“Dance with us. Summer! Dance with us!”

Theresa’s voice snaps me out of the thought I’d lost myself in, courtesy of one too many beers, and back into the basement of the biggest house on fraternity row. I knew what the letters where when one of the brothers waved us in through the gate two hours ago. I don’t know them anymore.

“I’m dancing.”

“You’re not dancing,” she shrieks, tugging me farther into the crowd. “You’re standing there, thinking about your hometown hero.”

“I don’t have a hometown—”

“Army guys aren’t for you.” She waggles a finger in my face, spilling beer from her cup onto the floor in the process. “You can’t spend all of college mooning over some asshole who’s too old for you.”

Through the drunken sea of my brain I feel a swell of anger. “He’s not an—”

Theresa isn’t listening to me. “Chris Leavenworth is into you.”

“What?”

“The president of the fraternity.” She enunciates each syllable, her teeth glowing white in the black lights. A flash of red crosses her skin and makes her look like she might burst into flame. “Look! He’s the hottest guy here.”

He’s leaning against the sound system In a polo shirt, blond hair in a neat cut, teeth even and straight. I know about his teeth because he’s grinning at me so aggressively that it’s almost a leer. I can see why Theresa thinks he’s hot. I can see the polo shirt straining to contain the biceps he’s almost certainly spent hours in the gym on. Theresa tugs at my elbow, forcing me to sway with the beat. Beer sloshes in my gut.

“He asked me about you,” she says into my ear, her breath hot and heavy with alcohol. “He wants to dance with you.”

A strobe light flashes off to the side of the crowd and in the burst of light I see what a pretty picture Chris Leavenworth thinks we’d make. He’s tall and blond and I’m....not tall, but I have the kind of blonde hair that makes Theresa frown when she thinks I don’t see her in the mirror, like she did when we were getting ready to come to this party. She’s the one who thought I should wear the red dress that comes down one single inch beneath my ass and four-inch heels.

He wants to dance with you. Chris lifts his chin, sets his drink on the speaker next to him, and steps into the crowd. My heart leaps into my throat. I could do this. I could make out with the president of this frat, I could wrap my body around him on the dance floor and later in his bed, I could let him fuck me, take me, parade me around campus on his arm.

It would be a nice distraction.

I would be his distraction, too. Half of my sisters are dying to date Chris Leavenworth, and all of them might get their chance. He’s like that. He uses women until they bore him and then he tosses them to the side. Done. Gone.

The floor tilts up toward me and I turn away, leaning toward the edge of the crowd. Theresa’s grip tightens on my elbow. “What are you doing? He’s coming over here.” I shake her off. I need air. I need space. Theresa catches up. “Are you leaving? What the hell, Summer?” She’s drunk and so am I, and I’m not having this fight with her. Not right now.

“I have to go.”

“Because a hot guy is interested in you?” Her face twists into an exaggerated parody of disgust. “Fine. Go home and get yourself off thinking about some solider who’s probably fucking somebody else halfway around the world.” My mouth drops open and drunk Theresa wilts in the face of my shock. “Summer,” she says, and drops her half-empty Solo cup to the floor so she can press her hands together. “I didn’t mean it. Stay at the party. Talk to Chris. He’s coming to talk to you. Stay. Please?”

She’s begging me to forget about Dayton and I won’t do it. I might be drunk and dressed to be seen, to be swept up by Chris Leavenworth, but I won’t. I won’t. “No,” I tell her. My balance is too shaky for heels. As soon as I’m out on the sidewalk, I can get rid them. “No. I’m going home.”

* * *

The screaming sound happens again and again and again, close to my ear. Too close. Who’s screaming and why is it so loud? I twist away from the sound and my cheek connects with a cool section of pillow. Please. Please go away and let me sleep. My head throbs. Turning over in bed is all it’s going to take. I never should have gone to that party.

The sound curls in on itself and I reach for whatever, whoever is screaming. My hands make contact with my phone, shoved halfway under my pillow.

It’s ringing.

The sound resolves into my ringtone.

Shit.

Is it an alarm? Am I missing something? Did I sleep all weekend into Monday?

I scramble for the phone, my stomach lurching. Way too much beer. Way too many dreams, the frat house becoming the mountains in Afghanistan, where my brother and Dayton are on their third deployment in six years.

It’s my mom.

The ringtone cuts out, showing the alerts on my screen. Twelve missed calls in a row, all of them from my mom’s phone.

My fingers are slow on the screen and it rings before I can call her back.

“Hello?” Saying the word makes me want to throw up.

“Summer, I’ve been trying to call you.” Her voice is frantic. “Where have you been?”

“I was—I was asleep, Mom, I’m sorry.” My mouth tastes horrible. I don’t know what’s more urgent—brushing my teeth or throwing up.

“Get up, Summer. I’ve been trying to call.”

I swing my legs over the side of the bed. Another mistake. It’s my fault I feel this way. I should have been more responsible last night. “I’m up. What’s wrong, Mom?”

“There was an accident.”

“An accident?” My mind is still flooded with beer, with sleep. “Who was in an accident? Was it Dad?”

“No. Your brother. He and Dayton were in a Humvee, out on some mission, and—”

I’m going to throw up. My mom lets out a sharp breath. “Is he—”

There’s a low murmuring in the background of the call, and then my dad is on the line.

“Summer, this is your father. There’s been an accident involving your brother.”

My lungs are tight, compressed, and I can hardly draw a breath. This is why I’ve been forcing myself to talk to Wes when he’s on leave. This is the only reason. In case... “Is he—”

“He’s all right. Cuts and bruises. It was a near thing.”

“Oh, my god.” The relief is so strong I almost puke from that. Dread comes fast on its heels. “Dad—”

“He’s going to be fine, honey. He has enough time to call you, but not much more.” He says something about international calls, the Army—I don’t hear any of it. “Stay by your phone.”

He hangs up.

I stare at the phone in my hands. My bedroom at the sorority house rocks from side to side. I can’t run to the bathroom. I can’t be back in time for my brother’s call. I stay where I am.

The phone rings in my hand, a strange number.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Sunny, it’s me.”

His voice is rough, a little broken by the connection. “Wes.” My throat closes and I swallow, clearing it. “Mom and Dad said—”

“Yep,” he says, as if this is no big deal, as if this happens on a daily basis. “We had an encounter with a land mine. My knee got pretty fucked up by the shrapnel, but it’ll be all right. I’m in the hospital. Surgery—in three weeks—and back to the—”

“I’m so glad you’re okay.” Hot tears slip down my cheeks. I can’t stand Wes. I can’t stand what he did to Dayton after he kissed me. But he could have died. Horror builds in my gut, mixing with the beer, and goosebumps spread like wildfire along my shoulders and arms.

“I’ll be just fine,” Wes says. He sounds like he did when we were kids. He’d protect me from spiders I found in my bedroom, and when nobody else was watching, he was sweet to me. Strong. “There’s no need to worry, Sunny.”

I gulp in a breath. “I’m really hungover, Wes.”

He laughs out loud. “Party hard last night?”

“Yeah. I didn’t think—I didn’t know—”

“No way you could have known. It’s all going to work out anyhow. I’ll be out of here in no time and back running missions.”

“Wes?”

“Yeah?”

“What about Day? Mom said—” My hands are shaking so badly I can hardly hold onto the phone. “She said Dayton was with you in the Humvee.”

He laughs again, all sharp edges and ridicule, and every shred of sweetness is gone. “With me? Yeah, that asshole was with me. If he hadn’t been with me, that would have been something. A completed mission, more like.”

I am speechless. What do I say? There isn’t enough air in the room.

“Wes—” I croak out his name. “You’re—you’re in the hospital.”

“Damn right I am.”

“Is Day there? Is he with you?” Every word I say to him digs deeper into the rift between us. I know it and I can’t help it. I have to know. “Is he okay?”

There’s a silence so long I wonder if he’s hung up on me.

“Wes?”

“I have no idea,” he says flatly. “If he got hurt, that’s his problem not mine.” I close my eyes. “I told you to stop asking about him.”