“Get some rest later,” he added, softer now. “You’ve earned it.”
She swallowed. “Yeah. I will.”
He hesitated — just long enough for her to feel it — then dipped his chin in a small nod.
“Good night, Aves.”
The words landed with more weight than they should have. Not casual. Not distant. Something else entirely.
Avery stood in the doorway, watching as he turned and walked toward his bike, the evening light catching on the edges of his cut. He didn’t look back, but she felt the tension he left behind like a hand pressed to her spine.
She closed the door slowly, the quiet settling around her again, familiar, warm, and suddenly too big.
The bakery felt different now. So did she.
And somewhere deep in her chest, something shifted, small, certain, impossible to ignore.
Chapter 14
Rook
The crack of gunfire echoed across the open field, sharp and clean, the kind of sound that settled something in Rook’s chest instead of rattling it. He adjusted his stance, exhaled slowly, and squeezed the trigger again. The target jerked back, another tight grouping dead center.
“Show-off,” Havoc muttered from a few yards over.
Rook didn’t bother looking his way. “Hit the damn target, and you won’t have to complain about mine.”
Havoc fired again — fast, sloppy, intentionally reckless. “Speed shooting,” he said. “It’s a thing.”
Fish snorted without looking up from his own rifle. “Not when you miss.”
“I didn’t miss,” Havoc argued. “I just wasn’t aiming.”
Grim’s mouth twitched. “You’re abusing the equipment.”
Havoc flipped them all off. “My sights are off.”
“Your eyes are off,” Ledger said, dry as dust.
Fish fired a single round, clean, controlled, effortless. The bullet punched dead center, splitting Rook’s grouping. He didn’t comment. He didn’t need to. The man’s silence said everything.
Havoc let out a low whistle. “Still got it, Fish.”
Fish didn’t look up. “Didn’t lose it.”
Grim smirked. “None of us did.”
Ledger adjusted his stance, sighting down the barrel. “Some of us were never issued anything worth a damn to begin with.”
Havoc scoffed. “Here we go. Army jokes.”
“They aren’t jokes if they’re true,” Grim said.
Rook shook his head, but the corner of his mouth twitched. The rhythm was familiar. The digs. The quiet pride under all of it. Years of training, deployments, and bad chow lines had carved the same edges into all of them, even if they’d served in different branches or different wars.
Havoc shook his head as Fish chambered another round. “Rangers always gotta show off.”
Fish didn’t look up. “Not my fault you were Army support.”
