I’m not big on regrets. I don’t believe in living my life looking back, no matter how much I sometimes feel trapped by the past.

Kissing him was a risk. A joy. A touch of light after so much darkness.

My body is still humming from his touch. I’ve found ways to brush against him as we move in and out of the door. To be near him for no reason at all.

It’s hell on my productivity. And there is still so much to do in order to get this down to a vast, empty space that we can properly remove the old lead paint from. When it’s finished, it will be a wide area, capable of holding three hundred people. The main floor won’t be just a yoga studio but an event space.

I take a long pull off my water bottle, staring at the dark hole in the floor. It’s captured my thoughts, tormenting me with nightmares of what could be down there. Stephen King’s It scared the living shit out of me when I was ten years old and I’ve never really recovered from it.

Which made Iraq fun as hell. Walking through the maze of trailers to the latrine at night was a real trip to the beach. The crunch of boots over stone. The weird silence beneath the distant hum of power generators. The shadows moved and danced along the walls, bouncing with the light from the flashlight.

The stuff of nightmares.

Literally. I’ve found myself, time and again, trapped in my sleep in the terrors of that dark hot room where my life burned away and I was helpless to do anything but scream.

Caleb walks up, stopping close enough that our arms touch. “You seem awfully focused on that hole in the floor.”

“I don’t want it to be storage,” I say finally. “Sam suggested that I rip the floor open here but…I think he’s right. I want to open it up. To bring light down there so that it’s not this dark nightmare factory where I keep extra yoga mats and mala necklaces.”

“Those are the stuff of nightmares.”

I bump into him for the terrible joke. “You know what I mean.” I take another gulp of water. “The way he made it sound wasn’t too complicated, depending on where the load bearing beams are in the building. Basically, rip that part of the floor out so that there’s a wide open hallway running through this space. Put in glass doors and make two separate yoga spaces. One can be a heated studio. One can be a meditation room. It expands my options for classes…assuming things keep growing.”

“It’s a great idea.” He makes a rough noise. “I was worried you were going to say we should start working in the basement and I was about to violate my no-drinking thing.”

“That makes two of us.” I grin. I shouldn’t but I can’t help it. “I’m avoiding the pit until I’ve smoked a lot of pot or gotten really drunk. And seeing how I’ve never really gotten into pot and I’m not a big drinker, it’s going to be a while.” I push my hair out of my face again. “So how much do you think that would add to the schedule and budget?”

“Well, considering Sam is the god of preparedness, he’s got an alternate schedule laid out. It adds about three days, depending on the locations of the load-bearing beams. And considering that the two of us are too chickenshit to go into the dark and spooky basement to see what the structure looks like down there, I can’t really say until we know that.”

“Damn, you sound like you know what you’re doing.” I grin over at him, teasing lightly. “Are you sure you’ve only been doing this stuff a few months?”

He makes a noise. “I was in an engineer unit at Fort Hood. We built a lot of shit in Iraq and Afghanistan, only for the insurgents to blow it up the following week.”

“Yeah, that pretty much mirrors my experience in northern Iraq and Syria,” I say after a moment. I release a deep breath. “So everyone else should be here soon. Maybe we can summon some collective energy to go into the basement as a group or something.”

He grins. “You’re fine with telling everyone you’re afraid of the dark?”

It’s really hard not to lean into him again. “It’s called humility. Admitting weakness is a sign of strength.”

He makes a noise. “I’ll try to remember that. Let me shoot a text to Bruce and let him know what you’re thinking. He’ll be able to give you a better estimate on everything.”

He lifts the phone to his ear and moves over to one of the massive windows. I try not to notice the T-shirt straining across his back or the strong black lines rippling over his forearms.

But the black letters on his wrists catch my eye. Quo Vadis—where are you going?

I’ve never really thought about that question before. I’ve always been a little outside of wherever I was. I always fit the best after I left.

Except for West Point. I never looked back at that place and felt like I fit there. Funny how the Long Gray Line has tried to be a permanent part of my life no matter how many barriers I keep putting up to keep it out. I was so fucking happy to drive away from that place at graduation.

I’ve kept so very few people in my life from that time. I want to forget it. To forget what it tried to make me become.

I’ve never been back. I skipped the reunions. I skipped the Facebook groups and all the bitching about the current corps of cadets has gone to hell in a handbasket.

Some Old Grads have too much time on their hands. The current class of cadets are not my problem. And neither is the Army, for that matter.

I glance over at Caleb again. It’s really hard not to notice the way his shirt clings to his skin. His back is broad, his arms thick. I wish I could remember more about him from that time, but then how would that shape how I see him now?

I’ve worked far too hard in my life to go back to the place I was as a cadet. To what the Army almost made me. He told me I was kind when he’d gotten in trouble. I don’t remember being kind.

I remember being an asshole. Unsympathetic. Demanding. Telling the plebes that they were going to do degrading and demanding shit because, well, tradition and all that.

I didn’t even recognize him during the storm. I’ve tried to block everything out from West Point but sometimes, the memories come back.

And I am not proud of them.

It took me realizing what my company had become to pull back entirely. To turn away from the abusive subculture I’d become a part of.

It wasn’t rational.

I watch him stretch one arm up the edge of the window. The way his back moves with the motion. It’s a good distraction from the memories I’d rather forget. I’m not entirely sure I’m being rational right now, either, with the way my thoughts are derailing into a soft warm space where my body is pressed to his.

Priorities. Getting naked with Caleb is not a priority, no matter how much certain parts of my anatomy might disagree.

The storm has forced me to make a decision and in doing so, I’ve assumed a massive risk – not just financially. Everything I am is riding on this investment. On my fervent focus that I can make a go of bringing traditional yoga to a hipster college town. I only hope I’m taking the right lesson from the events the universe has sent me.

He hangs up the phone and slips it into his back pocket, then frowns. He pulls on his gloves and reaches down behind a box near the window.

“What do you want to do with this?” I have to look again. He’s…holding up a dead rodent.

“Um, perhaps one should not be handling the detritus we find? Ever heard of hanta virus?”

“Well, are there laws about just throwing dead bodies in the trash around here?” He asks the question like he’s asking about coffee or tea. It’s so damn matter of fact that I have to wonder if he’s trolling me.

“Not that I’m aware of. At least, not small bodies like that. Bigger ones you need to roll up in carpet and dispose of in concrete.”

He tosses the rodent corpse into a black contractor bag, his lips creased slightly at the edges. “Well, that escalated quickly.”

I turn away, letting the smile cross over my lips once I am safely turned away.

Dead rodents aren’t exactly a dozen roses. I can’t explain why it’s so damn funny to me at the moment. Or what exactly has me shying away from the very emotions he’s drawing out of me.

I need his help. A strong back and helpful pair of hands. As much as I find myself drawn to the smooth voice and strong hands and the dark ink on his wrists, I also need barriers.

I’ve worked too hard to let my hormones get in the way of good business.

---

I thought I was used to workaholics in the Army but Nalini King takes it to a whole new level. By eight a.m., we’ve managed to get all of the tables sorted into what will be repurposed, what will be kept, and what’s on its way to the dumpster.

We’ve got a long way to go before we’re ready to start removing all the old paint but we’re making progress toward getting everything stripped down to the bones.

I guess this building has hit rock bottom, too. I know the feeling. Looking around, I can see the potential that Nalini sees. The designs that Bruce handed me show the beauty this place is currently hiding. The high vaulted ceilings create a sense of majesty; the beams will support the lights so it’s not dark and dreary. The high windows already let in a ton of light but when she adds window treatments the light is going to soften. Create a glow to the space.

She’s got a plan and that’s a hell of a lot more than I can say about my own life. I’ve just been puttering along, doing busy work with Bruce. Keeping my hands busy.

I drag a busted up pallet outside, tossing the wood onto the pile for recycling.

It’s easy to fall into the physical work. It empties your mind so you’re not thinking about any bad shit, or the burning need to take a fucking drink.

It’s the kind of work that makes you sweat and collapse into a pile of exhaustion.

It’s the good kind of work.

Not the kind of work that I’m avoiding back on campus with Professor Blake. I wonder what she’d say if I told her that I didn’t want to finish grad school? Would she call my father? Would he even care at this point? The very idea of my father feels like I’m chewing glass—great bleeding slices of disappointment.

I walk back into the old warehouse, the scuff of my boots echoing in the silence. Nalini is standing near a window, tapping away on her smartphone, her brows furrowed into a faint scowl.

The light slants across her cheek, highlighting the soft contours of her face. A strand of liquid black hair falls from her high ponytail. Even in this moment of heightened focus, she’s somehow hard and soft all at once.

It’s strange, this hard twist of sensation sliding over my skin. Just watching her is pure pleasure. Like a caress of something electric and soft running over the length of my body.

I watch her then, knowing I’m supposed to be working. She looks so different from when we were cadets. God, but I hated her then. I hated everyone. Even Eli. The memory of so much hatred feels foreign now. But what does it say about me that I miss the anger that kept me going for so long? That the anger and the bitter little ball of hate in the center of my chest has been such a part of me that I’m lost without it?

It may have been a shitty way to live but at least it was consistent. Familiar.

That consistency is gone and the silence it’s left behind is deafening.

I wonder if she knows what that feels like—to lose something that’s defined you, even if that something was toxic and negative and utterly destructive, it was still yours. To turn your back on who you are and what you’ve been and try to rebuild when you have no idea where to even begin.

Looking back, I know why I hated everyone at West Point. It wasn’t anything personal. It was…protection. Fear.

I don’t remember when I started drinking. Or what it felt like before I lost a decade of my life at the bottom of a bottle. But I know what the last decade has felt like. What it’s felt like to put aside the bottle and suddenly not be able to find the anger and the hate that had been near constant companions.

But standing here, in this moment, in the space we are deconstructing, she reminds me of the past. The past before I started to hate everything I was. The past before I lost myself.

She is a light.

Not a rope, pulling me along, making me go somewhere I don’t want to go. A light. Illuminating a path. A path that it is up to me to continue down.

It would be easy to walk over to her. To engage in pure physical contact.

I won’t. I can’t.

I’m in no place to even think about being part of someone else’s life.

She swears suddenly and seems to barely avoid slapping the phone down on the brick windowsill. I try to move so it’s not glaringly obvious that I was standing there, staring at her like some kind of stalker, but I’m pretty sure she’s already caught me.

“You okay?” Yeah, real slick, Caleb. Real fucking slick.

“Yeah. The whole conversation you overheard earlier? Now they’re playing the veteran card—asking me to get involved because my status as a veteran will give more credibility to the Wellness Center.”

“Why are you irritated by that?” I tug my gloves back on. “I bet they give you free parking. You don’t want your ‘thank you for your service’ military discount?”

It’s a crappy attempt at humor and it falls painfully flat.

She shakes her head, her lips pressed into a thin line. “I have no objections to that at all. But the longer I’ve been away from the Army, the more I realize I’m not comfortable with the genuflection-before-the-saints-ritual that we do.” She sets her phone on the ledge and pulls her gloves on. “It’s not… I’m proud of my military service and I think others should be, too. I mean, if you want to change your Facebook profile to a picture of you in uniform every year. But I’m not comfortable with this idea that veterans are our nation’s saviors. And using me to speak for all veterans is even more gross than using me as an Indian woman.”

“I guess I never thought about it like that.”

She shakes her head and lifts her phone before setting it back down, perfectly calm. I’m consistently amazed at how she can dial her temper back so quickly. “It’s dangerous. To give people that kind of power and influence.”

I frown then and lean against the table we’re getting ready to move. “I don’t see where it’s dangerous. I mean, soldiers are taught to be leaders, aren’t we? Why is it dangerous to get ten percent off at Applebees?”

She tips her head at me. “It’s not the discounts. It’s the…the idea that as soldiers we can’t be criticized. The idea that when we speak, we somehow have more credibility than others.” She motions toward the window. “On campus, they brought in this company to teach the yoga classes at the Wellness Center. Fine, right? Except that they didn’t listen to the objections of the Indian students about how this particular company operates in India.” She bites her lips together into a line that makes me cringe. “Now, they want me to come talk about how the Wellness Center can help veterans. And that’s fighting dirty because I started my damn studio to use yoga to help veterans and…” She blows out a hard breath. “It’s not harmless when people use their status as modern-day gods to influence otherwise well-meaning people.”

“So it’s the principle of the thing. Of them asking you as a combat veteran to endorse something to your fellow vets?” I brace my hands on the edge of the table behind me. “I’ve never honestly given this that much thought.” I scuff the floor with my toe.

“Most of us don’t and that’s okay. But I…it feels dirty for them to ask me to do this when I can’t support this and they know why. But they keep asking.”

“That’s pretty disrespectful.”

“It’s dishonest, honestly. I want to help our brothers and sisters. That’s why I’m expanding the studio to this space. I want to create a place where we can have meetings and events and bring people who are struggling to yoga. To help them. And yeah, I can’t do that for free but I don’t have to sell my soul to do it, either.”

“What does a good project look like for you? I mean, what’s not problematic?”

She reaches for her water bottle. “Research. Using yoga to help people. I mean, if people want to use their veteran status to sell T-shirts and coffee and whatever, fine. But all that hyper-masculine dude-bro bullshit is how we have a generation of veterans who either won’t fucking talk about the things they did in the name of God and country, or those who won’t shut the hell up about it and wow, this is apparently something that gets me really pissed.”

She sighs hard.

“I was pretty much that angry vet-bro stereotype for a long time.” I look up at her. “I was the guy who couldn’t shut up about serving. About being better than civilians who never sacrificed.” I reach for my own water bottle, to try and swallow the block in my throat. “I embraced it. Because it was the only thing that made me feel like I was part of something when I finally took the uniform off.”

She presses her lips together again. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. That’s not who I’m trying to be anymore.” I look down at my plain dark blue T-shirt, covered in dust. “I think this whole being-a-veteran thing is a lot more complicated than I realized.”

She smiles sadly. “Yeah. I’ve spent a lot of time wrestling with it. Like how do I do this,” she motions to the space around her, “and make sure that veterans know this is a space for them if they want, without doing the same thing that I’m complaining about the Wellness Center wanting me to do?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s got to do with intentions?”

She makes a noise. “Yeah, maybe. I think about Arjuna. When Krishna tells him it’s his duty to fight. This place is my duty. To my Indian family and my American one. To those vets who find a place here. But that doesn’t mean it’s not complicated.”

I tip my chin at her. “You talk about this place for veterans but…you won’t have anything to do with West Point.”

The question may end the fragile conversation. It may slap at her and piss her off. If I’d thought about it, I probably wouldn’t have asked but the words are out there now.

“West Point. I don’t like who I was at West Point. I don’t like what I became. When I left and met people like First Sarn’t Sorren and First Sarn’t Washington I learned a lot more about taking care of soldiers the right way.” She sighs hard. “I guess, their way of leading felt more right to me. West Point wanted me to be a hard ass, to follow these rules that only apply selectively.” She straightens. “Okay. Break over. I need… Let’s do some manual labor because wow, did this get intense.”

She lifts one end of one of the remaining tables that still needs to be moved out of the way. “This is really solid.”

I grant her the distraction from talking about the Wellness Center and West Point and veterans that clearly struck a nerve. I grab one side of the table. “It really is.”

She stops in front of an old window frame that had been hidden among the tables. Standing there for a moment, she frowns, then lifts it up, testing it. “I bet we could strip this down and stain it. It might make a nice wall hanging.”

I tip my head and try to see it how she’s seeing it. Funny how I could see the shelves taking shape from the old table but I’m having a hard time seeing this window as anything but a window. “It’s just some broken-down old window.”

She glances over at me and smiles softly. “There are always ways to find new uses for some old broken things.”

I frown. “Are we talking about the window?”

“What else would we be talking about?” And just like that, the easiness between us fades to cool shadows once again.

A cloud moves overhead, blotting out the sun in the dusty skylights above. “I feel like that is a trick question.”

She smiles softly. “There’s a gel you can use to strip off old paint and stain. See this hole, right here? I can fill it with wood glue and shavings so it will take the stain. And it’ll be good as new.”

“Yeah but the hole won’t take the stain as good as if you were to cut this half off and make it smaller.”

“That’s the point. You want it to look worn. The dings and gouges and scrapes in the wood are what give it character.”

I’m a little unnerved by this conversation even as I find myself obsessed by her lips forming the word wood. Because I am fucking twelve years old, apparently. “How do you know all this stuff about wood and construction anyway?”