The girls stood, and Watts and Sugar led them to the hall. When the door closed, the energy changed. Zeke and I had been alone before—we’d even shared a bed, but this was different.

“I’m surprised you didn’t take the smoke break,” Zeke said.

“I smoke the cigarettes, they don’t smoke me.”

“Naomi…” He touched my boot.

“Yeah?”

He hesitated. “I was waiting to see if you’d punch me for touching you.”

“How about you just ask?”

“Because just thinking about saying the words makes me feel like a kid.”

I waited, and he rolled his eyes then focused on the floor. “If it’s all right with you, I’d like to hold your hand.”

“I’m married.”

He winced then looked up at me, half annoyed, half amused. “Now if you were just gonna shoot me down, why would you have me ask?”

I shrugged. “I wondered if you’d grow a pair and do it.”

“Well, I did. Now what?”

I looked around the room then took a swig of my beer before standing. “Smoke break.”

Zeke reached up, holding my hand, staring at my fingers encompassed in his. “They’re pretty soft for a Marine.”

I looked around, not knowing how to feel. When Peter touched my hand, I damn near had a meltdown. I waited for the pain to seep in, to stain my soul, to be reminded by the anger that Matt would never touch me again.

Seconds passed, but not one moment of rage or agony slithered from the dark corners of my heart to breach the surface.

Zeke’s hand was rough and warm, the acres of land he’d torn up to separate the living, breathing wilderness from the black death that followed the fires he fought evident in every scar and callous.

An unexpected urgency to feel his scuffed skin tighter commanded me to slide my fingers between his and squeeze. Zeke’s brows pulled together as he kept his gaze on our fingers intertwined. “I really like you.”

My cousins’ voices were just outside the door a second before they burst through, hugging themselves.

“Shit! It gets cold at night here!” Kansas said. She stopped the same time as Spenser, Watts, and Sugar, all of them noticing my hand in Zeke’s.

I pulled away. “I was just going out for a smoke. I think it’s time to head home anyway.”

Kansas looked over her shoulder at Watts, unable to hide her disappointment.

“Sure, yeah,” Spenser said.

“Come back anytime, please,” Sugar said, smiling at my oldest cousin.

Spenser tucked a few blonde strands behind one ear. “Yeah. I’d like that.”

“We cycle in and out from the fire, but we get R&R,” Watts said. “Maybe I could get your number and text you?”

Kansas lit up the room with her wide grin. “Yeah. We should do that.”