He keeps going. “You know how in the movies, you can always tell the second someone’s life fades away? Like their eyes just . . . change? I couldn’t tell. Alex lay there looking at me and I couldn’t even tell when he died.”

I hug him harder, even though I know it can’t take his pain away.

“They found us the next day. The f**king cavalry showed up too damned late. I guess I should be grateful they found me at all. In the hospital they told me that some kids had given them a tip about a couple ‘bloody dead white boys,’ but the truth is I don’t remember anything about the rescue mission, and I didn’t care enough to ask.”

Paul falls silent for a moment before continuing. “I didn’t care about anything for a long, long time. Not about the medical magic they worked to save my leg. Not about the plastic surgeon my father hired to do what he could with my face. The only time I felt anything was when Alex’s wife came to see me.”

My heart lodges in my throat. “He was married?”

Paul pulls back to look at me. “Amanda. They’d been together since they were f**king fifteen. I’d met her once, at the Marine Corps Ball, and she was perfect for him. Ballsy and sweet and gorgeous.”

I wipe my nose on my sleeve.

“He’s got a kid, Olivia. A little girl named Lily, and she’s f**king sick. Cancer, the kind with the shitty treatment options and the even shittier prognosis.”

He pulls back then to look at me, his eyes shining with tears. “I do what I can to help them. The checks I get from my dad . . . they’re not for me. They’ve never been for me. But the money doesn’t replace Alex. It doesn’t replace any of the people that die over there.”

“Paul—”

“I lied to her, Olivia. I told Amanda that Alex died admirably, and that much was true. But I also told her that it was over quickly and that he didn’t suffer. I think she knew I was lying about that, but she held my hand so tight and said thank you, even though it was me that was home instead of her husband . I . . . I told her that he said to say he loved her. He didn’t have the strength to have any last words, so I made them up. I made a up a man’s dying words, Olivia.”

My hands frame his face, my thumb gently rubbing against the scars. “You did good, Paul. You did right by your friend and his family. He’d have wanted his Amanda to have that small bit of kindness.”

He lets out a harsh laugh as though he doesn’t believe me. But he lets me hold him as he starts to cry.

And for now, that’s enough.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Paul

“I didn’t think this was possible, but your girlfriend is actually getting worse at darts the more she plays,” Kali says, setting another beer in front of me before plopping down in the seat beside me.

We’ve been at the bar for a couple of hours, and Kali alternates between tending the bar and coming to join us in the back of the room.

It takes me a full minute to realize that I didn’t recoil at the word girlfriend. Olivia’s not my girlfriend. She’s my . . .

Shit. I have no idea what she is, but girlfriend sounds like both an overstatement and an understatement. Olivia is more than that.

And yet we have no future. Do we? I don’t let myself think about it much. After that night by the fire when I told her everything, things have been . . . great. I almost don’t let myself think it.

I wasn’t lying when I told Olivia that back in Afghanistan, we were worried we’d jinx the situation if we actually acknowledged the bad stuff. And now? Now I’m even more terrified that I’ll jinx what Olivia and I have by talking about the good stuff.

And it is good. It’s all good. The sex, the talking, the shared runs. I even adore her special style of cuddling, just as long as her limbs avoid my vital parts. She’s everything to me.

But I don’t talk about it. I can’t.

“Ugh, do not start that brooding thing,” Kali says, taking a sip of my beer. “Do you have any idea how much you’ve changed since that first night you walked into my bar when you picked a fight with a bunch of drunken hotshots? Don’t you dare go backward on us now.”

Olivia lets out an outraged groan from the dartboard, and I shake my head when I realize that despite the dedicated tutoring of Darcy “Dart” Martinez, Kali is right. Olivia’s actually getting worse.

She’s having fun, though. And, surprisingly, so am I.

“Much better,” Kali says, waving her finger in the direction of my smile. “You do that every time you look at her, you know. Smile.”

I push her hand away. “Stop, you’re starting to sound like a bad valentine.”

Kali flops back in her chair. “It’s just so romantic. The beautiful angel swooping in to save the surly dickwad who’s quite possibly a murderous recluse.”

“Ugly. Don’t forget ugly,” I say without heat.

“Nah,” she says, nodding in thanks as one of her employees brings her a rum and diet coke. “You were way too pretty before. It was even hard to eat with all that nauseating perfection around. Now you’ve got a bit of character. It looks good on you.”

“You flirting with me, Kal?”

“Not today. Although I admit I did have a few fantasies about you coming across me after all these years and fainting over my beauty, realizing that I was the one all along.”

“Yeah?” I ask, giving her a wary look. Kali has always had this sort of unnerving way of speaking in a really sweet, genuine voice, and you get reeled in only to realize that she was yanking your chain the whole time.