Yeah . . . there was no way to “let go.”

Stepping out of the shower, I grabbed a towel and was drying my skin when I heard my phone go off in the other room. Moving quickly toward it, I frowned when I saw the name on the screen. I swear, it was like he knew now was not the time to talk.

But for some reason, I still answered.

“Yeah?”

“Steele! How’ve you been?”

I sat down on the couch and bit back a sigh. “Good. What’s new in the Saco house?”

There was silence for a few moments before he said, “Did you have a nightmare?”

I finally released the sigh and sat back on the couch, running my hand over my face. “I asked what’s new in the Saco house.”

“And I asked if you had a fucking nightmare.”

“Of course I had fucking flashbacks, I have to sleep at some point!”

“Steele . . . man, you’ve got to talk to someone.”

“Don’t need to. They won’t understand. All they’ll do is piss me off because they’ll act like they know how I feel. They’ll act like they know what I went through. And why? Because they have a goddamn degree? Fuck that. No, I’m not talking to anyone.”

“You can’t do this to yourself. You can’t live like this. I thought—­I thought you said it was getting better.”

I stared blankly at the ceiling and shrugged even though he couldn’t see me. “It is.” He didn’t respond, and I didn’t expand on that for a few moments. “It’s her, Saco. I don’t know what it is about her. But when I’m around her, it’s all gone. There’s nothing. No missions. No men left behind. No—­” I cut off and ground my jaw.

I’d told Saco all about Reagan and Parker, and the struggles I’d gone through just to get Reagan to give us a chance. I just hadn’t told him that she also made all the bullshit disappear, because at the time there hadn’t been a reason to.

“Nothing,” he said suspiciously.

“Nothing,” I confirmed. “And when I sleep with her, I actually sleep. For hours . . . uninterrupted, no flashbacks, nothing. Reagan and Parker are my peace,” I mumbled the words I’d told Reagan almost a month ago, not at all worried about Saco judging me for them. He knew what this meant for me.

“And does she know about this?”

“She knows what she can.”

Saco was quiet for a long time before he finally huffed a short laugh. “Does she have any idea what she means to you?”

“Not a clue. But I’m trying to show her.”

“Good, man. I’m happy for you. I bet Hudson is too.”

I raised an eyebrow. “I don’t know about that. I mean, he is, but I’ve already been punched once.”

Saco laughed loudly and I rolled my eyes.

“Keep laughing, asshole.”

“Why’d he punch you?”

“He walked into her apartment when we were on the couch. She was riding me. Fucking bastard needs to learn how to call before he just shows up.”

Saco just laughed louder.

“So tell me what’s going on in Oregon. How’s your son?”

“Tate’s great, man. I wish you could see him. Little man looks just like me.”

“Ugly as shit?”

“Fuck you, Steele,” he teased, but there was no doubting the pride in his voice. “You guys really do need to get over here though. Maybe I can convince you and Hudson to come out for his first birthday in May or something.”

“Aw, do we get to be his uncles? I’m touched, Saco, really I am.” There was a long silence as we tried to avoid what we both knew came next. “And Olivia?”

There was a weighted sigh on the other end of the call, and I knew things with his wife were just as bad as they’d always been. They’d only been together for the sake of having someone to fuck when she’d gotten pregnant and he’d married her. Something all of us, and his family, had tried to stop him from, but he wanted to do the right thing.

“Liv’s being Liv. She spends most of her time with her parents. We only really talk because of Tate, but she’s barely around him. Only to feed him and dress him, because apparently I don’t know how to dress a child. Other than that, he’s with me all day unless he’s sleeping. So, I don’t know. It’s awkward. Like, we both know we can’t stand each other, but don’t say anything.”

“I’m sorry, man.”

“Don’t say it,” he warned.

My eyebrows pinched together. “What?”

“Don’t tell me you told me so. I did what I thought was right for Olivia. She shouldn’t have had to go through that alone . . . and now I know I did the right thing for Tate. He needs two parents.”

“I wasn’t going to. I said what I had to say before you married her, and when she wouldn’t let you see your son. But I’m not going to sit here and tell you what I think of your decisions every time we talk. You did what you had to. End of story.”

“Yeah,” he said softly, and then cursed. “Tate’s up. I gotta go.”

“All right, man. I’ll talk to you soon.”

“Sounds good. And Steele? Just because Reagan gives you some relief, doesn’t mean you have to suffer the rest of the time. You can’t live like this. You need to talk to someone, please think about it. You have—­you have to start moving on.”

“Start moving on? Are you shitting me?”

“No, I—­”

“You saw what I’d been in for those hours before you rescued me. You only saw the aftermath, you didn’t watch it happen to them. You weren’t forced to watch every fucking second of it. You didn’t feel like a worthless piece of shit who did nothing—­”

“You couldn’t, Steele,” he said, cutting me off. “When will you realize that? You couldn’t do anything. Just like the others weren’t able to do anything when the rest were killed. It could have just as easily been you. I’m sorry you were forced to watch that. Steele . . . I’m so goddamn sorry we didn’t get there earlier. But I couldn’t spend my life being tortured by what happened, knowing that my team was too late to save the rest of yours. So don’t let your life slip by while you’re being tortured by something you had no control over. Get some help.”

I let the phone fall onto the couch beside me when he ended the call, and leaned forward to hold my head in my hands. If only it were that easy.

Reagan—­September 17, 2010

“HEY THERE, STRANGER,” I called out as I shut the door behind me to Coen’s studio and ran into his waiting arms.

“Good morning, Duchess. How’d you sleep?”

I pressed my lips to his chest and pulled away, but kept my hand firmly in his. “Not nearly as good as I do when you’re there, but pretty well. You?”

Coen’s eyes flashed to one of the couches, and his face fell for a second before he laughed awkwardly. “Uh, I’m pretty sure I got about twenty minutes in there somewhere.”

I stared at his dark eyes for a long time, looking for any signs that he hadn’t slept . . . but he could go without sleep for days, and I’d probably never know. He hid things that well. But with Keegan’s odd question about Coen sleeping, and then the first night Coen had spent the night and had seemed to be in awe over the fact that he’d slept . . . I wouldn’t put it past Coen to be telling me the truth.

Deciding not to breach that subject right now, I looked at his laptop and my eyes widened. “Oh my God. Coen, is this one of your shoots?”

“Uh, yeah . . . I guess we haven’t really talked about this yet.”

I shot him a confused look before stepping closer to the laptop. “Can I look through them?”

His dark eyes widened and he shrugged before reaching for a coffee cup. “If you want. I just finished editing those before you got here.”

Sitting down at the desk, I clicked through a shoot of a tattooed girl on a couch in nothing but a lacy pair of underwear. Her arms had been perfectly positioned to cover her bare breasts in the different positions. It was beautiful and seductive, and I’d frowned by the time I got to the last one.

“Are there more shoots?”

Coen was staring at me like he was waiting for something.

“Do you not want me to look at these?”

He kept looking at me before flashing his eyes at the screen. “I’m waiting for you to get mad.”

“Why would I get mad?”

Nodding in the direction of the laptop, he kept his eyes pinned on mine. “She was topless. She only had underwear on. This was a week and a half ago. I’m just waiting for you to react like a normal girlfriend.”

My lips twitched. “And how would a normal girlfriend react?”

He put the hand holding the coffee cup out in front of him and raised his shoulders up. “I don’t know. Yell. Say you don’t want me doing those kinds of shoots. Be jealous, I don’t know.”

I widened my eyes and acted like I was really considering doing just that. “Well, we both know how much I love to argue with you. But that”—­I gestured toward the screen—­“is amazing. Besides, Keegan already told me you did those kinds of photos sometimes. It’s not like it was a secret.”

“Of course it wasn’t a secret, Reagan. But it’s one thing to know about it, its another to see it.”

I smiled softly at him. “Does it bother me? I would be lying if I said it didn’t. Do I think what you did with that shoot was beautiful? Absolutely. Do I wish I had her body? Hell yes.” Coen made a face, but I kept going. “Would I ever ask you to stop doing those shoots? No.”

“Where did you come from?” he muttered.

“The way I see it, you were doing these long before we started seeing each other. So I know that if there was something to be worried about with these shoots, then it would have been going on even back then, and we would have never started dating.”

Coen stared at me in awe for a few seconds without saying anything. Just before I asked if he was okay, he asked, “Can I pull a Parker?”