Page 108 of Over the Edge

He didn’t answer, but she felt his resistance and pounded her point home. “If you won’t let me come with you, I’m going to have to hang back out of sight when I follow you, and I won’t be able to see any of your signals. Sure, we’ve practiced comm out operations plenty. But you and I both know it’s a hell of a lot easier to infil if we can actually talk.”

“You can’t die,” he ground out. That sounded a whole lot like anguish in his voice.

She rolled onto her side and grabbed his face between her palms, forcing him to look at her. “I feel the exact same way about you. Why can’t you accept that?”

“Because…because you can’t love me.”

“Why ever not?”

“Because—I don’t know. I’m washed up. Getting too old for this game.”

“Just because you don’t love yourself doesn’t mean I can’t love you. I mean, you will need serious therapy once you give up this gig. I’m not responsible for fixing your twisted ideas of family and love. But I’m willing to wait for you to get your act together.”

“My act is fine, thank you very much—“

“Bull,” she replied bluntly. “You have yet to give me one decent reason not to love you. And you’ve been trying ever since we left North Carolina. I’m gonna go ahead and say you should give up on that.”

“But—“

She waited him out this time.

He didn’t say anything.

Finally, she said, “But what?”

“I…don’t know. I didn’t bargain for you when I planned this mission. This isn’t going the way I expected it to.”

“I know. It’s going a lot better than you thought it would, isn’t it?”

He scowled as if he was actually not pleased by that fact.

She ground out, “You’re a United States fucking Navy SEAL. Theonething I know about SEALs is that they can adapt to any situation.”

“But---“

“Don’t wear the word out, bro.”

He opened his mouth. Closed it. Had he actually been ready to “but” at her again? “Trevor. Adapt, already. I’m going with you. Get used to it. And while you’re at it, I love you. Get used to it.”

“You…what?”

“You heard me.”

“But…” He trailed off without saying anything more.

“I do believe Mr. Articulate is at a loss for words. Who’d have guessed this day would ever come?”

That made him scowl. “I don’t want you to love me.”

“Tough. That’s not how love works. The heart wants what it wants.”

The number of conflicting thoughts and emotions flashing across his face were too numerous to count, let alone identify and catalogue.

“By the way,” she said dryly, “you might want to ask yourself why you’re so obsessed with keeping me safe. Is it, perchance, because you have feelings for me that extend beyond professional consideration?”

He completely shut down at that. The poor man looked mildly in shock.

She took pity on him. “Look. We’re about to go down that hill and get our guy. The rest of this conversation can wait until after that. Me loving you changes nothing at all regarding what we’re about to go do. If it makes you feel better, pretend I love you the way I love all the Reapers. They’re all annoying but sweet big brothers to me.”

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