“You should be right here,” Joe tells me firmly, as though he can already sense what’s going on inside my head. “You’re not going to do them any good if you’re freaking out. They’ll pick up on your attitude—the calmer you are, the easier it’s going to be to calm them down too.”
“When did you learn so much about children?” I ask him, gulping back some of the water. The coolness sweeps over my tongue and I close my eyes, trying to ground myself by focusing on how it feels. I feel like one of my kindergartners right now, just trying to keep myself from tipping over the edge and losing it entirely.
“Long story.”
His voice is low but not curt. There’s almost an edge of sadness to it that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up, some part of me recognizing that there’s something going on there that he doesn’t want to talk about. I know I would be better off keeping my mouth shut but, unable to help myself, I push a little more.
“You said that you got some practice in the military,” I remark, cocking my head to the side with interest. “Evacuating families…”
I see him tense, even with his back to me, as he slips the first aid kit back into the drawer in front of him. When he turns to me, there’s a heavy darkness settled over his expression, like he wants nothing more than to forget the very thing that I’m skirting around right now.
“It doesn’t matter.”
I search his gaze for a moment. I would guess, from the way he looks right now, that that’sanythingbut the truth. He doesn’t say a word, but he doesn’t have to. It’s obvious. The man I last saw four years ago is not the same one who stands before me now, and it strikes me that he’s not the only one who will have changed. It makes the hair at the back of my neck stand on end, the sudden shock of realizing that none of them are the people they once were—that all of us have changed, perhaps beyond recognition.
“If you ever need to talk about that stuff…I mean, I know it’s none of my business but?—”
“I don’t think you want to hear it.”
He leans in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest, and I chew my lip as I look back at him. There’s so much I want to ask him, so much I want to say to him—to all of them, if I’m being honest, but I have no idea where to start or what, exactly, it will look like. Because there is one question, one enormous question, that none of them have dared to come out with yet. I know they must want to, but how exactly do you broach that question?Oh,Angelie, by the way, while you’re here, do those four children have anything to do with us…?
“I didn’t know that you left for the military till I got back from college,” I offer, looking for something to break the silence. “I never put you guys down for military types—especially Dylan, I didn’t think he could live with being told what to do like that…”
Joe chuckles, finally, his face brightening for a moment. “Yeah, he didn’t always get on with our superiors as well as he could,” he admits, running a hand over his shaven head. “He never grew out of that. But then, not sure I did either.”
I begin to relax a little, now that we’re actually talking like normal people.
“So how did you end up joining, if you don’t mind me asking?” I continue. “I mean, did you all go together, or…?”
“It was Carlisle’s idea,” he replies. “We all went. Got us out of Devin Ridge, gave us some direction.”
“What a kick in the teeth you ended up back here, then,” I joke lightly. “All that time you tried to get a start somewhere new, and you wind up right back where you started.”
“Not all bad.”
His gaze lingers on mine for a moment longer than it has to, and I feel a flush rise to my cheeks, taking another swig of water to distract myself as soon as I get the chance.
“When did you get back?” he asks. “After college?”
“Uh, within a year,” I admit. “Didn’t exactly last long outside of this place. Guess I always wanted to come back, on some level, but I didn’t exactly picture it like?—”
I stop myself. We’re skirting up to it now, the point that neither of us seem to want to broach, but I get the feeling that he’s been sent here to be alone with me so he can get to the bottom of what is actually going on with these kids.
“Uh, coming back so soon,” I swiftly finish up, hoping that I can cover for what was really on my mind.
“Right,” he murmurs, lifting his chin slightly. “When I last saw you, it didn’t exactly seem like you were in any rush to come back.”
I draw in a sharp breath. It’s the first time any of them have acknowledged that night with me, and I don’t know where that leaves me—if I should try to come out with something that brushes it all off, makes it sound like they haven’t been on my mind ever since.
“Um, I guess I wasn’t,” I confess. “But I…I mean, things change, right? Not everything turns out how you think it’s going to…”
“Tell me about it.”
His voice is low, laced with a pointed tone that I can’t ignore. I know he wants to come out and ask me, tell me that he knows those children might belong to him, or one of the other guys, and that trying to dodge that reality any longer is going to drive all of us crazy. I just want to live in the delusion a little longer, believing, while I still can, that I’m not going to have to come clean.
“Angelie, I need to ask you something?—”
“Please, don’t,” I whisper. “Not now. Not in the midst of all of this.”
