New York

October 2018

I barely felt the rain as I walked down the sidewalk of the Brooklyn neighborhood known as Dumbo, my fist clenching the most important box I’d ever carried.

Or maybe that had been the one I’d carried earlier this morning.

Was it this morning? The days had been a seamless blur. It was evening, and I’d driven all afternoon, so I was pretty sure it was the same day.

I slipped through the crowd, my strides quickening like a New Yorker’s, blending in like I’d been trained to for the last year. Finally finding the right building, I caught the door as one of the residents was leaving and headed inside, avoiding the buzzer.

God only knew if she’d let me in.

I climbed the stairs, my fingers flexing around the box. No matter what I did, I couldn’t get my mind to stop spinning, stop replaying the way things should have gone, stop forecasting every way these next few minutes could go.

She’d know what to do. She was the only person in this world who loved me unconditionally, the only person I’d been able to count on since Mom died. She’d know which path we should choose.

2214. Her apartment.

I pushed the doorbell and bounced back on my heels. When she didn’t immediately appear, I started pacing. If I stopped moving, I wasn’t sure I’d start again.

There was no gravity. Nothing keeping my feet anchored. My reality was every possibility and none all at the same time, and whichever path I’d take depended solely on what she said, what she chose.

The sound of sliding dead bolts made me pause in front of her door.

The door opened, revealing an older man with gelled salt-and-pepper hair and a three-piece-suit that looked like it cost more than a year’s rent. His critical gaze swept over me once, and his dark eyes hardened with recognition. Izzy’s eyes. I’d seen the pictures in her apartment—this was her dad. “Can I help you?”

“I’m looking for—”

“Oh, I’m well aware of who you’re looking for. I’m asking what I can do for you,” he sneered. “Because you’re not going to see Isa. She’s kept this”—he gestured at me—“arrangement you two have for too many years as it is, and yes, before you ask, yes, I recognize you. Do you have any idea how bad you are for her?”

My hand gripped the box tighter. I couldn’t lose my temper on Izzy’s dad. I had to hold my shit together, even when it felt like the world was spinning beneath me at a rate I couldn’t keep up with.

“It’s going to cost thousands to break her lease here and finally get her to where her family needs her.” He somehow managed to look down on me even when I was a good four inches taller. “A family she finally sees can’t include you.”

“Dad?” Izzy’s voice from within the apartment halted any reply I could have made. “Who is it?”

“I’ve got it, Isa. Nothing worth your worry.” He said every word at me. “You aren’t, you know,” he said softer. “All you’ve ever done is waste her time.”

“Dad, who are you—” Her words faltered as she appeared at his side, dressed in plaid pajama pants and an oversize hoodie, and looked at me like I was the absolute scum of the earth. Her beautiful eyes were so puffy they didn’t even qualify as swollen anymore, and guilt seized my heart. I suspected I was the reason she’d been crying.

“Go back inside, Isa.”

“Give us five minutes,” she replied, looking up at him.

His expression softened slightly. “Five minutes. But don’t forget our deal.” He shot me a withering glance and disappeared into the apartment, leaving Izzy in the doorway.

“Good to know you’re ali—” The rest of the word seemed to die on her tongue as she looked me over, stepping into the hallway and pulling her door shut behind her. “Nate?” She said my name like she wasn’t sure I was really me, which fit, since I wasn’t really sure anymore either.

I returned her gaze with hollow, empty eyes that devoured the sight of her. She was the meaning in all this. The sun that would warm me or incinerate me.

She was everything. She always had been.

I struggled to shove my thoughts into coherent words. “I had this all planned out in my head,” I blurted. “Driving six hours will give you time to practice what you’re going to say, you know?”

“You drove six hours?” Her brow knit.

“What else was I supposed to do?” Fuck, I couldn’t keep my thoughts straight. “But now I’m here, and your dad says you’re moving, and you’re looking at me like I’m the last person you want to see—”

“You abandoned me!” she snapped, hurt radiating through her tone. “No, worse than that—you didn’t bother to show up! I spent two days in Palau before I realized you weren’t coming. Why would you do that to me? You’re the only person who’s never . . .” She took a deep breath. “What the hell happened to you? I called. I texted. I—”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you.” My words ran together. What I had to tell her was so much bigger than a missed vacation, and if I didn’t use the right words, the perfect words, then it was all for nothing.

“Okay, then tell.” A shiver raced across her skin, and she wrapped her arms around her waist.

“I just . . . I can’t think straight, and admitting that, seeing me like this would probably get me kicked out before I even start, which is just ironic because I’m always the levelheaded one in our group. That’s why it didn’t surprise me when Pierson washed out the second week. His land-nav skills are solid, but the second the cadre started in on him, questioning his choices, he got all indecisive, and then he was gone.”

“Nate, I don’t understand what you’re saying.” She shook her head.

A hysterical laugh bubbled past my lips. “Of course you don’t, because I’m not making any sense. But I don’t know what the line is anymore, not today at least. Am I allowed to not have my shit together when I buried Julian today? Or am I supposed to hold it together and just pretend his mother wasn’t sobbing in the pew ahead of me?”

“Oh God, Nate.” Her face fell and she reached for me, but I stepped back.

“Don’t. If you touch me, I know I won’t be able to hold it together, and as you can see, I’m already walking that line.” I rubbed my empty hand over my rain-soaked face, wiping the water away. “And the worst part is that I never really thought of him as Julian, you know? Sure, that was his name, but we never called him that. But his mother wouldn’t stop saying it, wouldn’t stop crying, and now that’s all I hear in my head.”

“What happened?” she asked, her voice going soft. “Is that why you didn’t show up? Because Julian died?”

“The trip. Right.” I nodded, trying to focus my thoughts. I needed to pick a path. I needed her to pick our path. Once I had my feet under me again, I’d be able to move forward.

I’d never felt so unmoored in my life.

“The trip,” she said again, slowly, and I realized I’d drifted into my own thoughts.

“I was supposed to be there.” I nodded like I was answering one of the interview questions, like the interrogation had never stopped. “The dates worked out so perfectly that it was like fate decreed it. Like it was always supposed to be this way.”

“What way?”

“Once we all passed selection, I’d have those ten days to spend with you, to figure out what you wanted, before moving on to OTC.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“Of course you don’t. You’re not really supposed to. Damn, I did such a good job of keeping my mouth shut, didn’t I? Keeping you out of it all.” I rubbed at my forehead with the back of my clenched fist, closed my eyes, and took a deep breath, shutting out all the noise, everything that happened today, and focused on the woman standing in front of me. “I’m messing this up.”

“Since I don’t know what this is, you’re doing just fine. But you definitely have me worried.” Concern etched two lines between her eyebrows. There was so much anger in her eyes, so much heartbreak, but there was love, too, right? I hadn’t killed everything she felt for me, had I?

“We were blacked out,” I said, grabbing hold of my focus with mental fists. “That’s why I couldn’t call you. Julian’s parents were on vacation, and they couldn’t find them to notify them, and since they had our cell phones,

they kept them so someone didn’t run their mouth before they could be told through official channels.” The little blue box in my hand shifted, the edges giving way, and I eased my grip. “At first, I didn’t believe them, the cadre, I mean. I thought it was all part of the final interview, seeing how I’d cope with that kind of news. I mean, I’d just seen him and he’d been . . . him. But then a couple days passed, and they didn’t release us, even the washouts. And that’s when I realized it was all my fault.”

“Nate,” she whispered, glancing back over her shoulder at the closed door. “Why don’t we go somewhere?”

Because she didn’t want me in there with her father.

“I can’t. I have to get this out now. There are people waiting for me, and I have to know what you want, so that I’ll know what to choose, Izzy.” It all made sense in my head—at least that part—but it was coming out so jumbled.

The box. Right. The box would ask the question for me.

I opened my right hand, flicked the top of the box open with my thumb, and turned it toward her.

“Oh my God.” Her hand rose to cover her mouth.

“I know it’s probably not what you were expecting. I picked it out about a year ago, and then I second-guessed it about fourteen times. You come from money, and I know you would probably have wanted something bigger—”

“Nate, is that what I think it is?” Her wide eyes jumped from the ring to my face.

“It’s an engagement ring.”

Her mouth opened, shut, and then repeated. “You can’t seriously be proposing right now.”

“I am.” I nodded, my stomach twisting into a series of knots that had my head swimming.

“No. You’re not.” She shook her head. “I know that you’re not because you promised me you’d never do this, never shove a ring at me and ask me to give up everything I’ve worked for without giving us a chance to build something first. Weren’t those your words on that beach?”

“Don’t you see? It’s the only way we can be together. I’ve fought it for so many years, thinking this life wouldn’t be fair to you, that you deserved so much better—and you still do, but I love you, Isabeau. I’ve only loved

you. I’ll only ever love you. And I was supposed to do this in the water, or maybe even the plane—kind of circle back to how we met, you know?”

“I know,” she whispered, her hand falling to the rise of her chest as she stared at me with shock. At least I thought it was shock. It could have been horror or even fear.

“But then Julian . . . died, and I realized that it just as easily could have been me. It should have been me. And I knew that I’d wasted too much time protecting you when I should have been giving you a choice, and I’m so sorry.”

“Nate, I don’t think you’re thinking clearly. You seriously want us to get married when I’ve never so much as seen where you live? We’ve never spent more than a week together at a time—”

“Nine days,” I argued.

“I don’t even know where you are half the time, or what you’re being

selected for. Listen to yourself.”

“Exactly.” Shit, I was doing this wrong. “But you love me, and I just need you to choose, Iz. I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll let you all the way in. I’ll tell you what I can, and we’ll go back to North Carolina together. Or I’ll get out if that’s what you want.”

“What?” Her eyebrows hit the ceiling. “You don’t want to get out.

You’ve never wanted that.”

“But I would if it meant keeping you. I’m in, Iz. I made it. And I know you don’t really know what that means, but say the word and I’ll walk away. We’ll walk away. Just tell me what you want me to do, and I’ll do it,” I begged. The choice was hers. I was hers.

“You can’t ask me to make a choice like that for you, Nate.” She shook her head. “That’s not fair. And the worst part is that you’ve shut me out for so long that I don’t even know enough to help you make that kind of choice.”

Her door opened. “Isa—”

Izzy reached back and yanked the door shut, closing it on her father.

Her father. I blinked as the pieces clicked. “He said you’re breaking your lease. Moving?”

“Yes.” War waged in her eyes. “No. I don’t . . . I don’t know. I don’t really want to, but it would finally make them happy, and I think they’ve really done some soul-searching and . . . changed. I mean, they actually came when I needed them.”

“Don’t do that. Don’t give up what you want just because they’ve finally decided to show up for you.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “Isn’t that what you’re doing?”

“No. I’m asking if you want me to give everything up for you.” Couldn’t she see that?

Her mouth opened and shut.

Fear clawed up my spine. Of all the outcomes I’d pictured—me moving to New York, her moving to North Carolina, us being anywhere together—I’d never contemplated her not wanting me. This whole scene was wrong.

“It’s because I’m doing it wrong, isn’t it?” I dropped down to one knee and held the box up. “Marry me, Isabeau Astor.” We were supposed to end up together. It was just a matter of timing. That was the foundation I’d built my life on ever since Tybee.

“Nate . . . ,” she whispered, staring at me as a thousand emotions crossed her features.

“Please,” I said softly. “Please choose me, Izzy. Choose us. Choose us over whatever life your parents want you to lead. Choose us despite the fact that I’m asking when we haven’t had time to build a life. Choose to give us that time. Choose our future. I’ll do whatever you want. Just marry me.” Every muscle in my body tensed, hanging on her answer.

Her shoulders fell and took my hope with them. “I can’t, Nate. Not like this.”

My chest tightened, clamping down like it was trying to contain the carnage of my heart as it shattered behind my ribs. “You’re saying no,” I said, enunciating every word just so we were clear, and I slowly rose to my feet.

“I’m saying this isn’t right.” She shook her head. But she was the only thing right in my entire life.

I snapped the box shut and crammed it into the front pocket of my jacket as my mind scrambled for purchase, for a direction. Army, no army. Delta, no Delta. None of it mattered without Izzy, and she wasn’t choosing me. She didn’t want me.

All you’ve ever done is waste her time. Her father was right.

I was fine for vacations and weekends, but not good enough to marry. “I’m sorry to have wasted your time,” I said, taking one last look at

her deep-brown eyes. Eyes I’d caused to cry far too many times. I’d wasted

years of her life.

Time to stop.

“You didn’t waste—” she started, but I was already moving, logic centering me with each step now that I knew which route my life was going to take. “Nate!” she called after me.

I had to get out of here before I fell apart.

I threw open the front door and walked into the rain. I’d be fine. I’d gotten back on a plane hours after the previous one had crashed, and this would be no different. What had Izzy said about going to therapy? It had given her coping mechanisms. I had a career most people would kill for. I was among the best of the best. That was all the coping mechanism I needed.

Or maybe it wasn’t.

Melting into the crowd, I walked down the block to where I’d somehow managed to find a parking spot.

I opened the door and slid behind the wheel, then started the ignition. “Fuck!” I shouted at no one and everyone. “What would you do?” I asked Torres. “If you were me, what would you do?” I closed my eyes, wishing I could block out the world as I waited for him to answer.

“Guess that didn’t go the way you wanted it to,” he said from the passenger seat, cracking an eye open like he’d been napping while I’d been pouring my heart out. “What am I saying? Of course it didn’t, or you wouldn’t be back so soon.”

“What would you do?” I repeated.

“You don’t need to ask. You already know the answer.” “And yet here I am, asking.”

“You need me to say it? Fine, I’ll be the one to say it. Only eight were selected out of our class.” Of course he’d use logic. That was his strong suit.

“I know that.”

“You can wash out and be like the majority of our class, or we can drive back to Bragg and be part of those eight. To me, the latter sounds a shit ton better than the former.”

He was right. He usually was.

“Bragg it is.” I twisted the knob next to the steering wheel, and the windshield wipers swept away the rain and what was left of my indecision.

I put the truck in drive and pulled into traffic.