Derek glanced down at Denise. “For now. She’ll let me know when she’s not.”
“They always do.”
They stood in comfortable silence for a moment. Dorian watched the party reflected in the dark window—the lights, the movement, the blur of faces. Inside, warm chaos. Outside, Wyoming winter, black and cold and absolute.
“You doing okay?”
Derek’s hand shifted on his daughter’s back. The movement was small, unconscious. Protective. “Everyone keeps asking me that.”
“I’m not everyone. So I don’t mean it the way they do, as in,hey, are you exhausted because of the newbornorhow are those 3 AM feedings going? Although we can discuss those if you want. But I’m talking about: areyoudoing okay?”
Something flickered in Derek’s expression. He looked at Dorian—really looked, for the first time tonight—and whatever he saw there made his shoulders drop a fraction of an inch.
“I’m terrified,” he admitted. “Not of her. Of me.”
Dorian nodded slowly. He didn't offer reassurance. Didn't tell Derek it would be fine, that he was worried about nothing, that the fear would fade. Platitudes were for people who didn't understand. And Dorian understood. The PTSD didn't go away just because you built a good life around it.
“What specifically?”
“What if I have a nightmare and she’s in the room?” Derek’s voice had dropped, barely audible over the noise of the gathering. “What if she cries and I’m not—what if I’m somewhere else in my head and I react before I realize?—”
He stopped. Swallowed.
“I put Becky in the hospital,” he said quietly. “You probably don’t know this. Our wedding night. Our first wedding night I woke up and I didn’t know where I was, and I just started swinging—” Another swallow. “I had to take her to the hospital.”
“Actually, I did know.”
Derek looked at him sharply. “You did?”
“Zac Mackay is my brother in every way but blood. So is your dad. So yeah, when there was trouble between you and Becky—even before you made your marriage public, I knew.”
After the incident, Dorian had been the one to sit Zac down and remind him that Derek would nevereverhave done anything to hurt Becky on purpose. Zac had known that, of course—Derek had been a good kid all his life, and had grown up to be a good man—but Zac had needed to be reminded before he found his Glock.
“Oh,” Derek whispered.
“I should’ve made more effort to talk to you before now.” He paused. “I don’t do gatherings much. And you kept your PTSD close to the chest for a lot of years.”
“Didn’t seem like something to advertise.”
“No. Never does. Although in my case, sometimes my PTSD decided to advertise itself without my permission.” Dorian shifted his weight against the wall. “Still, I should’ve reached out. Maybe I could’ve helped you some.”
Although at the end of the day, every man battled his PTSD alone.
Derek was quiet for a long moment. Denise made a small sound against his chest, and his hand moved in slow circles on her back, automatic and soothing.
“Does it get easier?”
“The fear?”
“Any of it.”
Dorian considered the question seriously. Derek deserved a real answer, not comfortable fiction.
“It gets different,” he said finally. “You learn what you can control and what you can’t. You build systems. Routines. You figure out what helps.”
“Like Jasper, my service dog.” Derek gestured across the room where the dog was lying near the door, completely uninterested in the chaos around him. “When the really bad nightmares are coming, he knows before I do. He wakes me up before the dreams get too much of a grip on me. I’ve needed him less lately, but?—”
“But you still need him.”
