Jamie paced the upstairs halls of the big old house. The rooms were practically empty now, and the eerie echo of his footsteps made him nervous, but he pushed away the dancing demons in his guts. For once, his own inevitable implosion was the last thing on his mind.

He checked his phone for what seemed like the thousandth time. The screen was blank, save the clock telling him that it was the early hours of the morning, and a tremor of anxiety rippled through him. Marc had promised to call when his shift finally finished, but that had been hours ago—sixteen to be precise—and aside from a message that had cut off before Marc had said anything, Jamie hadn’t heard a word. His phone calls had gone unanswered, his messages too. Logic told him that Marc was still working, but barring a nuclear emergency, he’d have found a way to get in touch—Jamie was sure of it.

Am I, though? It was hard to tell. He’d left the psychiatrist that morning on a cloud of reluctant hope that talking to Marc had only buoyed, but after hours on end alone in Marc’s house, the uncharacteristic optimism was beginning to wear off. In Jamie’s mind, there were two scenarios warring for airtime: Marc hadn’t called because something terrible had happened to him, or . . . he simply didn’t want to.

Though there was no logical reason for it, the possibility that Marc had come to his senses was winning. After all, Jamie had thrown so much shit at him over the last few weeks, what sane bloke wouldn’t run a mile? But he loves you— Did he? Was that real? His heart knew that Marc wouldn’t lie, but—

Stop it.

Jamie slammed the door on the doubt that plagued him every moment Marc’s warm arms weren’t keeping him safe. He felt jittery and weak, but beyond that, he was so worried about Marc that his chest hurt, and the only way to live through that was to keep busy.

At home that often meant tearing apart already spotless cupboards—counting things, organising them—but the psychiatrist had urged him to try everything else before he resorted to that. Cooking had soothed Jamie’s soul since Marvin had pushed a wok into his hands, and whenever Marc came home, he’d need to eat, right?

Jamie was boxing up chow mein for the fridge when a knock at the door scared the ever-loving shit out of him. Noodles splattered the kitchen floor as his hand flew to his chest, and for a long moment he thought he’d imagined it. But then the knocking came again, louder this time, and the cat appeared to investigate.

Frowning, Jamie crept into the hallway. The only people who ever knocked on Marc’s door were Mrs. Valentino and the postman, and at four thirty in the morning, it was hardly likely to be one of them. The police? Jamie stopped in his tracks—but no, it couldn’t be them either, because the only reason they’d ever come to where Jamie was before was to raid the place for hookers and heroin, and Marc’s house wasn’t like that . . . it was safe. At least, it was until you came along.

But Jamie’s self-absorbed bullshit didn’t make sense either. He wasn’t a hooker anymore, and he wasn’t using heroin. No one but Marc knew he was even here, and the only reason the police had to come to the house was because something had happened to Marc. Fuck. Jamie dashed to the door and wrenched it open. His mind was so convinced that he’d see flashing blue lights and grim-faced coppers that he almost didn’t recognise the tall, lean figure walking back to a car that he’d seen somewhere before. “Hey!”

The man turned, and the light from the only nearby streetlight caught his face.

Jamie ran a few steps out of the house, the gravel driveway biting into his bare feet, and raised his hand to shield his eyes from the drizzling rain. “Connor? Is that you?”

* * *

“Sorry for barging in on you in the middle of the night.” Connor wrapped his hands around his coffee cup. “I wasn’t even sure you’d be here.”

“No? You seemed pretty sure of my place in Marc’s life last time I saw you.” Jamie forced a smile, but it was tough. Connor had the air of a man bearing bad news, but aside from quickly assuring Jamie that Marc was, as far as he knew, safe and well, he hadn’t said much that made sense. “Do you want something to eat?”

Connor shook his head. “Nah, I’m okay, mate. It’s enough to be out of the house. I’m shit at waiting, and I don’t really— Well, put it this way, no one tells me anything, you know?”

“I don’t know anything either,” Jamie said as mildly as he could manage. “All I know is that Marc should’ve finished work sometime yesterday and he’s still not home. Want to fill me in?”

Connor stared hard at Jamie, clearly debating in his head. “Am I right about you and Marc?”

“Right about what?”

“That you’re as nuts about him as I am about Nat, and the feeling’s entirely mutual?”

“Are you asking me if I love him, or if we’re together?”

“Both. Because I’m pretty sure that you love him, but the second bit is important if I’m going to tell you some stuff that I probably shouldn’t.”

Jamie chewed on his lip. They’d never labelled the whirlwind they’d found themselves in, but did that matter right now? Marc was his whole fucking world. If that didn’t make them a couple, not much did. “Marc’s everything to me. I don’t know what that means to you, but all I need to know is that he’s okay. Nothing else matters.”

It was, apparently, the right answer. Connor’s shoulders relaxed slightly, and he necked half of his coffee. “There’s been a drama on an operation overseas. Nat and Marc have some good friends still in the field, and someone close to them has been badly hurt.”

Jamie sat down heavily. Marc didn’t talk about Army stuff much, but it had always been clear that his friends getting hurt was his worst nightmare. “He’s talked about Wedge. It’s not him, is it?” Connor blanched, and Jamie’s heart sank. Marc had mentioned Wedge only a handful of times, but it had been obvious that they were close. “Is he dead?”

“I don’t know. Only that whatever’s happened was bad enough for Nat and Marc to go screaming off in Marc’s car.”

“Screaming off where? They’re not going out there, are they?”

Wherever there even was. Panic bubbled up in Jamie’s gut, but Connor shook his head before it could take hold. “I don’t know where they’ve gone, but Nat wouldn’t get on a plane without talking to me first, and Marc’s not enlisted anymore, so he wouldn’t get on a military plane at all. The best I can figure is that they’ve gone to whatever UK base that the mission was being run from. They won’t be able to do much, but it’s possible that they both have knowledge of the country Wedge was operating in, and Marc’s a field-trauma specialist, so . . .”

Jamie realised that Connor was clutching at straws. He put his hand briefly over Connor’s, then he rose to fetch more coffee, and the doughnuts Mrs. Valentino had left on the doorstep. He didn’t feel much like eating, and Connor didn’t seem to either, but the psychiatrist had warned him that low blood sugar could trigger anxiety, that in turn could trigger his OCD, and perhaps Jamie had at last learned to listen.

He dumped them on the table and forced himself to take one. “Does Nat know you’re here?”

“No. I should probably text him, actually, in case he comes home.”

“You’re clearly not expecting him to anytime soon, or you’d have stayed put.”

Connor’s face said it all. “He’s disappeared for a week before, but it’s been a while. I was hoping that we were done with disaster.”

“Maybe they’ll never be done with it. It’s who they are, right?”

Connor sighed. “I guess, and I’d never change that about Nat, but it’s hard to be on the outside, especially being the only gays in the village—literally.”

“Does Nat get shit for it at work?” Jamie couldn’t deny that he’d wondered about that as soon as it had become clear that Nat and Connor’s relationship was common knowledge.

“Nah. Nat’s badass, so it would be someone pretty fucking stupid who got up in his face about where he puts his dick. Marc’s never had a fella before, but I’d imagine it would be much the same for him. You don’t live through the things these guys have without garnering a little respect.”

Jamie absorbed that as he picked his doughnut apart and forced himself to eat it. He’d never asked Marc if he was out at the hospital, but he’d got the impression that Marc didn’t much care what anyone thought. And did other people even matter? Probably not. Jamie had fucked up so much that hiding his sexuality had always been the least of his concerns, but Marc wasn’t him. And Jamie loved him. So there was nothing else.

With a heavy sigh of his own, Jamie sat back in his seat and regarded Connor, trying to remember him as he’d seen him just a few weeks ago, relaxed and laughing, a life raft for Jamie when Nat had regarded him with barely concealed suspicion. A decade had passed since the drunken three-way that Marc had made so light of.

Connor chuckled darkly. “Whatever you’re thinking about, share. I could do with whatever’s making you bite your lip like that.”

“From what I hear you’ve already had it.”

“That so?” Connor raised an eyebrow. “Now I’m intrigued.”

“Marc told me about getting freaky with you and Nat.”

Connor laughed for real this time, the tension in his face fleetingly melting away. “Man, that was a long time ago. And I was so fucking drunk I put a naan bread on the record player.”

Jamie snorted coffee up his windpipe and choked. “He didn’t tell me that bit.”

“I doubt he remembers. It was Wedge who got the hump about it. It was his record player.”

And boom back to reality. “Marc said that my taste in music reminded him of Wedge.”

“Then you must like everything from Roy Orbison to Slipknot.”

Any other day, Jamie would’ve laughed, but humour had left the building, taking the conversation with it. Connor closed his eyes and slumped forward, his head on his folded arms, and Jamie left him to it. The urge to count and clean was bubbling up inside him, but the promise he hadn’t had the chance to make to Marc was louder, fuelled by a desperate need to be strong for Marc when he eventually came home. There wasn’t much in Jamie’s arsenal, but it was bigger than yesterday.

He finished up his cooking and washed the pots and pans, leaving them to dry on the draining board for the first time ever. The resulting twist of dread in his gut was as fierce as he’d always imagined, but he still had more weapons.

The antidepressants were harder to take, and the knowledge that they’d take weeks to work didn’t make it any easier, even if it came with a guarantee that he’d feel absolutely nothing when he swallowed the first pill.

But he did swallow it, and then he took his phone to the kitchen couch and curled up with the cat. Sleep was a million miles away, and the imagined sensation of the antidepressant fizzing in his belly and polluting his veins nearly sent him into OCD hyperspeed, but somehow—somehow—he fell asleep.

He woke to the buzz of a phone that wasn’t his. Stumbling, he followed the sound to the kitchen table, glanced at the screen, and then shook Connor awake. “Phone. It’s Nat.”

Connor took the phone from Jamie and pressed it to his ear, blinking, clearly dazed. “Nat?”

Jamie moved away to give him some privacy, though he couldn’t help straining to hear any mention of Marc. He was folding the couch blankets into perfect right angles when Connor tapped him on the shoulder.

“He’s right here, mate. Love ya.”

Jamie took the phone. “Marc?”

“It’s me. Listen, I’m so sorry I didn’t call you. My phone died when I was talking to Nat, and then I was driving, and then I was somewhere where we didn’t have access to civilian phone lines. I’m so fucking sorry. Are you okay?”

A rush of tension left Jamie so fast that his knees buckled. He sank onto the couch and pushed his thumb and finger into his eyes. “I’m fine. Connor turned up and told me some stuff, and then I took my pill and went to sleep.”

“How do you feel?”

“Groggy, but not in the fun way. Um, how’s your friend?”

“Not dead, which is as good as we can hope for right now. He’s getting med-evacced to Selly Oak in the next twenty-four hours. I’ll be able to do more then.”

“Will he live?”

“Yes, but that’s not always enough, is it?”

Jamie didn’t have the balls to ask Marc to expand, and Marc’s silence betrayed that he didn’t want to either. “What happens now . . . for you, I mean?”

“I’m coming home, Jamie. I just need to get Nat to Hereford first.”

“Bring him here,” Jamie said. “Connor’s here.”

“Oh yeah. Damn, I’m tired. Is Connor staying put?”

Jamie glanced up. Connor was a few feet away, but seemed to catch the gist, and nodded.

“He is,” Jamie said.

“Okay. I’ll see you in an hour or so, then. Oh, and it might be as well to lend them our bed for a bit. Nat’s dead on his feet.”

Our bed. Marc hung up. Jamie held the phone out to Connor. “They’re coming home. Marc said Nat’s tired, so you might want to rest up here before you head back. Take Marc’s room—it’s got clean sheets—I’ll fix something upstairs for us.”

Connor nodded slowly. “Nat gets tired when he’s stressed. He got really ill after a deployment a long time ago. It comes back sometimes.”

“PTSD?”

“No, it’s a more physical condition, but he took these for a while for depression.” Connor held up the box Jamie had left on the side. “They helped until the therapy kicked in too.”

“Nat had therapy?”

Jamie couldn’t see it, but Connor smiled wryly. “You’d be surprised how many of them do these days. War is the same as ever, but the world they return to is changing all the time. There’s no shame in asking for help, and Nat doing just that meant he could carry on. Without it, he’d be in a place where he and Marc wouldn’t have known so fast what had happened to Wedge. And that would’ve killed the both of them.”

There wasn’t much left to say. Connor went for a shower while Jamie made up a bed in one of the disused bedrooms upstairs, thankful that it was already relatively clear of dust.

When he was done, he sat on the edge of the bed. The room had a perfect view of the horizon and the road leading up to the house, and Jamie wasn’t budging until a canary-yellow car blighted the landscape.