"That was about what you did. I want to know who you are."
He considers for a long moment. "I was engaged once. Before Kandahar."
The revelation catches me off guard. "What happened?"
"She couldn't handle the deployments. The secrets. The way I'd come back different after every mission." His voice is flat, recounting facts. "She left a month before the ambush. Said she didn't recognize me anymore. That I'd become someone she couldn't love."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. She was right. I was already gone by then. The job had hollowed me out. There was nothing left for her to love."
"That's not true."
"It was then." He looks at me. "I don't know what's left now. But whatever it is, you seem to have found it."
My heart clenches. This gruff, closed-off man, offering me pieces of himself like gifts he's not sure he's allowed to give.
"Tell me something else," I say.
"What do you want to know?"
"Anything. Everything. What's your favorite food? What music do you listen to? Did you have pets as a kid?"
He huffs out a breath. "Is this an interrogation?"
"It's the ‘getting to know you’ thing you wanted to avoid. But that's what people do."
"I don't do 'what people do.'"
"Humor me."
He's quiet for a moment, then: "Steak. Rare. With potatoes. I don't listen to music much anymore, but I used to like classic rock. And I had a dog growing up. A mutt named Sergeant."
"Sergeant?"
"My dad was military. Everything was military."
"Is that why you enlisted?"
"Partly. It was expected. Also, there wasn't much else for me in Montana. Small town, no money, no prospects. The Army offered a way out."
"And you stayed for twenty years."
"I stayed because I was good at it. Because it gave me purpose." His jaw tightens. "Because I didn't know who I was without it."
"Do you know now?"
"I'm learning." He looks at me. "Your turn. Tell me something about you."
"What do you want to know?"
"Everything. That's what people do, right?"
I smile at him throwing my words back at me. "I wanted to be a dancer when I was little. Took ballet until I was twelve. My dad used to come to every recital, front row center, even when his shift schedule made it nearly impossible."
"What happened?"
"I got tall. And curvy. Turns out the ballet world has very specific ideas about what dancers should look like." I shrug. "So I found other ways to perform. Debate team. Mock trial. Anything where I could be on a stage and make people listen."
