Dark. Almost completely dark. Blanched light knifed in through the cracks around the door, slicing across papers and gear attached to the metal wall, and those long blades of stark white made the black even thicker.
The desert got cold in the winter, and the nights were brutal, especially inside a CONEX box, but that wasn’t why my teeth were chattering.
I stared up at the ceiling. Well, the inside of the box. There were other guys around me. Sleeping. Maybe. Someone was snoring. Someone else was breathing too fast to be asleep. I wondered who it was, and if he was lying there in the near-silence thinking the same thing I was. If he was listening. Worrying. Waiting for a missile, a mortar, an IED . . .
Listening for the telltale whistle of an incoming projectile was pointless. Grandpa had told me that. Told me what he and his buddies had all known in World War II.
You never hear the mortar that kills you.
You never hear the mortar that kills you.
You never hear the—
“Logan?”
I opened my eyes. The room was dark, but it was a different kind of dark. Soft light came in from the parking lot, muted by the curtains, and the walls weren’t so claustrophobic. No one was snoring. Music was playing softly. Coming from the iPod. On the nightstand. In my apartment. In Anchor Point. On a Sunday night, which meant I had to work tomorrow, which meant I needed to be fucking sleeping.
I exhaled as the deep-seated fear faded to a memory. As it became something I’d felt years ago and had no reason to feel now.
Casey was on his side behind me, a hand on my shoulder. “Hey. You with me?”
“Yeah.” I shuddered. Then I tensed. “Did I wake you up?”
The way he moved felt like a shrug. He was right up against me, skin hot. “You okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m good.” I shifted a little and turned onto my back. “Seriously—did I wake you up?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“I didn’t kick you or anything, did I?” Panic shot through me. “Oh shit, your leg! What if I—”
“Logan. Relax.” He gently pressed me back down, and as I eased onto the pillow, he kissed my temple. “You didn’t kick me.”
“Not this time, no.” I wiped my hand over my face. I was sweating. Big shock. And my mouth was dry. Sighing, I pushed myself up. “I need a drink.”
“What?” Casey grabbed my arm. “Wait, you—”
“Water,” I croaked. “A drink of water.”
He hesitated, but then eased his grip and let his fingers slide off my elbow. “Okay.”
I wanted to be insulted that he thought I meant A Drink, but could I blame him? He knew I’d spent more of the last few years drunk than sober. He had an addict in the family. It wasn’t judgment—just concern. It was a habit to get defensive when someone questioned me. My hackles still went up when my therapist asked about it, and I was paying her for that.
In the kitchen, I took a glass from the cabinet and filled it. The water helped un-parch my mouth, but admittedly, I craved something stronger. I didn’t want to backslide into a bottle. I was bound and determined to stay sober. No matter how tempting that blissful numbness was.
I closed my eyes and exhaled. Normally I’d be knee-deep in a sketch by now, but I felt weird about it while Casey was here. What kind of crazy was I to bolt up out of bed in the middle of the night to draw a picture, for God’s sake? And I didn’t want him to see it. It was okay that he knew I was haunted by my time in a war zone, but I wasn’t ready for him to see into my head yet. Not that far.
I could go one night without sketching, right?
Footsteps brought me out of my thoughts, and I looked up as Casey stepped into the kitchen. He’d put on some boxers, but no boot, and he was keeping his weight on his good leg.
“Should you be up and around without something on that?” I gestured with my glass at his leg.
Casey shrugged. “I’m not going for a run or anything. I’ll be fine.” His forehead creased. “What about you? You gonna be okay?”
I took a deep swallow of the tepid water. “Yeah. It’s . . . It happens sometimes.”
“Stuff from the war?”
I shuddered. “Remember that photographic memory I told you about?”
“Yeah. Makes the dreams worse?”
I nodded. “That’s what my therapist says, anyway. I hope other people aren’t having nightmares like this.”
I turned to put the glass in the sink, and paused there, hands on the counter, just trying to breathe. Distantly, I was aware of Casey moving closer. He put a cautious hand on my arm, and when I didn’t jump out of my skin, he snaked his arms around me and rested his chin on my shoulder. “You want to talk about it?”
My first instinct was to say no and to grab a sketch pad like I always did. Except there’d never been anyone here for those late-night drawing sessions. One of the reasons I’d started sketching when the dreams shook me up was that I’d been alone. There’d been no one to talk to.
But Casey was here.
“You don’t mind?” I whispered.
“Of course not.” He pressed a kiss to the side of my neck. Then he released me and let me turn around to face him. “What were you dreaming?”
I moistened my lips. “It sounds kind of stupid, but . . . I was dreaming about trying to sleep over there.”
He cocked his head.
“Sometimes those are the worst,” I said. “The ones where my guys and I are in one of those shipping containers, trying to sleep, and we’re just lying there, waiting for a bomb to drop.”
“That’s the silence you talked about, isn’t it?” he asked. “That triggers you?”
I nodded. “Yeah. I guess because during a firefight, we were running on adrenaline and trying to survive. Sleeping meant time to think, and . . . I mean, it was almost impossible to sleep. You learned pretty quick what incoming fire sounded like, but everyone says you never hear the mortar that kills you. And I guess that got under my skin, knowing I could literally be blown to pieces at any second and I’d never even know what hit me.”
Casey fidgeted. “I don’t know which sounds worse—hearing it coming or getting caught off guard.”
“I guess if you get caught off guard, at least you don’t have that panic beforehand. But knowing you’re in a place where a bomb could take you out at any second, you’re constantly feeling that panic anyway.” My skin crawled. “And it never totally goes away.”
“It doesn’t?”
I hugged myself even though the room was warm. “That’s one of the reasons I drank so much. If I was fucked up, I couldn’t feel it anymore. The fear, I mean.”
“Holy shit,” he breathed.
“Yeah. Rationally, it’s stupid—I know no one is going to mortar my apartment. But you spend enough time being on high alert for something like that, your body and your mind forget how to not be that way.”
He exhaled and stepped closer, putting his hands on my waist. “I’m sorry.”
I sighed as I kissed his forehead. “This wasn’t what I signed up for. I mean, I knew war was horrible and it wouldn’t be fun, but no one told me it would be this bad.” My throat tightened around the words. “Not for this long.” Not forever.
Casey raised his head and kissed me softly. “I’m sorry.”
“Like I said, this is why I used to drink so much.” Even now, the shame burned hot. “Shit, with me being so fucked up all the time, it’s a wonder I didn’t do worse than losing my jobs, you know? Well, and Clint.”
He smoothed my hair. “You were really into him, weren’t you?”
“I . . .” Sighing, I closed my eyes. “I think I could’ve been if I’d been sober. He’s a great guy. A really great guy. But he was going through his own shit then, and the last thing he needed was a boyfriend who had to stay drunk to keep his mind quiet. Looking back, there’s really no way to know if Clint and I could have gone anywhere. We were both in a bad place, and I was such a dick to him, so . . .” I ran a hand through my hair and exhaled. “I’m just glad he forgave me and is willing to be friends. Maybe it helps that he went through the same thing. I don’t know. But I’m grateful for it.”
“I’ll bet,” Casey said. “And the drinking . . . I mean, you’re clean now, right?”
I nodded. “The temptation’s still there, but yeah. Haven’t had a drink in months.” My voice shook as I added, “I don’t dare.” No matter how much I want to sometimes.
“It’s hard, though. I know it is.”
“Yeah. It is.”
He said nothing and pulled me close to let me press my face against his neck. For the longest time, we stood there in my kitchen, no sounds except my heartbeat and the iPod playing in the other room. Talking about any of this always left me raw and shaky, but Casey’s warm, steadying embrace tempered it.
“Thanks for this,” I finally said. “Letting me talk about it.”
Casey met my gaze and smiled. “Don’t mention it. If you need it, I’m here.” He cupped the nape of my neck and kissed me softly. Then he searched my eyes and whispered, “Should we try to get some more sleep?”
“Yeah. Good idea.” Between the dream, the conversation, and the fact that it was oh-fuck-thirty in the morning, fatigue was kicking in hard. It was kind of like that feeling I got after I’d sketched a nightmare—drained and relaxed. Ready to try sleeping again.
In bed, Casey molded himself to my back, draping an arm over me as he burrowed against my neck. His jaw was a little scratchy, and I liked the roughness of it, especially next to the softness of his lips and breath. I closed my eyes and let his body heat radiate into my skin. I always woke up cold after a nightmare, and his strong, solid presence stilled some of the shivering.
I swallowed. “Can’t promise that’ll be the last dream I have tonight.”
“It’s okay.” He held me tighter and kissed behind my ear. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”
I released a breath. I didn’t know if his promise would chase off the dreams or that stubborn residual fear, but it did make me feel better. Even if the dreams were here for the duration, maybe there was a chance he would be too.
Was that possible? That my PTSD could scare me out of a sound sleep, but it wouldn’t scare away the man in my bed?
God, please. Let that be possible.
And let it be him.