Wyatt would yank off his glasses, like he did now.

That his uncle would stare at him with pure pride and affection, like he did now.

Garrett dipped his own gaze. He’d dreamed the moment, right? But when he lifted his head again, Wyatt’s pure blue eyes looked back, now attached to a sincere smile.

“We came because I wanted to, Sergeant.” He used the rank with purposeful respect. “Because I needed to see you. To talk to you.”

The confession pushed a weird overload button in his brain. Was this really happening? He couldn’t remember the last time he’d entertained this fantasy, before finally shoving it down into that dark pocket of his psyche called better to just forget.

“Why?” he finally challenged.

“Besides the fact that I’m about twelve months too late on doing it?” Wyatt answered. “Oh, hell. Who am I kidding? Later than that, right? But I started thinking about it in earnest right after they declared Sage KIA.” His fingers went white where they still hung on to his glasses. His other hand balled into a fist on top of his thigh. “My God, Garrett. My soul cracked for yours.”

Though a humid twilight breeze blew up off the water, Garrett felt like he’d been thrown into the desert. Heat blasted him, especially north of his neck. He opened his suddenly parched lips, trying to suck in air. Right. So not happening, man.

“It’s probably best you didn’t come around,” he muttered.

Wyatt’s reaction wasn’t what he expected. Did the man really laugh? “Well, fuck,” he spat. “Didn’t you rattle that off like a damn fine soldier?”

Garrett sat up straighter. “I have no idea what you’re—”

“Of course you don’t, Sergeant.” He didn’t invoke the rank with such reverence this time. “Neither did I, when everything in my world unspooled beyond my control.” He stared at the water again. The line of his jaw hardened into an anvil of antagonism. “So many people reached out to me. Your dad. Your mom. Pastor Dooley. All my goddamn doctors. And at least three head-fucking-shrinks.”

Garrett cut in with a snort. “I hate the head fuckers.”

“So did I.” Wyatt shook his head. “Even going to see Dooley was preferred torture over them.”

“You mean Drooley?”

Wyatt spat a mouthful of beer. “Holy shit. That’s good.”

“And accurate.”

“That too.” The man took in another swig of beer and kept it down this time. When he lowered the bottle, his mouth was reset into a somber line. “But I shoved them all away, Garrett. I locked myself in a box of mental steel, forging the thing out of my anger, my fear, my goddamn guilt. I was the sole survivor of that attack, yeah? So how could anyone get that? How could anyone understand? How could anyone know what the fuck I was going through? How could any kind of therapy or prayer touch the depth of my shame? Psychology certainly wasn’t set up for my shit.

“And God? Well, in my mind, God had thrown me away, too. He’d intended to take everyone in that explosion but got his hands full with the load, so he asked himself, which one could he do without for a few more years? Certainly not Mason, who had a wife and two kids at home. And not Searle, who spent her free time on base taking care of the stray dogs in the neighborhood. Looked like it was my pathetic ass.”

Garrett clenched his jaw. The heat engulfed him once more. He didn’t want this. He didn’t want to be listening to every word from Wyatt’s mouth and admitting the same damn thoughts had relentlessly drilled his own mind over the last year. He sure as hell didn’t want to accept the conclusion to which Wyatt had led them both, and he fought the mental shitbath of putting it into words. But somebody had to be the voice of this truth. He had to be that person.

“But you didn’t tell anyone, because that’s not what Special Forces does, right?”

Wyatt said nothing. He didn’t have to. The gripping fist in Garrett’s gut confirmed he’d already hit the bull’s-eye. He closed his eyes, trying to process the blow like he had a thousand times before—and failing, just like he had a thousand times before.

“We take the pain, don’t we, Uncle? That’s what we’re trained best for. We take it through boot camp, through Assessment and Selection, through Final Qualification, through every op in every shithole they can throw us into. Then when the agony attacks and the spool starts unraveling, we search the database in our heads, certain we missed the training about this shit—because surely they didn’t just leave it out of the curriculum.”

“And God forbid that we ask anyone what page it’s on.” Wyatt flung his own empty bottle into the trash can. “Even when the book is open and in front of us.”

Garrett stared down the neck of his beer bottle. He wasn’t certain what to say to that or how to say it if he did know. Just two hours ago, he’d vowed to Sage that he’d never turn into the man who’d crushed so many fantasies of his youth. But this twist on things was…bizarre. Wyatt himself was telling him exactly how to keep that promise.

It was an act of bravery that hauled the fist from Garrett’s stomach up into his throat. The man could’ve laid down his life for Garrett and had an easier time of it than the gut spill. Opening one’s heart to another human being was one of the first behaviors they pounded out of a guy in Basic, let alone what he went through on the way to Special Forces.

“I saw the book, Garrett,” Wyatt continued. “And I saw you, okay? You need to know that. I saw everything—all the havoc my asshole act wreaked on you. I just didn’t…” He leaned forward to brace his elbows on his knees. His shoulders slumped. “I didn’t know how to climb off that damn pedestal you had me on. I’m…I’m not sure I wanted to. After all, I helped you build the thing. And I’m sorry for all of it, Garrett. I’m so goddamn sorry.”

The knuckles at Garrett’s throat grew brass battering rings. Thank fuck his soul knew what to do with them too. The pain barely made breathing possible, let alone speaking. Why was this moment such a torment? He’d wanted nothing more than this from Wyatt for so long, words that had hammered out the beginnings of a bridge between them once again. But it had been so long since he’d believed this could happen… He’d filled in the cracks in his spirit with the no-fuss mortar that let in no more light and let out no more feeling. He liked it so much that he piled on years’ worth of the gunk, letting it harden into layers of a warrior they called the Hawk. The guy with the surprise claws. The indispensable killer.

If he believed Wyatt’s words, he’d have to tear off all that mortar. He’d have to look at the cracks again. He’d have to feel them again.

“Fuck.” He finished his beer in one chug. “Why?” he finally growled at his uncle. “Why are you doing this now?”

Wyatt tilted his head again. A broad smile spread across his lips. “Josie’s pregnant.”

Garrett gawked. Wyatt chuckled. “Yeah, that was my reaction at first too. We’re not exactly youngsters, and this was a surprise. A pretty awesome one.” The smile faded, but the gentle lines remained on the man’s face. “After the shock wore off, I realized that I couldn’t think of being a proper father to this kid until I set things right by you. When we heard about the miracle of you finding Sage, I knew I’d been given a perfect chance to do that.”

Garrett narrowed his gaze. Wyatt had never been this open with him, even on those blissful deployment breaks, and yet an undertone still clung to the man’s voice, a layer of mortar he wasn’t peeling off. He issued his reply with an air of careful casual. “A perfect chance, eh? Now how did you figure that?”

Another low laugh rumbled from the man. “Son, if burying your woman didn’t deplete the control spool, getting her back surely fucked the thing to hell.” Wyatt’s gaze darkened by a couple of shades. “Like I’ve been saying in my not-so-elegant way, I’ve been there. Maybe not the exact miles your boots have gone, but close enough, Garrett. Close enough.”

Garrett pulled in a deep breath and gazed across the water. The sky was turning lavender now. He thought about getting up and flipping on some lights, but the darkness felt better. It helped hide things like falling chunks of emotional cement.

“I’m fine.” He forced confidence to the words. “Sage and I…we’re fine.”

“Okay. Sure.”

The man’s snicker was unsettling. Screw that. Enraging filled the bill better. “What now?” Garrett barked.

“Nothing, son. Not a damn thing.”

“Why don’t I believe you?”

“Probably the same reason I don’t believe you.” He shook his head. “But you go ahead, Garrett. Keep up with the ‘we’re fine’ line. But repeating it a thousand more times won’t make it true.”