"What were their names?" I asked softly, looking out at the water instead of at him, giving him privacy to feel whatever heneeded to feel. He was quiet for so long I thought he wouldn't answer. Then, slowly, he sighed before answering.
"Marcus. He was from Alabama. Had a daughter he'd never met—she was born while we were deployed." His voice was barely above a whisper, rough with grief. "Jonesy. We called him that because his last name was actually Smith and there were three Smiths in the unit. He was the funny one. Could make anyone laugh, even in the worst situations." He swallowed hard, his hands unclenching slightly. "DeShawn. Grew up in Chicago, wanted to be a teacher when he got out. Used to help the local kids with their homework whenever we were stationed somewhere long enough." He paused, his breath shaky. "Tommy. Youngest of us. Only nineteen. His mama used to send care packages for the whole unit." His voice cracked again.
"Tell me more." I said quietly, keeping my eyes on the water. "Tell me about them. The good stuff." I let warmth color my voice, let him hear that I wanted to know.
He did.
He talked about Marcus teaching him to play poker and cheating outrageously. About Jonesy's terrible impressions of their commanding officer. About DeShawn's chocolate chip cookies that were somehow always burned on the bottom but perfect on top. About Tommy's awful singing voice and how he'd belt out country songs during long convoys just to annoy everyone.
He talked until the sun was fully up and the egrets had settled back into their roosts. He talked until his voice was hoarse and his eyes were red and his hands had finally, finally unclenched.
"I haven't..." He stopped, cleared his throat. "I haven't talked about them like that in years." He turned to look at me, and there was something different in his pale eyes now—something lighter, like a weight had shifted. "Everyone always wants to know how they died. No one ever asks how they lived." Hereached out and took my hand, his fingers threading through mine with surprising gentleness.
"They sound like good men." I squeezed his hand, finally letting myself look at him fully, taking in the rawness of his expression, the vulnerability he was trusting me with. "You were lucky to know them." I said it simply, without pity, without platitudes.
"I was." He agreed, his voice steadier now, his thumb tracing absent patterns on the back of my hand. "I just wish..." He trailed off, shaking his head, his jaw tightening.
"What?" I prompted gently, my thumb tracing circles on the back of his hand, watching the play of emotions across his usually stoic features.
"I wish I knew why I'm still here and they're not." The words came out heavy, weighted with years of survivor's guilt. "I've been asking that question for five years. Haven't found an answer yet." He stared down at our joined hands.
"Maybe there isn't one." I said quietly, thinking of Marguerite, of all the unanswerable questions I'd asked after she died. "Maybe sometimes terrible things happen and there's no reason, no lesson, no purpose. Maybe the only thing you can do is keep living, even when it hurts." I squeezed his hand again, making him look at me. "Maybe that's the point. To live. For them. Because they can't." I held his gaze, letting him see that I understood, at least a little.
He stared at me for a long moment, something shifting in his expression.
"You really believe that?" His voice was barely above a whisper, hope and doubt warring in his pale eyes, his scarred hands still holding mine like I was the only thing anchoring him to the present.
"I have to." I admitted, my own voice roughening with old grief. "My aunt raised me. She was everything to me. When shedied, I spent months asking why her and not me. Why did she have to go when I still needed her so much?" I blinked against the burning in my eyes. "I never got an answer. But I kept living. I kept going. And eventually, I realized that's what she would have wanted. For me to live, really live, not just exist in the shadow of her death." I reached up and touched his face, my palm against his stubbled jaw. "Maybe that's what your brothers would want too." I finished softly.
He leaned into my touch, his eyes closing, a shudder running through his massive frame.
"I've been existing." He admitted, his voice cracking. "For five years, I've been going through the motions. Waiting to feel something. Waiting to want something." He opened his eyes and looked at me, and the intensity there made my breath catch. "Then you walked into that meeting, and for the first time since I came back, I felt like I was actually here. Actually alive." He covered my hand with his, pressing it harder against his face. "You woke something up in me, Artemis. Something I thought died in that desert." He turned his head and pressed a kiss to my palm, his lips warm against my skin.
"Silas." I breathed his name, my heart pounding, my skin flushing with heat despite the cool morning air.
"I'm not good at this." He said roughly, his pale eyes holding mine. "I don't know how to be... soft. How to be gentle. I've spent so long being hard, being strong, being the one who doesn't break." He swallowed, his throat working. "But with you, I want to try. I want to be something other than what the military made me." He reached up and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, his touch impossibly careful. "I want to be someone worth knowing." He finished, his voice barely audible.
"You already are." I leaned in and kissed him, closing the distance between us, my hand sliding from his jaw to the back of his neck, pulling him closer. Silas kissed like he did everythingelse—deliberately, thoroughly, with absolute focus. His hand came up to cradle the back of my head, his fingers tangling in my braid, his mouth moving against mine with a careful intensity that made my toes curl.
He tasted like coffee and something wild underneath—his scent flooding my senses, rain and moss and ozone, like the air before a summer storm. A sound escaped him, low and raw, somewhere between a growl and a groan, and I felt it vibrate through my whole body. When we finally broke apart, both of us breathing hard, he rested his forehead against mine, his eyes still closed.
"I've wanted to do that for weeks." He admitted, his voice rough, his breath warm against my lips. "Since the first time you looked at me like I was something other than dangerous." He opened his eyes, and the vulnerability there made my heart ache.
"You are dangerous." I smiled, tracing my thumb along his cheekbone. "But that's not all you are. You're also kind. And patient. And you notice things other people miss." I held his gaze. "You're worth so much more than you know, Silas." I let him hear the certainty in my voice.
He stared at me for a long moment, something working behind his eyes.
"The others," he said slowly, carefully, his pale eyes searching my face with an intensity that made my breath catch, "Harper and Remy. You kissed them too." It wasn't a question, and his jaw was tight with the effort of keeping his voice neutral.
"Yes." I didn't see any point in lying, keeping my voice steady and my gaze locked on his, letting him see that I wouldn't hide from this. "You knew I would." I reminded him gently, my thumb stroking across his knuckles where our hands were still intertwined.
"I did." He nodded slowly, his jaw tight but his voice steady. "And I told myself I could handle it. That sharing you was betterthan not having you at all." He let out a slow breath. "I still believe that. But..." He trailed off, struggling with something.
"But?" I prompted, giving him space to say whatever he needed to say, shifting closer to him in the canoe, my shoulder pressing against his arm in silent support.
"But feeling it is different from knowing it." He admitted, his pale eyes searching my face. "When you came back from Fontenot's date, I could smell him on you. Cedar and moonshine." His jaw clenched. "And when you came back from Thibodaux's date, he was all over you too. River water and honey." He shook his head slowly. "It made me want to..." He stopped, pressing his lips together.
"What?" I asked softly, not flinching from the honesty, wanting to hear it all, my green-gold eyes steady on his face as I watched him struggle with something dark and primal.
