I’d had the dreams ever since the attack—not regularly, but often enough that I should have been used to them. Still, it didn’t make them any easier to deal with; I’d never forget the horror of being buried alive in a grave filled with my friends’ bodies, surrounded by guys whose kids and wives I’d seen pictures of, who I’d shared a beer with.

It fucked with your head to go from the memory of talking about going home and what you’d do when you finally got out of the desert to knowing they’d never get the chance to throw a football with their kids, never throw back a beer and watch a game on TV.

“Are you okay?”

I whirled around at the sound of the voice that had haunted my dreams nearly as much as that horrible day in Afghanistan.

Kate stood over the threshold of her bedroom, wearing the cotton shorts and thin tank top from last night. She looked like she’d just woken up, her eyes sleepy, her shoulder-length blonde hair messy in a way that tugged at my heart. I’d seen her like this so many times that the urge to take her into my arms and press my mouth to hers was as familiar as breathing. I dug deep and pushed it back.

“Did I wake you up?”

Sometimes the dreams came with screams. The few times I’d spent the night with a woman in the years after I’d left Afghanistan, I’d freaked them out with the thrashing and the noises I made. The souvenirs from my trip to hell were determined to stick whether I wanted them or not.

“No. I couldn’t sleep.”

I nodded, not sure what to say next, at a loss as to how to be casual with someone who still held my heart. I could see the struggle in her, too. After everything she’d been through, I was surprised she hadn’t totally lost it.

Balls of steel.

I grabbed my shirt from the floor, pulling it over my head. My pants came next. I waited to see if she’d walk away, but she didn’t. The unguarded pieces of her that I’d seen last night were gone; today she was a closed book, covering how she really felt with a hint of bravado. She looked at me with a nonplussed expression, as though daring me to try to make her uncomfortable. The Kate I’d grown up with had always been fearless—the first one to climb the tree, the last one to give up when everyone else was ready to throw in the towel. She’d been tough as shit; given the way she’d defended herself last night, some things hadn’t changed.

“Do you want coffee?” she asked.

“Please.”

She wasn’t the only one who’d struggled to sleep. I’d tossed and turned all night, fighting the urge to climb into bed with her and pick up where we’d left off. I’d meant what I said earlier, though. I didn’t want to drag her into my shit, didn’t want to risk the danger that had me constantly looking over my shoulder affecting her, too.I followed Kate into the kitchen, the view in front of me a punch to the gut. She’d always been tiny and curvy, hit every single check mark for me. Her ass swayed in her hot little shorts and it took all of my willpower to keep from pulling her hair to the side and pressing my mouth to her nape, kissing the spot that had always been a turn-on for her—and me.

Just the memory of having Kate in my arms again was enough to get my cock hard.

Do not make this more complicated than it already is. Don’t fuck this up more than you already have.

I’d told myself that it didn’t hurt to keep an eye on her throughout the years, had been unable to resist checking to make sure she was safe. I still kept tabs on the D.C. news, had seen the mentions in Capital Confessions, but I’d never imagined she was tied up in the blog or in the mess of what had happened to me. Never imagined she’d end up in the situation she’d found herself in last night.

I hated the thought of her in danger, hated that I’d put her there. Last night I’d seen the guy go into her building, and something about it, some instinct long since forged to keep me alive when people wanted me dead, had made me follow. When I’d seen him break into her apartment, I hadn’t thought about what would happen if I crashed back into her life; all I’d cared about was keeping her safe.

But now my plans were shot to hell.

“We need to talk about last night.”

Kate’s gaze met mine over the coffeepot, her chin jerking, eyes flashing. Challenging me.

“Which part?”

“The part where someone broke into your apartment.”

“You don’t want to talk about the other part?”

There it was.

I struggled to keep my voice even, to pretend like the time apart hadn’t made me crave her even more, as though I hadn’t been wandering the desert for forty days and had just stumbled upon an oasis.

“I told you last night, I’m not back for good. I want to see you through whatever this is and keep you safe, and then I’m gone.”

“Why?”

“I died in Afghanistan. I need to stay that way.”

“You’re hiding.”

“I’m staying alive,” I countered, not sure which was the truth anymore. Did it count as living if you still breathed, but felt dead inside?

“Then why do you have to play dead to do it?”

Because I worried that the target on my back would spread to the people I loved, would hurt her. I’d watched as my entire unit was slaughtered; staying alive felt like a luxury I couldn’t afford and playing dead was all I had. And in a way, I had died. Matt Ryan didn’t exist anymore. I didn’t want her to see who taken his place.

“What do you want from me?” I asked, suddenly feeling so fucking tired.

“I don’t know.” She played with the coffeepot for a moment, her eyes hidden. When she spoke again, her voice shook. “You were dead, and now you’re not. I don’t know where that leaves us. It’s been over three years. In some ways, it feels like yesterday. In other ways, it feels like a lifetime has passed. I know it sounds weird because you didn’t really die, but your death—thinking you’d died—changed something in me. I’m not the girl you knew and loved. And I don’t think you’re the boy I loved.”

She was right. I wasn’t. I couldn’t even remember what it felt like to be him. My life was no longer polo matches and playing soccer, my biggest worry where I’d take Kate on our dates. That life had begun slipping away as soon as I’d enlisted in the military, but now it felt like someone else’s life. I’d lived in places and done things Kate couldn’t even imagine. I’d killed, and there was no question that I’d kill again to protect the people I cared about. To protect her.

But whatever version of me existed now still felt the same pull toward her that I’d always felt. She was the one constant in this never-ending purgatory where I was stuck somewhere between life and death, a walking ghost.

I gave her the truth as though she were a seasoned interrogator who’d broken me down.

“I just want to keep you safe. I don’t know what I have besides that. I don’t want to hurt you; I don’t want to make you promises I can’t keep. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that Afghanistan fucked me up. A lot. In ways you’ll probably never understand. I have dreams. Nightmares, really. All the fucking time.”

I didn’t add the rest—that sometimes crowds freaked me out—didn’t talk about the panic attacks I’d fought off for the past few years, or the constant need to look over my shoulder, the feeling that someone was out to get me, inescapable.

Kate reached out, grabbing my hand—her palm so tiny inside of mine—linking our fingers before I even had a chance to speak. She squeezed, her fingers tightening the noose around my heart that bound me to her.

“We’ve been friends our entire lives. Best friends. I’ll always love you, even if we’re not together like that, even if you need time to figure things out. No matter what, you’ve always been my family, and nothing can change that or take it away.”

Just as she’d been mine. Neither one of us had grown up particularly close to our families. She’d had Blair, but their personalities were different enough that even though they loved each other, they hadn’t spent a lot of time together. We’d been inseparable. And she was right—I didn’t know where we stood as a couple—it felt like we were so far apart after everything that had happened, but I would always love her. I’d die for her.