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“You found this place against all odds. However we came here and for whatever reasons, it’s a place we could stay.

” I sniffle. “We could fit. We could grow and live. You think I can’t have a choice right now because of what’s still out there, but this is my choice .

” I blink away another wave of tears. “You’re worried that I’d have to give something up to be here, but that’s not true.

Things might have to change for me, but change is growth. ”

“That’s a very brave way to look at it,” he responds huskily.

We lay there in silence for a while. He shifts his arm, wrapping it around me and guiding my face to his chest. I drink in the scent of him, his warm solid strength.

“Will you tell me your name? Your real name?” I whisper. I know this could shatter our peace, but sharing parts of ourselves with each other is necessary. If he’s not ready, he can tell me no. That’s why I asked him, and didn’t demand it.

“John. Just John.”

“That’s it?” I giggle. “Just John. Wow.”

“Yeah… I was raised by my dad. That’s a hard word for what he was though.

” The sadness bleeds out of him into me.

I wriggle out from his hold and wrap my arms around his neck, kissing his cheek to let him know that I’m here, that I sense his pain, that it’s going to be okay.

“I don’t know when my mom left,” he confesses.

“But I do know why. She was a lot younger than him. I wish she would have taken me with her, but she wasn’t equipped to do that.

I didn’t get it at the time, but I can see it now.

In my father’s defense, I guess he did try.

He had his own demons. Something from his childhood that ate him up on the inside.

Probably abuse, but I didn’t get that as a kid.

I just saw how those demons ruled him. He was all emotion, wild, burning, out of control moods.

He’d try and silence the shit inside of him with alcohol.

Eventually, he’d pass out for the night and that would be the end of it.

It didn’t get really bad until I was eight. ”

“Eight? Jesus Christ.”

“Yeah.” His hand smooths down my back like I’m the one who needs reassurance. “It sounds young—”

“It fucking is young!”

“It was. I felt totally alone, and when I was there in our trailer with him, I was. He never tried to beat me, though. Never laid a hand on me. He’d do scary shit.

Scream and shout and act like he saw things that weren’t there.

Maybe he did. He’d throw shit. Break shit.

Stumble around. Lose his mind. Pass out.

I stayed out of his way. I was smart and good at surviving, even from a young age.

He did use his sober moments to make sure there was something in the cupboards.

Like I said. He tried. He was just locked in his own head.

“When things got really rough, I found a way to cope. I invented this older, wiser version of myself in my head. A hero or kind of an imaginary friend, but not really. Just someone to talk to. A safe space to go. My dad was really into war movies—which I’m sure helped nothing for him in reality—but I saw those men as heroes.

I dreamed of doing what they did when I grew up.

That imaginary name I gave that version of myself—it was Dravin.

I have no idea from where. It just was. I made sure that I went to school and that everything seemed normal from the outside.

As bad as it was at home, I didn’t want to be taken away and I’d seen how social services got involved with other kids from the same trailer park. ”

He pauses and runs his hand through his hair before continuing, “Things were pretty much just like that all while I grew up. When I graduated, I knew what I wanted to do. My dad knew. He never once told me to go, and he never asked me to stay. By then, I don’t even know if he was coherent enough to realize I truly existed.

I never went back there. He died two years later, in a hospital, alone.

I regret that I wasn’t there, but I couldn’t leave.

I knew that it was the reality that was coming for him. ”

“Still though.” I don’t know what else to say. I can’t believe this is how this kind, gentle, beautiful soul grew up. I understand where his maturity comes from now. Forged in the ashes of a childhood he never got to have.

“I don’t want you to think that I’m something that has to be fixed.

” He tilts my head up, searching my face urgently.

“I’ve done a lot of work. Reading. Seen therapists after I got out of the SEALs.

I don’t believe happiness is a real concept when it comes down to it.

That’s just a term used to enslave people and ensure the opposite.

But I have tried to be a better man. I’m not an empty vessel asking for you to fill me. ”

“No. I know that.”

“I know I didn’t have a mother, and I didn’t have affection from my father, and some people would call that a big red flag—”

“You had brotherhood. Years of it. You know what it is to feel, even if you never wanted to be ruled by emotions. Feelings aren’t facts anyway.”

He grunts, his version of a reluctant laugh. “I truly, truly never wanted to become my father. I never wanted to be at the mercy of my thoughts or memories. I had to find a way to move past it. After I was out of the SEALs, I did a degree online. Just to have it.”

“In computer science?”

He nods, eyes crinkling with amusement when he smiles. “I guess that’s fairly obvious. I could have just made myself a fake ID with any classifications I wanted, but I craved that learning.”

“I can’t see that they would have taught you much.”

“No, but that wasn’t the point.”

“No.” I whisper my lips over his until he responds, just for the sheer need to be close to him. “But you still call yourself Dravin. I would have thought you wouldn’t be able to do that.”

“It was the name I used from the start. I don’t think anyone ever even knew my name was John.

I’ve carried on with it, using one fake ID after another.

Sometimes I switch to something else for a while, but I’ve been so careful that in some form, I’ll always get to keep it for myself.

I created that man and then I became him, I guess.

In a way. I’m not a hero or anything, but I fulfilled as much of my childhood dream as I could. ”

“You’re definitely a hero!” I protest roughly, my throat getting prickly and hot again. “You became the man that the little kid in you wanted to be, against all the odds. That’s incredible!”

“I don’t know. It just feels like me.”

“Exactly.” I know he can’t tell me anything about his brother, but in this moment of truth, I want just a little bit. Just a fraction that I can hang onto and cherish. “He really didn’t talk about me for years?”

“The first time was when your mom died. I think he was trying to figure out what to do. What to say to you.”

“He said the perfect thing to me when he called. Were those your words?”

“They were his own. Whatever we did, we did as a team. All of us. We had each other’s backs. We saved each other’s lives. We covered for each other. We were a unit. In a way, we all had your back.”

“I never would have thought of it that way. That’s incredibly comforting.”

He swallows hard. “I promised myself that I’d use logic where I could. I never wanted to be reckless. Giving in to your intrusive thoughts, your darkness, your base desires and letting that rule you, would only destroy you. I knew that before I learned what real discipline was.”

My pulse thunders, and my stomach roils. “Do you think about me that way? That I’m a reckless decision for you?”

“I don’t know what I think when it comes to you.

You’re not like anyone else.” He gives me that honesty, but it’s not frightening when he does it.

I know that he’s not telling me so he can try and detach what’s already beyond tangled together.

“Have I been able to get you out of my head when I wanted to? No. Have I spent sleepless nights just thinking about you so that I had to get up and just drive by your house, or watch security feeds for hours? Was it all about your safety? Mostly. But not all. I crave you. I don’t know how to deal with that, and I do feel out of control.

That scares me. I’ve never had romantic love before. I don’t even know where to start.”

His admission is almost shyness now. It’s not painful and it doesn’t frighten me hearing it. It’s a relief that he can share something so intimate with me.

“I thought you were a beautiful person when Marcus talked about you. When I met you, I realized just how lovely you were in every way. I took my promise seriously, but it changed. It turned into something else for me. Something that definitely wasn’t in my control.

I promise II never watched you and did lewd things.

It was all the little details that haunted me.

The way you moved, a light brush of your fingertips over a car door, the way you held your chin or looked at the sky, a soft breath—I’d wonder how it would feel like to be touched by you.

To be the one you looked for. To have you exhale your breath so close to my lips that I could taste you in it.

And then I’d wonder why I was wondering.

Or craving. Why I couldn’t stop, and why I didn’t really want to. ”

A slight edge of panic enters his voice and shadows his face.

I kiss him again, chasing it away. “I know you never did it in a weird way. I’m sorry that I called you a stalker.

I meant it affectionately.” He makes a sound of surprise, but I laugh, because yeah, that’s a ridiculous thing to say.

“All those things just make you human. It’s wise to react to the world with wisdom and not wild emotion, but at the same time, we’re put on this earth to live, not just exist. We should love and be loved.

I truly believe that, even though I’ve never had a romantic love either. ”

I thread my fingers through his, rubbing my thumb in small circles over his knuckles. “We’ll help each other,” he says, sounding so unsure.

“Yes. We’ll grow together. We have a family here and they have our backs.

People weren’t meant to be solitary. Not me and not you.

If the universe plays a part in anything, maybe it brought us together and brought us here.

And if not and we ended up here by complete chance and the force of our decisions, I’m still glad we did.

I have to choose to treasure it instead of fighting it.

We’ll lean on each other. We’re a team. Percentage sharing. ”

He snorts. “Ninety-ten. I remember.”

I break our hold and swat his shoulder. “No, Dravin.” I sober, sitting up and pulling my legs under me.

“I’m sorry that I disrespected you tonight.

I didn’t know why you were being so logical and I all I wanted to do was shake you out of it.

I’m sorry if that was triggering for you and I’m sorry I made a mess of everything you’ve tried so carefully to orchestrate. ”

“I’ll fix it.” He sits up too, pressing his huge back against the headboard. Just like that He makes it sound so easy.

“We can use logic. We don’t have to be a slave to passion. I promise to use my brain whenever possible.”

“I promise to try to shut mine off just once in a while. When it’s not going to hurt anyone to do that. You’re right. Sometimes I’m so in the moment, just trying to exist, that I forget to live.”

“Here’s to living then.” That sounds like a toast. I grab the one bottle of water off the nightstand that I didn’t upend over his head. I pass it to him first. “Here’s to being imperfect, sometimes messy, and hopefully beautiful for the most part.”

He drinks and passes me the bottle. I didn’t realize how thirsty I was until I take the first sip. I chug half of it and give it back.

“Thank you for being you. Thank you for being here. Thank you for your faith and your steadfastness, your trust, your openness, and for your heart. I’ll never take it for granted. We’ll be okay. Sometime. I have faith in that.”

Dravin gathers me up, sitting me down right in his lap.

I curl my legs around his hips and hug him hard, eviscerating all the space between us.

We don’t need any more words. I know that we share the same faith, and even if we can’t believe in the world, or if that sometime seems far away, we can believe in each other.

I know that for Dravin, my safety means more to him than his own, and to me, all that he’s never felt, the dreams he’s denied, the love he was never granted, is the most important thing in the world.

We belong to each other now. That might not be how it works out there in the world, it might be crazy or not normal, or whatever.

But that’s okay. Because normal is just a setting on a washing machine.