"Since when do you accept defeat?"
"It's not defeat. It's respecting boundaries."
Javi stares at me like I've grown a second head. "Who are you and what have you done with Dean Mercer?"
The question lands differently than he intends. I take a long sip of coffee, watching the steam curl up from the mug, and don't answer.
The truth is, I don't know.
The charm used to come easy. The flirting, the jokes, the confidence that made everything feel like a game I was winning. Somewhere along the line—somewhere between deployment three and deployment four, between letters that stopped coming and calls that got shorter—the charm started feeling like a costume I couldn't take off.
The squad is family. Javi, the others, even Ranger in his own chaotic way. But family isn't the same assomeone. Someone who knows your real name before your call sign. Someone who's there when you come home, not just when you ship out.
Someone who looks at you like they see past the flight suit and the smile and the bullshit.
The way she looked at me.
I'm not most people.
No. She definitely isn't.
"Hey." Javi's voice cuts through the spiral. "You good?"
"Yeah." I set down the mug, forcing a grin. "Just tired. Ranger ran me all over downtown, remember?"
Javi doesn't look convinced, but he lets it slide.
"Speaking of Ranger." He pulls out his phone, scrolls for a second. "You hear about the new kennel project?"
"The what?"
"Base is upgrading the K9 facilities. New kennels, training yards, the whole deal. Brass is bringing in some kind of veterinary consultant to oversee the specs."
"Huh." I take another sip of coffee. "That's good. The current setup's pretty outdated."
"Yeah, Top wants all handlers to attend the briefing next week. You're not a handler, but he mentioned you specifically."
"Why would Top mention me?"
"Probably because your family literally runs one of the most well-known K9 security operations in Texas and he thinks you might have useful input."
Right. That.
The Mercer family legacy. My father's military career, followed by almost twenty years building Iron Creek K9 into the kind of operation that gets government contracts and magazine profiles. My older brother, Wade, running the show now, expanding into private security, building something real.
And me, a thousand miles away in a flight suit, chasing my dog through downtown Pine Valley because I couldn't even keep a lead from fraying.
"I'm a pilot," I say. "Not a handler."
"You grew up around working dogs. You probably know more about K9 programs than half the actual handlers on base."
"Knowing about something isn't the same as being qualified."
"Tell that to Top. He seems to think you're an asset."
The word settles uncomfortably in my chest. Asset. Like I'm a resource to be deployed rather than a person making choices about his own life.
My phone buzzes. A text from Wade, because the universe has a sense of humor.
