Which he did half the time anyway.

There was no need for Rowan to be spending so much time with me anymore. Sleeping in my bed every night. No need for him to get up with me in the morning or follow me to the bakery. Yet he did all of those things. He was a constant part of my day. My mornings, my afternoons, my evenings. Sometimes Kip would come to my place with him for a home cooked meal—upon my request ever since I found out he relied on takeout and microwave meals.

I enjoyed Kip’s company. He was easy to be around, charming. He and Rowan were close. They’d been deployed together, spoke about it a couple of times. Not a lot because whenever the subject came up, Kip’s easy smiles no longer looked easy. The light in his eyes went out, and he stopped looking like the happy-go-lucky man he was. He looked… tortured, for lack of a better word.

And although Rowan could not be described as a happy-go-lucky man—he was still positively broody which I had come to find out I fucking loved—something changed in him too. His posture visibly stiffened, and if he was holding on to me, his grasp would suddenly tighten as if someone might try to tear me away.

Rowan hadn’t spoken to me about what life had been like when he was deployed. He hadn’t told me where his scars came from, though I ached to ask. I’d run my fingers over them while we were in bed, tracing the puckered skin, the question on my lips.

He’d tense beside me, as if he were bracing for the questions. Bracing for me to take him back there. I was desperate to know him in every way I could, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t mar the happiness that we had, couldn’t be the reason why he went back to a place that made him tense like that.

The worrier in me, the anxious girl in me, wanted to get the conversation over with. To rush through all of the hard topics because things couldn’t possibly be that good. But I resisted.

We would eventually go there, that I knew. But I didn’t have to rush it. We had time. Rowan wasn’t going anywhere. Rowan loved me. He said it often. At the end of every phone call, as I was drifting off to sleep, when he was inside me. Most importantly, he showed it in all of his actions.

It didn’t seem to bother him that I didn’t say it back. Couldn’t was more appropriate. I loved him. Of course, I did. Who wouldn’t? But like some heroine in some stupid romantic comedy, I couldn’t actually say the words. They were stuck. The truth was, I was worried if I said the words aloud, it would set off some chain reaction, make the bad things start happening.

So, I didn’t say it.

Ansel was finally visiting in two days. It was the longest we’d been apart, and I missed him. Not only that, I wanted Rowan to meet him. Maybe that’s why I couldn’t say the words. Because I needed Rowan to know me entirely. Needed to be complete in that way first. And I truly wasn’t complete without Ansel.