“Where should we go first?” Whitney furrows her brow and watches the high-rises of downtown Newark go by in the bright morning sun. It’s not long until June, and part of me is desperate—desperate—to see Whitney in one of those fifties-style bathing suits, laying out on the beach. “You don’t think Bennett is still waiting at your apartment, do you?”

“He’ll have found somewhere else to go.”

“Did you text him back?”

“No.”

I see her head swivel toward me out of the corner of my eye. “Are you going to?”

“Not right now.”

She waits a beat. “Why not?”

“Because I’m starving.” I steer us onto a side road. Three blocks in, there’s a diner with an honest-to-God parking lot. “You dragged me out of the apartment before I could eat.”

“Where’s your spirit of adventure?”

“I’m on the adventure. But a man can’t travel on air alone.”

“You should embroider that onto a throw pillow.”

I pull the car into the parking lot and turn it off with a decisive flick of my wrist. “I’m not embroidering anything. But I will order breakfast for you, if you want.”

“You’re so manly.” She says it lightly, a joke, as she’s leaning for the door handle, but I catch her wrist. She spins back to me, eyes aglow.

“Am I going to have to remind you how manly I am?”

Whitney’s face lights up, her cheeks turning pink. “That sounds filthy.”

“You said you wanted to give this a serious try.”

“And I meant it.” Her chest rises and falls with shallow breaths.

“If you’re serious, you know you can’t always be in charge.”

She bites her lip. “I am not into men like you, but damn, Wes...”

I rest my fingertips at the curve of her jaw, then drag them lightly down the side of her neck, her shoulder...and back to where I held her wrist. Then I take my hand away. Whitney sucks in a breath, like the loss of contact is as palpable as a shock. “You hungry?”

“Ravenous.” She flicks her eyes down to the front of my pants, where there’s an obvious bulge. “And you look like you’re—”

“Ready to go.” I throw open the car door and step out. “Come on. Let’s go get a table.”

Whitney lets out a frustrated grumble. She follows me anyway.

“Does your neck hurt?”

I pull my hand away and look back at the wreckage of breakfast on my plate. I’m on the edge of eating too much, so there’s still a third of a pancake left, but I put my fork down several minutes ago and settled for coffee. The old habit must have taken over.

“No.”

Whitney narrows her eyes. “That’s not the first time I’ve seen you rub your neck like that.” She wraps her own hand around a mug with the diner’s logo in white. She ordered half-coffee, half-hot chocolate, which seems exactly like her. “Did something happen? You know, while you were in the Army?”

“Yes. I broke my neck.”

Her eyes go wide.

“I’m kidding. No. Nothing happened.”

She blows a breath out through her lips. “Getting blown up isn’t nothing, Wes.”

“My sister can’t keep her mouth shut, can she?”

“In her defense—” Whitney takes a deep sip of her drink and closes her eyes, as if mediocre diner coffee and hot chocolate from a package are the nectar of the gods. “She was talking about Dayton, not you. You just happened to be part of the story.”

I stare down into my own coffee. The heat curls up around my face, but when it makes contact, it’s not the humidity of a hot drink but the dry heat of the desert. The pedal presses hard against my foot. It takes force to steer the Humvee, it takes strength, it takes a steady hand on the wheel and a confident stomp of the boot. It’s not some zippy rental car, and the road isn’t the recently patchworked highway between New York and Newark. It’s dirt and stone, deep tracks pitted into the earth, and the Humvee dips and bounces over each ridge.

“Wes?”

“Yeah?”

Whitney’s face is the picture of concern. “You’ve been looking at your coffee for”—she glances at the clock behind the counter—”several minutes.” She draws her bottom lip between her teeth. “Did I say something wrong?”

Something unhinges in my chest, a valve releasing, and I want to tell her. I want to tell her everything. How that Humvee haunts my dreams. How I find myself in the driver’s seat every time there’s a fender-bender in traffic. How looking at Dayton—my best friend, even though I don’t deserve him—leaves me feeling sick inside.

But I hesitate.

She’s out of her comfort zone already and in the back of my mind, I hear a warning. Telling her, as much as I want to, is the third rail.

“What made you come to Newark, anyway?”

There’s the truth at the very base of it. A woman. Julie. We met one weekend on base, and she was moving there. It didn’t work out. But even so, I thought I could hide from everything in Newark—from the memories. From the guilt.

I couldn’t.

The waitress buzzes by the table and drops the bill neatly between us. “Can I get anything else for you two?” Whitney reaches for the bill and the waitress winks at her. “Oh, honey, let him pay. Look at him! He’s got you out the morning after. That must count for something.”

Whit flashes her a smile I recognize from her audition practices and nods, her nose wrinkling. It’s almost too cute.

The moment shatters. I press my lips shut tight. A woman like Whitney—especially Whitney—doesn’t need to hear about the things that happened when I was thousands of miles away. All that might as well have happened on another planet. It has nothing to do with her.

“She’s right.” I snatch the bill off the surface of the table and dig for my wallet. “I’ll get this one.”

“Aren’t you manly?” Whitney flutters her eyelashes, but I see right through the little joke. I’m not going to get out of this. Not forever.

“Okay. Here we go.” Whitney claps her hands in the passenger seat of the rental car. “I’m belted in. Let’s find your roommate.”

“We can try, but no promises. He’s the kind of guy who doesn’t always answer texts.”

“So...exactly like you.”

“I’m answering right now.”

Whitney grabs my wrist. “Is this too much? Did I—” She purses her lips. “Did he leave on bad terms? Am I pushing you back into a bad situation?”

I pause, my thumbs above the screen. “The situation was that he left. I got one text that said he had to hit the road and asked if I wanted to meet up later.”

“It wasn’t a cry for help, was it?”

“Whit, I looked for him around town. Either he didn’t want to be found or he was somewhere else entirely. I’m betting on the latter.”

She tips her head back against the headrest. “This could be so awkward.” Then she pops up again, eyes alight. “I’m kind of living for this.”

“I can see that.”

I tap out a text to Bennett.

Wes: I’m in town. Where are you?

“There. I sent it.”

We both stare down at the phone, waiting for a reply.

Traffic whooshes by on the side street. The knot in the back of my neck tightens. I’m not paying attention. I’m trying not to pay attention.

“Well.” Whitney taps her fingers on the dashboard. “Looks like he’s not going to—”

The phone buzzes in my hand.

Bennett: Branch Brook. What took you so long? Do you have a spare key?

“Wow.” Whitney puts her fingertips to the car window. “This is too precious for my withered heart.”

I laugh, my heart in my throat. “Withered heart? I don’t think so.”

The Cherry Blossom Welcome Center is almost sickeningly delightful, and I scored a good spot in the parking lot. We get out of the car and Whitney takes a deep breath of the air. “Sweet. Like springtime.”

The welcome center is surrounded by lawns, neatly tended, and paved pathways. When I look back at Whitney, she’s already gone, trotting across the parking lot to a sign with the park map on it.

“This place is huge.” She glances over her shoulder at me. “Oh, good, it’s you.”

“Who else would it be?”

“It’s busy here.” She squints at the map. “Did he say where he might be? Otherwise, we could spend all day here and never cross paths. The paths do cross, over here, but it’s far enough that—”

“You really left me hanging there, Sullivan.”

I’d recognize that voice anywhere.

I turn to face Bennett Powell. “Do you always sneak up on people like that? Where the hell did you come from, anyway?”

He gestures vaguely at a path on the other side of the lot. “I’ve been walking. Where have you been? And who’s this?” He has a lazy grin that I find equal parts infuriating and familiar.

Whitney moves gracefully around me and sticks out her hand to shake. “Whitney Coalport. We’ve been looking for you.”

“Is that so? Wes, is she telling the truth?”

Bennett Powell does not look like the military man who sat in the backseat of that Humvee. He looks like a college student, with tanned skin, a faded t-shirt, and unruly hair. He’s got a knapsack slung over one shoulder that does look Army-issue, but if it weren’t for the telltale perfect posture, I wouldn’t have guessed he spent any time in the service.

“Yeah. We drove over because she thinks you’re some kind of lost puppy.”

“Lost puppy.” His eyes flick from me to Whitney, and I can see him sizing us up. I edge closer to her, trying to make the movement look natural. “I can see that.” He shifts his weight from side to side and tilts his face up toward the sun. “You guys want to take a lap around the short trail while we talk?”

“You guys go ahead.” Whitney puts a comforting hand on my arm. “I’m going to check on the welcome center and practice for my audition next week. Meet up in a bit? I’ll be around here.”

I’m seized with the urge to grab her and devour her like I’ll never see her again, but I settle for a neat kiss on the temple.

There. Now Powell knows we’re together.

“Sounds good. See you soon.”

Whitney gives a little wave and pulls her phone out of her pocket, putting it to her ear. Then she turns lightly on her feet and heads for the welcome center, stopping to look at a baby in a stroller on the way.

Powell interrupts the pang in my chest. “Let’s go, man.”

He heads for one of the trails, but I move toward a different one until he’s got no choice but to follow.

“I’m guessing there’s no spare key,” he says, looking up at the cherry trees. There are a few late-as-hell blossoms on the branches, but most of the petals cover the ground, flattened by people walking over the greenery. “When did you leave?”

“About a month ago. I got a job in the city, and rush hour’s a bitch.”

Powell grins at me. “Whatever happened to bros before—”

“Shut your mouth, man.”

He hikes the knapsack up onto his arm and sticks his left hand in his pocket. “She’s gorgeous, man. Why didn’t you say something?”

I stare at him. “First, it’s—” I don’t have to explain myself to him, but I feel a tug at the center of my chest. “It’s new. We live together.”

“Already?”

“She had a spare room, and I needed one. So, to answer your question, there’s no key. I broke the lease on the place, since there was nobody to cover the rent.”

“It was a nice place,” Powell says thoughtfully. “The commute was really that bad?”

I hate how he looks at me, those searching gazes with bright blue eyes. It makes me feel like I have something to hide.

“Yes.”

He waits. I don’t answer.

“I’ve been doing some research.” Powell’s footsteps are gentle on the path. Not heavy, like boots. “About that mission.”

“What’s done is done.”

“It’s not done, though, is it? It’s not done for me.” He stops in the middle of the trail, and I follow him.

“It’s over, Powell. There’s nothing to learn about it. It happened, and we survived, and it’s over.”

“I disagree.” He leans in close. “Don’t you ever think about it? Don’t you remember how—”

There’s a rush of blood to the head, a pounding in my heart, and I hold up both hands. “Listen. I’m glad you’re doing okay. I packed up your clothes and had them sent to your mom’s house, so anything you’re missing should be—” The back of my neck tightens in tandem with the ache at the base of my spine. “I’ve got to get back. If you need anything else, you’ve got my number.”

I turn back the way we came, walking fast along the trail, back to the welcome center.

“Sullivan,” Powell calls, but I don’t answer.