Reece kept going. “What? You leave today, are you going to go back to dating a string of losers who aren’t worth breathing the same fucking air as you, because when it comes down to it, you really don’t care about them? Your heart isn’t in it, so you’re safe? But with me, it’s different.”

“You don’t understand,” I whispered, stunned.

“I don’t understand?” He looked like he wanted to shake me. “Babe, I know what it’s like to be afraid. I watched friends die overseas. I come home and every day I go to work knowing it could be my last. I think about my brother, knowing he faces the same shit I do. I’m afraid of losing you.”

I gasped. “Me?”

“Yeah, you. You, Roxy. You have a fucking stalker. I’m scared shitless for you.” Now he really looked like he wanted to throttle me. A little. “It goes beyond that. You could get into the car and crash. I’ve seen the way you drive.”

“Ha,” I muttered.

“Anything can happen to you at any moment, but you don’t see me running away from what we have—­what we could have. You’ve got to deal with what happened to Charlie. That doesn’t mean you have to deal with that alone.”

“What do you know about dealing with this?” I snapped.

He pinned me with a look.

“You barely talk about the shooting! You have nightmares because of it!” I shouted, throat stinging. “It’s not like you know how to deal either, Mr. Fucking Perfect.”

“I’m not saying I know how to deal. Fuck, Roxy. You and I both know I had a hell of time handling that and I still do!” he yelled back, and for a second, I thought he might pitch me across the room. I’d kind of deserve that. “I drank myself into a fucking stupor by not dealing with the fact I shot and killed an eighteen-­year-­old kid.”

I flinched. “Reece, I—­”

“No. You’re going to hear me out on this. For almost a year, I dealt with what I had to do by drinking instead of talking to someone—­anyone about it. If it weren’t for Jax, I probably would’ve swallowed a goddamn bullet, because let me tell you something, I had to make that choice between life and death enough times in the fucking sandbox to know making that call fucking sucks. I still chose to be a cop knowing I could face that again. Didn’t make it a goddamn bit easier when I had to.”