired it for them.
In a way, the whole thing felt fucking surreal. Like I was a kid again, being paraded around to impress everyone with how golden we all were. I didn’t have my sister’s elegance or poise, but I had graduated at the top of my Georgetown class and landed a job at the CIA, which pleased my father, even as I knew my mother cringed at me doing something so unfeminine.
Whatever. I was here for one reason and one reason only, and if that meant burying my pride and playing the game by their rules, then fine.
I needed to get into his office.
I’d thought about it a lot, and if he did keep any incriminating information, I figured he’d keep it at home. The security at my parents’ was insane, and since Blair and I had moved out, it was private. I just needed to figure out an excuse to get into the house and search.
I figured getting close to them was step one. I only hoped I could get to the endgame soon, because I was kind of a shitty actress, and I wasn’t sure how much more of this I could take.
“You remember Senator Niassen, don’t you, Kate? He has a son a few years older than you. Blair’s age,” my mother murmured, a flawless smile on her lips.
Oh god, she was matchmaking.
“Mmm hmm.” I tried to keep my tone noncommittal. I did know Senator Niassen’s son, and I’d once watched him do lines of coke off of a girl’s ass at a high school party. Not exactly the stuff dreams were made of.
That said, even though her matchmaking was as annoying as fuck, I felt kind of sorry for my mother. In the last year, Blair had really distanced herself from our parents, including my mother’s desire to dress her up like a doll and micromanage every aspect of her life. I had no idea what the woman did for entertainment now, but if she thought I was going to take Blair’s place, she was sadly mistaken.
“I think I’m going to go to the ladies’ room,” I murmured, needing a moment to remove the fake smile from my face. I set the champagne flute on a nearby table, turned, and froze.
One of the benefits to not going out in society anymore was that I no longer ran in the same circles as Matt’s family. After everything, the thought of seeing Matt’s parents was really hard. I’d tried to prepare myself for the possibility that they might be here tonight, but nothing quite compared to the real thing.
And then James Ryan saw me, and I couldn’t escape it anymore.
He walked toward me, a smile on his face, Matt’s mom nowhere to be seen.
My heart hammered.
I could do this. I could be fake. I could get through this, if only because it put me one step closer to saving his son. I figured the role of the grieving fiancée left some room for me to be awkward in his presence, and I totally took advantage of it.
“Mr. Ryan.”
“Kate.”
He leaned forward, pressing a kiss to my cheek, and it took all of my willpower to keep from recoiling at his touch.
What have you done? Did you have your own son killed? Or did you just try to cover it up? How in bed with my father are you?
“How have you been?”
I gave a little shrug, figuring the truth worked better than any lie. “You know how it is. Okay, I guess.”
The worst part was how much Matt looked like his father. They had the same tall, powerful build. The same dark eyes, dark hair. It hadn’t been as noticeable when he’d been younger, but the more Matt had grown into himself, the more he also looked like his dad.
Matt’s father had been an officer in the Navy—a Seal—using his military connections and his father’s connections as a U.S. senator to found Intech, a private security company that had grown into a multibillion dollar entity with its hands in conflicts all over the globe.
Matt served because he believed in his country; his father had served as a stepping stone to more power, more influence, more wealth.
Not a day went by that I didn’t worry about Matt, wonder about him, that I didn’t fear that something had happened to him, that he was lying dead in a ditch somewhere in Afghanistan while I shook hands and exchanged fake fucking smiles and tried to get closer to the snake who wanted him dead.
“It’s hard with him gone,” James commented with an expression so practiced that I couldn’t tell where the truth ended and the lie began.
I nodded like his words didn’t piss me off, like I had somehow magically forgotten that Matt’s parents had basically freaked out and disowned him when he’d enlisted in the military. It had been one thing for his father to join after graduating from Princeton, for his military service to be tied to building his own empire. But Matt had enlisted, his only agenda the desire to help people and serve his country. He hadn’t gotten the shiny Ivy League diploma or lived up to the expectations his parents had for him.
In our world, love came with so many fucking strings.
James smiled again. “It’s nice to see you well, Kate.”
I nodded robotically, trying to find the right words and coming up short; I just couldn’t be fake about this.
He left me standing in the corner, my nerves frayed, stomach in knots.
I went to the bathroom and threw up all of my champagne.
My work phone rang and I paused the broadcast I’d been listening to so I could answer it. My boss had me working on an intelligence memorandum on the current situation in Syria. My part would be a small contribution in what would eventually grow to a thirty-page research paper which he would author. Writing was a huge part of my job. We regularly published articles on security issues within our region, and while I wasn’t senior enough to write my own, I was learning how to get there eventually.
“This is Kate Reynolds.”
“What the hell is going on with you?”
I winced at the sound of Blair’s voice shouting at me through the phone. It had been a week since my unofficial “debut” with my parents at the Kennedy Center benefit, and apparently the news of our reconciliation had made it all the way up to Boston. Or Jackie had called.
“What were you thinking? I mean, seriously, what the fuck were you thinking?”
The old Blair, the Blair I’d known most of my life, had rarely, if ever cursed. The new, I-only-have-so-many-fucks-to-give Blair dropped f-bombs with a regularity I wasn’t sure I could get used to. It was almost like she was me or something.
I swallowed, digging deep for a plausible excuse.
“You know, after the whole mugging thing, I just realized—”
“Oh, save it,” Blair snapped. “I know you. You did not have some come-to-Jesus moment where you realized that you actually wanted to have a relationship with our parents. What’s going on with you?”
I sighed. “You know that conversation we had when you told me that you couldn’t support me in all of this, that you needed to step away so that you could find peace in your life?”
“Yes.”
“You need to step away so that you can have some peace in your life. Trust me, you don’t want to get involved in this, Blair.”
“I thought you’d moved on.”
“What?”
“I thought you’d moved on. What happened with the guy?”
Ahh. The mythical guy who I was supposed to be banging and using to forget Matt. Fuck, I’d totally forgotten about him. Maybe I needed to start writing all of my lies down to keep them straight or something.
“Oh. Um. Yeah, we’re not really seeing each other anymore.”
“What happened?”
With this, I stuck as close to the truth as possible.
“I don’t think he wanted a relationship; he was just looking for something casual and I wanted more.”
I wanted everything.
“I’m so sorry, Kate. He sounds like a dick.”
Considering how worried and pissed I was that I hadn’t heard a word from Matt, I wasn’t going to argue that point.
“There are a ton of great guys out there who would be so lucky to have someone like you,” Blair continued. “Why don’t you talk to Jackie and Will? They might set you up. Or, there was this guy, Adam, in my law school class at Hannover. He was really nice and funny; we still keep in touch sometimes. I think he’s still single.”
I stifled a groan. Blair would hate the comparison, but she really sounded like our mother right now.
“I’m not really interested in dating,” I hedged. “I think I just have to find someone that I’m naturally attracted to. You can’t force these things.”
“True, but I don’t think it would hurt you to get out and start dating. I didn’t want to rush you before, but now that I know you’re open to meeting someone else, it would be good for you to put yourself out there.”
“I really don’t think—”
“I’m going to call Jackie and see if she and Will know anyone. Talk to you later. Bye.”
I heard a click on the line before I even had a chance to respond.
Fuck me.
I liked Will a lot, and I knew my sisters were just trying to help, but the last thing I wanted to do was be set up on a blind date.
I groaned, taking a sip from the now-lukewarm coffee on my desk, needing the caffeine fix to keep me awake. I hadn’t been sleeping all that well since Matt had left. It was as if his nightmares had transferred over to me, and now I found myself waking up in the middle of the night, my body drenched with sweat, images of him being tortured and killed haunting my dreams.
I still hadn’t heard from him.
Whoever he had watching me was good, because I hadn’t seen him once. Everything around me had fallen quiet. There had been no more muggings, no more break-ins, no more mysterious packages in the mail. My wound had healed for the most part, and it was almost as if it had all been a dream.
I’d seen my parents twice since we’d gone to the Kennedy Center, and I had an invitation to attend a dinner at their house with old friends of the family who just-so-happened to have a son who was a little older than me. The whole thing reeked of a setup, but since it also had the added benefit of giving me an excuse to get into the house, I took it.
My work phone rang again.
“This is Kate Reynolds.”
“We have the perfect guy for you,” Jackie announced, skipping the usual phone pleasantries.
I put my head in my hands, cradling the receiver in the curve of my neck. Having sisters could be awesome; right now it felt like a giant pain in my ass.
“I don’t want to go out on a date,” I grumbled. “I’m not really in the mood to be fixed up with anyone.”
“Too bad. We’ve already set it up. We’re going to double-date so it won’t be so awkward for you. It’s a guy Will knows from the gym. Apparently, he’s an attorney.”
I hadn’t been into the date to start with, but this thing just kept getting dodgier and dodgier.
“You’re joking, right? Will knows him from the gym? What, he couldn’t find some random guy off of the street to go out with me?”
Jackie laughed. “It’s not like that. They play basketball together on the weekends. I’ve seen him—he’s cute. And he’s a nice guy. Just give it a shot.”
“I really don’t think—”
“Do you want Blair off your back? Do you want her to think that you’ve really moved on? I saw Capital Confessions. Do you want her digging deeper there?”
Ahh, our resident Machiavelli. Nobody did scheming like Jackie. I could try my best, but I’d never have the same skills she did. She was inherently suspicious, and by the tone of her voice, I knew she knew that I was in deep with this stuff with my father.
“Fine.”
I could hear the triumph in her voice. “Wear something cute.”
I hung up and reached for the bottle of aspirin sitting next to my now-cold coffee.
Fuck my life.
Matt
It was daunting to return to Afghanistan after I’d narrowly escaped hell. I didn’t know if it was nearly dying here, but I found myself constantly on edge, sleep eluding me, my dreams more intense than ever before.
I woke in the middle of the night, my body covered in a thin film of sweat, chest heaving, arms flailing. I reached for Kate, only to come up empty. Alone. Again.
