Page 56 of Worth the Wait
“You…” Freddie hesitated, then forced it out. “Alright?”
Nathan exhaled a humourless laugh, dragging his palm down his face. “Cliché, right? Soldier comes home, fucked in the head.”
“It’s cliché, because it happens.”
Nathan let that settle. Scratched through the fuzz of his buzz cut until his scalp stung. “Yeah. Maybe.”
“Although…you did always go a bit Vinnie Jones on the pitch. Took the game a bit too seriously, I recall.”
Nathan inhaled. “Wasn’t the game.”
“No?”
“No.”
Nathan leant his head back, eyelids heavy and tired and helpless against the pull. But he could still see Freddie andChrist, he was still the most beautiful thing Nathan had ever laid eyes on. And right now, the heat was unbearable.
It would be so easy.
To kiss him until neither of them could breathe.
But Freddie reached out, stopping Nathan’s thoughts and swept a light, almost trembling thumb across the scarcarved into Nathan’s right eyebrow. The one that had never fully healed, leaving a permanent gap in the hairline, a faint, jagged reminder of everything he hadn’t been fast enough to escape. It made him look like some washed-out nineties rapper, Nathan had joked once. But under Freddie’s touch, it didn’t feel like a joke anymore. It was a mark. A reminder. A place Freddie recognised without needing to ask.
But ask he did.
“How’d you get this?”
Freddie’s touch was so light it sent a shiver through Nathan and when their eyes met, it was a quiet, devastating collision. Nathan’s chest rose and fell in shallow, broken breaths, the world narrowing to the warmth of Freddie’s touch. Fifteen years of silence and pretending it didn’t matter, undone in an instant.
And now, it hit him. How much he’d missed this. Missedhim. The easy, impossible closeness. The friendship threaded through every glance. The softness hidden under all that steel. The love. Steady, stubborn,unshakable. And how it had never truly gone away.
So he told the truth. “Got that before I learned how to hide it.”
Freddie’s throat worked on a swallow. Lips parting. Breath ghosting out. And his hand trembled where it touched Nathan’s face. And there was a beat. A heartbeat. Maybe two. Where everything hung on the edge, and the tip of Nathan’s tongue.
But the door creaked open.
Freddie jerked his hand away. Cleared his throat as the other lads all burst in. Nathan clenched his fists in his lap and didn’t move, didn’t speak, dropping his head back against the wall to let the moment bleed out between them.
To say it was awkward as the lads piled in, stripping, towel-whipping each other, crashing into the shower cubicles, was the understatement of the fucking century. Nathan kept his head down. No banter for him. No claps on the back. He wasn’t part of this brotherhood. Not after tonight.
He’d fucked up.
And he knew exactly how soldiers who went rogue got treated.
The showers hissed and thudded on, and when Reece finally emerged, towel slung low on his hips, dragging a hand through his wet hair, Nathan got it. How Freddie got pulled into his orbit. Tall. Broad. Muscles carved from granite. A man people trusted to save them. A fuckinghero.
Not a soldier. Theghost-maker.
And that stung harder than any punch Reece could’ve thrown.
But what made it worse?
Reece crossed the room. One big hand clutching his towel, casting a heavy shadow over Nathan as he stopped in front of him.
“No hard feelings, mate.” He held out a hand. “Got a mate back from Kabul. Still flinches every time a car backfires. I get it.”
Nathan stared at the offered hand for a beat too long. His gut twisted. Fists itched. But he reached out anyway, gripping Reece’s hand with enough pressure to say he was still standing.
