Most of all, she would never forget the way Una looked at her the next morning. It still haunted her. Full of regret—maybe even fear. Of course she was afraid; fraternization was a dismissible offence. Beyond that, Una Dryden did not say the word love—not after the war took her family from her. And she most certainly did not talk about her feelings, so Wren was left alone with hers.

A mistake, they had agreed. Seeking comfort in the wrong places.

It would never happen again.

But sometimes, Wren still caught Una’s lingering looks. Sometimes, she worried about the part of her that had turned corrosive. The part of her that hadn’t forgiven Una, that still ached whenever she heard rumors about the civilian girls Una courted.

Una pressed the cup of tea into her hands, and Wren banished her dark mood with the sweet smell of chamomile.

“Thanks.” Wren smiled wanly.

“You still look miserable. Do you want to … talk about it?”

“Uh, no. I think you might combust if I unload all my feelings onto you.”

Una lifted an eyebrow. “Then at least this dump will burn with me.”

Wren shoved her. “Shut up. I just…” Just. It was never so simple. Her throat tightened. “I miss him.”

It was the first time she’d said it aloud, and the admission cracked open the wall she’d constructed around her grief. Memories of Byers fell through, scattered and sharp like the pieces of a dropped vase. His insufferable humming to himself while he worked. That obnoxious, boyish grin he wore whenever he thought he was being particularly clever. The way his eyes glowed with pride when he talked about his brother. Wren wanted their weekly pub nights back. She wanted to listen to him prattle on about the art of flower arranging, a family trade. She wanted him back.

Una cast her eyes to the rippled surface of her tea. “I miss him, too.”

A smile tugged on the corner of Wren’s mouth. “Do you remember that time he was late for morning drills?”

Una laughed, full and unguarded. The sound of it curled up, warm, in Wren’s chest. “How could I not? I can still see Sergeant Huffman’s face turning purple when she saw him try to climb through the window.”

Wren grinned. “He was a complete disaster.”

“You’re both disasters. It’s a true ragtag bunch military HQ assigned me.”

“Lovable ones?”

“Don’t get carried away,” Una muttered. “You’re a disaster, period. But mine.”

Hers. How Wren longed for that to be true. She wanted to reach out to her—wanted to twine their fingers together in that uncomplicated way they used to before.

But Una had gone quiet again, the room somber in the gathering dark of night. “I think constantly about what I could have done differently.”

“You couldn’t have done anything differently. None of this is your fault.”