Page 18

Chapter Seventeen

Knova

I’m sitting on the couch, wrapped in blankets and draped in heating pads, when Viktor comes home. He pauses at the door as he takes stock of my miserable appearance.

“Are you okay, babe?” he asks. “Are you on your period?”

“What?” I look up at him through my unwashed hair.

“That’s usually when you break out the heat mats and the weighted blanket.” He walks toward me, watching me like I’m a grenade that could detonate at any moment. “Do you need chocolate? Tea?”

“Oh, no. PTSD.” I burrow deeper into my blanket cocoon. “I had to call off today.” I turn my face toward the window and try to make sense of the dying light outside. “You’re home late.”

“Yeah. The team and I had a peer-bonding activity today. Mind if I sit down?”

“Make yourself at home,” I mumble. I feel like shit. My dreams were awful, and during my morning shower, I sort of blacked out. Next thing I knew, I was huddled in the corner of the tub. Flying was out of the question. Tomorrow, I’ll probably be embarrassed that Viktor had to see me like this, but it’s hard to care about anything right now.

Viktor settles beside me. “Hold out your hand,” he says.

It takes a minute for me to worm my arm out of the blankets and open my palm. Viktor reaches out to take my hand. Something cool slithers into my palm: the familiar weight of a chain, and the weight of the tags.

I goggle at the dog tags resting in my palm. “Viktor,” I breathe. “You—oh my God. You found them?” My fingers curl tight, as if they might vanish again.

“I did.” He kisses my temple. “The team helped, though. Coach Metcalfe gave me the afternoon. I told the guys what happened, and they dropped everything to comb through every inch of the Puck Drop. Camden found the clasp under a barstool. Coach bribed the staff to stay late and search the HVAC filters. Knight threatened bodily harm if we didn’t find them, and eventually we did, wrapped around a dusty booze bottle on a back shelf. We weren’t leaving until we had them in hand. Something tells me that getting them back isn’t going to fix everything that’s going on for you right now, but I hope it helps.”

“You have no idea.” I clutch them in my palm. “Is it okay if I…” I trail off. I know how I get during these episodes, and I don’t know if Viktor’s ready to deal with them yet. Or if he ever will be.

“If you what?” he prompts. He’s settled in next to my cozy blanket fort, eager as anything. I decide to take the leap and trust him.

“If I tell you about Mick?”

Viktor nods. “Go for it. Please.”

I run my thumb over the tags, feeling the raised outline of his name. “We were together. Serving together, but also dating.” I sniff, but it’s too late. Tears are already spilling down my cheeks. “He was a great guy, Vik. You’d have liked him. Everyone liked him. He loved reading. Not fun books, either, but this bullshit historical stuff that nobody else cared about. He sounded pretentious as hell when he talked about it.” I choke on a laugh. “And he played guitar. Not well, but better than anyone else on the base. He would make up songs about things on the fly. He made up one about the time Carson got food poisoning, and the rest of us almost died laughing.”

Viktor puts his arm around me, and I melt against him.

“We saved each other more than once. Until we couldn’t. Our helicopter got shot down, and… his head… there was no chance. He was still alive when I first… but then… fuck, Viktor, this is so hard. He was breathing. Barely. And for one awful second, I thought—maybe I could still save him. Maybe there was time.” I turn my face into his shoulder.

“You couldn’t save him,” Viktor whispers. “Like you couldn’t save that little girl.”

I let out a sob so loud, I swear he can hear my heart breaking.

“Hey, baby, it’s okay.” He rubs my back. “I know you tried. You don’t give up just because something’s hard. If you couldn’t save him, nobody could have.”

I know he’s right. Not because I’m some ludicrous Grade A badass, but because I know head injuries, and there was no chance of saving him. It happened so fast. It was so final.

That didn’t make it any less awful.

“He was going to propose.” My voice cracks. “I found the ring. Stuffed in his boot like he didn’t trust anywhere else to keep it safe.”

“Oh.” Viktor snuggles closer. “Oh, Knova, I’m sorry. You really loved him, didn’t you?”

“I did. I do.” I rub my fingers over the tags again. Losing them without warning felt like losing him all over again. Like another failure. But getting them back isn’t the same as getting Mick back, and—as terrible as it is to say—I’m okay with that. Not great, but not devastated. He’s been gone a long time, and our history matters more than this memento. If I could go back in time to save him, I would do it in a heartbeat, but if he could see me right now, I don’t think that he’d want me to fall to pieces every time I remember him. Mick was one of the best men I’ve ever known. I hope he’d be proud of me. Not for moving on, necessarily—but for not drowning. For finding someone who sees me the way he did. Maybe even more.

I truly believe Viktor would have liked him. And I think he’d have liked Vik, too.

“What can I do right now?” Viktor asks. “Do you need anything?”

I take a deep breath, fighting off the lingering darkness of my episode. “Right now, I’d like to order a pizza and watch something mindless on Netflix, if that’s okay.”

“Sure.” Viktor sits up, ready to spring into action. “The usual?”

“Of course. And one other thing. I’d like you to help me figure out a display for these.” I hold up the tags. “I know some vets like to do shadowboxes or framed displays, but I haven’t looked into the options yet.”

“You want to put them on the wall?” Viktor eyes the dog tags warily.

I cock my head. “Is that a problem?”

“No, I just assumed you’d keep wearing them.” He hesitates. His leg jiggles, the way it always does when he’s anxious about something he wants to say. “It’s okay if you want to. It doesn’t bother me.”

“I don’t want to risk losing them again. And I don’t think I need to keep them so close anymore.” It’s my turn to fidget. “Maybe we could go down to Sofia’s shop sometime and you could help me pick out a new necklace?”

“Oh.” Viktor’s expression slackens. “You mean…? Yeah, I could get you something new.”

“Pizza first, though,” I say. “I think I earned at least half a pie and full remote control.” I haven’t eaten yet today, and now that I’m clawing my way out of my emotional black hole, I’m suddenly ravenous.

“I’ll call in a sec.” Viktor’s leg jiggles again. “But since we’re coming clean about our pasts, I have a question for you. What are your plans for Saturday?”

I tilt my head. “Why?”

He shrugs, suddenly looking twelve kinds of nervous. “I just… I want to show you something. Something I should’ve shown you a long time ago.”

He doesn’t say more than that. But his fingers find mine under the blanket, and this time, I squeeze first.

“Okay,” I whisper. “I’m free.”

It’s not forgiveness. Not yet.

But it’s a start.

* * *

“How do I dress for this super-secret excursion?” I ask as we circle each other on Saturday morning. Getting ready at the same time is like learning a new dance—one where I don’t know if I’m leading, following, or just trying not to step on his toes. But he doesn’t seem to mind the clumsy footwork.

Viktor pulls on a pair of track pants. “Super casual. And wear shoes made for the great outdoors.”

“Got it.” I reach for a pair of leggings.

Viktor whistles. “Wow. No follow-up questions? It’s almost like you trust me.”

“A little,” I admit. “It’s like, infant trust. Just started crawling. Maybe pulling up on furniture.”

Viktor puts out one arm to catch me and pull me in for a kiss. “Not good enough. I’m holding out for big trust.”

Fifteen minutes later, we’re in the car with a pair of breakfast burritos and some surprisingly decent homemade lattes Viktor put together. They lack the usual barrage of syrup shots I usually go for, but they’ll do.

Viktor strangles the wheel in a death grip as we head for the highway. “There’s something I never told you… about why I stood you up for eighth grade graduation.”

I hold up one hand. “Knight already told me.”

Viktor risks a glance at my face. “He did?”

“Yup. I really don’t want to hear about your middle school erection again. No offense.”

“What about my current erection?” he taunts.

I glance pointedly at his lap. “You’re driving. Both hands on the wheel, perv.”

“I meant my… contemporary erection? You know what, forget it. Back to the story.” He adjusts his grip on the wheel and starts over. “So, all that went down. Obviously, my parents got involved. And you know my mom.”

“Petite? Blonde? Nipples chapped all to heck?”

Viktor groans. “Can we please put a moratorium on the subject of my mom’s chapped nipples?”

I snicker into my drink. “Sure. Did you want to talk about how you’ve never chapped my nipples instead?”

“Can you please not mention nipples for the next two hours?” Viktor begs. “We’re almost there.”

I look out at the nondescript suburban park where we’ve ended up. “Where is here, exactly? It looks like a field.”

“As I was saying, before I was so rudely interrupted, my mom thought I needed some character building the summer after eighth grade. I got into it, and then I just kind of kept doing it.” He pulls into a spot. “So welcome to my Saturday volunteer shift. Also known as outreach .”

I blink at him. There’s a big, open sky overhead. No press. No pretense. Just him, looking proud and maybe a little nervous.

He chose to bring me here. To this version of him.

And damn it… my chest squeezes.

“For what?”

But Viktor is already climbing out of the car, and all I can do is follow him. I’m still disentangling myself from my seatbelt when a young woman comes bounding across the tarmac.

“Viktor!” she exclaims and throws herself into his arms.

Viktor shoots me a sheepish glance over my shoulder. “Look who I brought, Ella.”

The young woman cranes her neck to see around Viktor. Her eyes pop wide. “Is this… her?”

“Ella, this is Knova. Knova, this is—”

“You’re here!” Ella darts over and pulls me into a crushing hug. “Oh my gosh, Viktor loves you. Did you know that?”

“Oh, uh…” I’m somewhat overwhelmed by the enthusiasm of this brightly-colored stranger. Ella’s outfit is a Technicolor explosion of florals, glitter, and possibly a unicorn pattern. NASA could probably spot her from orbit. She’s joy in human form, and I don’t know what to do with her.

Joy has never been my strong suit.

“I never said that!” Viktor protests. His face is scarlet.

“Maybe not, but it was heavily implied.” Ella releases me. “Knova, are you any good at bocce?”

“I have no idea,” I admit. “Never tried it.”

“It’s fun. Plus, we have a great coach here to tell us what to do.” She turns her attention back to Viktor. “Are you ready to get started, or do you want to introduce your girlfriend to everybody else?”

Viktor is so flustered that I take pity on him. I reach for his hand. “I don’t mind meeting everyone. Let’s do it. And then you can tell me how bocce works, Ella.”

Viktor squeezes my hand. I squeeze back, never breaking eye contact. I want him to know that I finally understand.

He didn’t bring me here to impress me. He brought me because he thought I belonged.

And maybe—just maybe—he’s not the mistake I’ve been so convinced I made. Maybe he’s the miracle I didn’t see coming.

“You’re going to love bocce,” Ella says. “It’s like bowling, but prettier. And nobody wears shoes with other people’s foot sweat.”

Honestly? I think I might love her.