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“I don’t mean in that house. I don’t mean Annabeth.” The expression she wore then was ferocious. “I was sleepwalking all this time. That woman would have killed me and I would have died without knowing that I’d never truly been happy. Without realizing that I had no idea what it was to love someone with every part of me. You set me free, Blue.”
She was talking about this summer. But all Blue could see was the past.
“I had to turn something off inside me to do what I did for all those years. I can’t turn it back on.”
“I don’t believe that.” She didn’t back down when he scowled at her. Instead, she held his gaze as if she were as strong as he was. He believed it. “You became a soldier, an elite one. I’m not going to pretend to understand what that takes. All I can do is admire your commitment and dedication. That alone would make you amazing.” She pressed her hands harder against his chest, as if shewere trying to brand him with the heat of her palms, and the funny thing was that he thought she was succeeding. “But you didn’t turn yourself off then. You know you didn’t.”
“I had to.”
“It wasn’t the navy that flipped that switch.” Her eyes were so big, so green. It made him... restless. “Come on, Blue. Is this really what your father would have wanted for you?”
The last wall he had inside him toppled over then, hitting the ground with a wallop. Hitting him so hard that for a moment, all he could see was the dust. His hands moved of their own volition and gripped her shoulders.
But when the dust cleared, Everly was looking at him as if nothing had changed. As if he were still that man—that hero—he couldn’t understand how or why she saw in him.
“You told me he was a man who loved his wife and his son,” she said. “Would he have wanted that son to grow up shut off from everybody? Is that who he was?”
Blue thought of his father’s smile, quick and ready. The booming laugh that had seemed to light up rooms. The way he’d never met a stranger.
“You’ve been so mad at so many people for so long,” Everly said, relentless in ways he could hardly make sense of. “But ask yourself one question. Are you really mad at your mother because she moved on? Or are you mad that you couldn’t? She could go out and find herself a new husband. But you only had one dad.”
“Damn you,” Blue choked out, and he hardly knew what was happening to him. He was horrified to feeldampness on his face. He felt cracked wide open, exposed—
Alive,something inside him whispered.At last.
But when he looked at Everly, he saw that tears were rolling down her cheeks.
Because, he knew without having to ask, she hurtforhim. She loved him enough to show him the truth about himself, and then stand there and cry with him while it rolled through him, decimating him where he stood.
“Why did you come here?” he demanded again, though he was hoarse and sounded like a stranger. And he didn’t let her go. “Why did you bother trying to find me?”
“Here’s what I can promise you,” she said, smiling through her tears. “I will always find you. Always, Blue.”
And he believed her. This was the woman who’d driven over Hard-Ass Pass. She could do anything. She would.
She already had.
“You don’t want this,” he warned her, gripping her more surely. “You don’t know what you’re signing up for.”
“You have a lot of requirements for women who come to your bed, yes,” she said, throwing his words back at him from so long ago, he’d almost forgotten he’d said them. “You like very defined roles. I remember.”
“We’ll get to that, believe me.” Fault lines and storms moved through him, in him. But he kept his eyes on Everly. Like she was light. “I’m not done with Alaska Force. I don’t want to live in a city. And I hate peas.”
“My job is entirely freelance, and guess what? I like it here.”
“You didn’t mention the peas.”
“I don’t have opinions about peas, Blue. I’m not sure peas deserve opinions, to be honest.”
“I’m not domesticated. I’m demanding and intense, and I hold grudges for decades.” He shook his head when she started to say something. “Don’t blow this off, baby. You deserve better than me, believe me. I know it even if you don’t. But if you don’t walk away from me right now, it’s not going to matter. Because I won’t let you go.”
She sighed and would have melted against him if he weren’t holding her the way he was. “I don’t want you to let me go.”
“Alaska winters are long and hard, and there are times you’ll be stranded in a cabin with nothing but me to—”
“The world could end tomorrow, Blue,” Everly interrupted, her voice firm. “Here’s the only thing I want to know. If you knew that we would die tomorrow, would you want to be with me today?”
“God, yes.”