Staring at him a moment, she tried to come upwith a good occupation for him. “You’d make a good cop. Or anEMT.”
Asher pulled the darts from the board andwent at it again. “I’ve thought about it. Not the EMT thing. Thecop thing. But there’s no way in hell Old Chief Larson would evenlet me in the door. Unless I was in cuffs.”
A riotous laugh echoed from their friends atbilliards. Somehow, drunk Pippa had hit her ball off the table andwas crawling around on the disgusting floor looking for it.
“Oh boy, time to get these folks home. Whodrove you guys?” She noted Lincoln was as red in the face withlaughter as much as his fiancée. Freya looked to be a little lessdrunk, but only marginally.
“Grady drove. He’s only had one.” Together,they watched the scene unfold before attempting to clear theirfriends out… before any damage or irretrievable embarrassmentoccurred. Without taking his eyes away from the comical ThreeStooges scene, Asher asked, “You want to round them up and figureout who’s sleeping where tonight?”
Standing side-by-side, both stalled beforemoving on the plan. This could prove interesting if any one of thegroup wasn’t ready to leave just yet. “I can do that,” shenodded.
Pippa popped up with the ball and let out aboisterous, “Woohoo.”
“And… that’s my cue.” Sophie mobilized toround up the inebriated troops.
Asher headed for the bar and gave his creditcard to Irene. Sophie couldn’t help but like him even more, knowinghe was paying for the whole night without asking for reimbursementor even letting anyone else know who settled the bill.
Although it turned out to be more difficultthan herding cats, she finally rounded up the drunks. Not normallydrinkers, they’d gone all out for the party and were totallightweights. Surprisingly, they were all pleasant when sheannounced it was time to go home.
She liked how they decided to spend the drunkpart of the evening together. That’s how Lincoln and Pippa operatedanyway. They tended to find the whole girls’ vs boys’ night out abit weird.
Lincoln planned to come home with Pippa tohold back her hair when she inevitably puked, but it was going tobe quite a contest to see who puked first. Grady offered to driveFreya home since they were the only ones not going to theSutherland residence, but Sophie suspected it was also to avoidvomit in his car. No choice in the matter, Sophie rounded up theothers to hop in her car.
A long, giggling drive later, fortunatelywithout any up-chucking from the tipsy peanut gallery of two in thebackseat, they pulled up to the house. Lincoln treated Pippa to awobbly piggyback ride into the house.
Without the same enthusiastic pomp andcircumstance, Sophie headed to bed, feeling suddenly very muchalone. The drive home had been rough. Fortunately, the oblivious,twittering bachelor and bachelorette in the back seat didn’t catchthe raging sexual tension of silence in the front seat.
Sophie sighed, considering the odd turn herheart had taken. She wanted to talk to Pippa, to tell her what shewas feeling. So physically close to Asher these last few weeks, yetso far, it was becoming physically painful to not be able to touchhim when they were near. Sophie was regrettably, agonizingly stuckwithout being able to act on that overwhelming yearning.
Judging by Asher’s tightly clenched fists andrapid pulsing of his jaw, he was suffering from similar affliction,struggling to abstain from acting on the powerful compulsion. He’dheaded straight for the dimly lit pool to burn off the tension asthe rest headed for bed.
***
Sound asleep, in the midst of weird dreamsabout poison dart frogs, Sophie awoke to the sound of… what wasthat? The sound was coming from Asher’s room. She’d left thebathroom door open a crack, too tired to realize she hadn’t closedit all the way. Or, perhaps, on some level, left it open in case hedecided to sneak into her room during the night.
Tossing off the covers, she tiptoedcautiously into the bathroom. He hadn’t closed his door either,whether it was subconsciously or intentionally, she’d never know.Sophie peeked into his bedroom and saw him thrashing in the bed,hollering someone’s name.
She knew he had PTSD and that waking him inthe midst of a nightmare could be dangerous for them both. It wastorture watching him so terrified. In the glow from the moonlightshining through the window, she could see a glisten of tears on hischeek as he opened his eyes and lay still on the bed.
From the bathroom doorway, not wanting to gettoo close until she knew he was fully awake, Sophie whispered hisname. Nothing. She whispered again.
Sitting up with a jolt, Asher rubbed thesleep and moisture from his eyes and searched the room for thesound. When he saw her, his face softened. “Sorry, did I wakeyou?”
With a sympathetic smile, Sophie responded,“Yeah, but that’s okay. Who’s Jack?”
Swinging his legs over the side of the bed,he took a sip of water from the glass by the bed. “One of my team.Good buddy. We lost three guys that day. Jack never walked again.Zane and I found him, barely a scraped knee between us. It was mylast fucking op before my discharge went through.”
Sophie walked softly across the bedroom andsat next to him, shoulder-to-shoulder. “I’m so sorry. Pippamentioned you were going to the VA for therapy?”
He nodded somberly, lips pursed tight. “Yep.It’s helping. I’m a lot better off than I was. I don’t get as manynightmares anymore. Only a few flashbacks in all.”
“That must have felt awful, to returnunharmed while others weren’t so fortunate.” She tested the watersand slid her hand into his for the second time tonight. Theconnection made the world look a little less bleak.
His body relaxed against her, his focusshifting from the ceiling to their joined hands. “That pretty muchsums it up. Checking out a fucking noise we should have just leftalone; Zane and I were across the street when the building blew. Igot a stupid scuff on my knee. I’ve got this tiny little scarstill, a neat reminder, tattoo, of how I dodged a bomb and leftothers to die.”
He flicked the small white line on his kneebefore continuing. “Fucking thing is, why me? Why Zane? Of the sixof us close enough to feel the blast, we were the only two withouta damn thing to lose. The only ones who made it out okay. Otherguys had families. Shit, Jack was about the happy-go-luckiest guyyou could know. Now, he’s a morose lump in his wheelchair.”
“I’d love to say something about destiny or agreater purpose, but I have no idea about any of that. EveryoneI’ve ever loved, before I met Pippa, died before I even finishedgrowing. Life doesn’t make much sense sometimes.” Exhaling hersadness wearily, she hoped she wasn’t making things worse.
