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“Tell me.” Raemy leaned in happily. “Tell me anything.”

“Let me get you some food,” he muttered instead. He stood up, and that wasn’t exactly helpful, because now she was looking up along the length of his whole, beautiful body. T-shirt. Jeans. Yum. “Anything you don’t eat?”

She had to force herself to concentrate. “Um. No. I—ah—eat everything,” she managed to say, and was grateful when he turned and moved with swift precision back behind the counter and into the kitchen.

Because she was definitely blushing.

Raemy had to sit there with that for a moment, accepting the fact that she was having thoughts about a man who she wanted to talk to about her dead brother. A man who looked like he would rather eat nails than have a conversation with her, so would probably also not love the direction her mind had taken when he’d unfolded himself in front of her like that.

Mercy, she thought, and managed not to fan herself.

She shrugged out of her rain jacket, as if that would make a difference, and twisted her hair over one shoulder to keep it out of the way. Maybe she was overheating now that she was indoors. That had to be it.

Raemy took in all of the war memorials that graced the walls, then looked at the men working here. They all looked like they were different variations on the same Noah Kendrick theme. They all had some version of that very specific, military-honed physique, and faraway eyes. Like some part of these men never had come home.

It made her think about the fact that there were far more ways to get lost than dying in combat, as William had. She had found it hard to live with his loss, and she hadn’t been there. She hadn’t seen it happen, or things like it. The grief she carried wasn’t that kind of heavy.

But she could see the way grief like it, and worse, sat on the men here, though they joked with each other. They interacted with the customers, some more easily than others. They called each other names, and they scowled more than they smiled, but she got the distinct impression that they all liked each other.

It felt a lot like family here.

And Raemy sat there happily, because she wasn’t in a car. She did not intend to get back into her car once she parked it wherever she was going to stay. Because as beautiful as she’d found her explorations around all these parts of the country she’d never gone to before, she was happy to be sitting in a chair that wasn’t moving down another highway.

That said, driving down beautiful Route 101, the Oregon Coast Highway, was truly one of the highlights of her most spectacular trip yet.

And she was even happier still when Noah came back, with that same closed-off expression on his face as he set down plates in front of her.

It was cold outside, foggy and damp, and he’d returned with a grilled cheese sandwich, a bowl of what looked like the creamiest tomato soup imaginable, and on the side, he’d brought her a bowl of fries. Golden, perfectly crisp-looking fries that made her laugh a little, because how had he known that she loved fries so much?

“I remember your brother talking about your French fry addiction,” Noah said gruffly, like he was psychic as well as…everything else. “I hope these measure up to your high standards.”

“They look perfect.” Raemy reached out to grab one, then folded it into her mouth with glee. She kept looking at him while she was chewing, happier by the moment. “They’re amazing. Ten out of ten. And how on earth could you remember something like that?”

Noah Kendrick, she noticed, did not sit down. He stayed standing there by the side of the table and he looked decidedly uncomfortable. Or more uncomfortable, she supposed. That was a more accurate way to put it.

“Your brother was a good kid,” he said stiffly. A lot like this was torture for him. He cleared his throat. “I liked him. He told me a lot about his life, and that means he told me a lot about you. Raemy. His protector when he was small, except you never got bigger and he got very big.”

“True story,” Raemy said with a smile, and it didn’t even wobble anymore. Not when she was talking about William’s actual life. She was hoping that someday, that was all she talked about. His life, not his death. “He was such an idiot. He thought that it was his job to fight anybody who looked at me funny. And half the time, they weren’t even looking at me at all. He was a fantastic younger brother. Very⁠—”

“He was good people,” Noah said gruffly. Not like he was trying to cut her off. More like he couldn’t keep himself from saying it. His jaw tensed. “I’ll never understand why he was the one who was taken. He deserved better. There’s not a single day that goes by that I don’t think about him, remember him, and wish that I could change what happened.”

Raemy reached over, impulsively grabbing Noah’s hand. And she held on tight, even though she had not been expecting the little jolt that went through her at the contact.

Neither was he, if that look on his face was any guide.

He looked... not scandalized, exactly. But as if she’d sucker-punched him, somehow. He kept staring down at where she was touching him, and there was a look on his face that she couldn’t quite decipher.

Or maybe it was that she felt not just the heat of his hand, but how strong he was. His grip. The particular architecture of his knuckles that told her things about how he used his hands now and how he must always have used them.

But she was losing focus.

“I remember him too,” she told him quietly. “And I wish it could be different too. Of course I do. But over these past few years, I’ve really come to think that if William could choose, he would choose this, again.” Noah’s hand moved in hers, like he was flinching, but she held on. “He knew what he was doing. I don’t think that he would like it if he thought that his sacrifice was something that people who loved him wanted to take away. I don’t think he’d like that at all.”

She was still holding his hand, and she couldn’t have said why that felt…right. Why she didn’t feel the faintest urge to pull it away.

Noah swallowed, visibly. “The food is on the house, of course,” he said, in that stiff way of his. Or maybe it was just so formal. “I’m grateful that you came, Raemy. It means a lot that having lost your brother the way you did, you would come here and support other combat veterans. We all appreciate it.”

She dropped her hand from his, and he stood up straighter, though she watched him flex the hand that she’d held on to, there at his side.