“So. Real talk.”
I glance at him, wary.
“What?”
He nudges my boot with his.
“When you are ready… we’re going on a date.”
“In a war zone?”
“Damn right.”
I snort. “And what would that even look like?”
Torres grins wide.
“Easy. I’ll steal a candle from the med tent. You’ll swipe a slice of that weird bread they keep calling naan. We’ll sneak up to the roof at sunset, pretend the shellfire in the distance is fireworks, and I’ll tell you all the dumbest stories from my first deployment. You’ll laugh. I’ll get sappy. We’ll argue over MRE flavours and pretend we’re anywhere else in the world. Sound good?”
My throat tightens.
Fuck.
He’s serious.
He’s actually fucking serious and I don’t know what’s worse—that I want to say yes. Or that a piece of me wonders if Dax would even notice.
I don’t answer.
I just stare at him like maybe if I look hard enough, I’ll feel something else—something real. Something warm.
Something that doesn’t make me want to peel my skin off just to stop feeling like his.
But Torres isn’t Dax.
He doesn’t look at me like I’m fragile.
He doesn’t flinch when I snap.
He doesn’t carry that haunted silence like a weapon and a warning.
He just waits.
Like the offer’s not going anywhere.
Like I can unravel at my own fucking pace.
And God, I want to.
I want to fall into someone who doesn’t make me feel like I’m the reason the world’s ending.
But I already did that.
And he left me in that fucking kitchen with a name I used to love and a goodbye that didn’t mean a fucking thing.
“Say yes, Cassandra.”
Torres’s voice is low. Soft. So unlike the way Dax used to demand things from me like he had the right.
