“Holy shit.”

My head jerks up at the sound of that voice, a voice that is clear as a bell and achingly familiar without the obscurity provided by layers of wood and drywall.

This can’t be happening. This isn’t real, I must still be dreaming.

My bag and the box of donuts slip from under my arm, a blood pressure cuff, stethoscope, a pile of other medical supplies and a dozen donuts scattering at my feet as I stare at the man sitting on the floor with his back leaning against the bed.

I can see his lips moving, but I don’t hear a single word he’s saying. I can’t even tell if I’m screaming out loud or if it’s just in my head. The only thing I know is that I need to get the hell out of here right now.

Without a word, I back out of the room, turn and walk blindly down the hall and away from the man who has occupied both my dreams and nightmares for the last year.

“WELCOME HOME, BROTHER. How’s the knee?”

I try not to curse when my friend Austin asks about my knee. I’m so damn tired of people asking how my knee is. It was shot off in the Dominican, how the fuck do you think it is?

“It’s great, everything is great,” I reply, trying to hold the phone against my ear as I lean over the side of the bed to grab the set of crutches resting against the nightstand.

“I’m glad you made it back. Jesus, I feel like I haven’t talked to you in a year. Oh, wait. I haven’t,” Austin deadpans.

Right when my fingertip manages to reach a crutch, it tips over and lands on the floor, way out of my reach.

“MOTHERFUCKER!” I shout in irritation.

Austin laughs. “Dude, I was just kidding.”

“Not you, my damn crutch just fell over and now I can’t reach it.”

It was really nice of Caroline to stop by again last night and help me get into bed, but she could have at least put my crutches on the bed next to me.

“How did the debrief go when you got back to the states? Captain Risner was tight-lipped about the whole thing. You aren’t in any trouble for the mess you made of Fernandez’s face, are you?”

After I passed out in the abandoned house in the Dominican, Hoss hauled me back to the extraction point and I was airlifted to Centro Medico University Hospital in Santo Domingo. They managed to remove the bullet and stabilize my knee so I was able to travel back to the states. I was a little nervous that they’d bring me to UC San Diego here in California since that’s where I live and my parents pretty much run the place. I definitely didn’t want my first interaction with Olivia to be while I was laid out on a hospital bed, teetering in and out of consciousness and fucked up on morphine. Thankfully, due to the confidentiality of the mission, they took me right to Walter Reed in D.C.

“You know how it goes. One of his men turned on him and made that mess, not me,” I inform Austin.

When you’re a Navy SEAL, a lot of the shit that happens during a mission never makes it into the final reports, especially when you’re doing something that wasn’t officially sanctioned by the military.

Like going after a former president’s brother for killing your best friends.

“I figured as much, otherwise I’d be talking to you while you spent time in the brig, being someone’s bitch,” Austin laughs, mentioning the US Navy jail where soldiers go for dishonorable conduct.

“Nope, after I had my second surgery in D.C., the guys from Joint Special Ops Command set up camp in my hospital room. I spent eight hours going through the whole bullshit of telling them what actually happened so they could make up a believable story to go in the final report,” I explained. “The new head of the Dominican isn’t putting up a fight about it. He’s still trying to clean up the mess the first Fernandez left behind and doesn’t need any more bad press for the country.”

Swinging my legs over the edge of the bed, the foot of my bad leg bumps into the lone crutch still standing and sends it toppling over next to the other one on the floor. While Austin talks my ear off about what’s been going on in his life since I last spoke to him almost a year ago, I grit my teeth and lower myself to the floor. Once I’m down there, though, I quickly realize my error. There’s no fucking way I’m going to be able to get back up, crutches or not.

I cut Austin off in the middle of some story about his girlfriend Gwen and something “cute” her daughter did the night before. “Man, I gotta go. My nurse is going to be here soon.”

I don’t tell him that listening to him ramble on and on about his new family and how in love he is just makes me feel like the biggest asshole on the planet. I could have had that for myself. I did have it for myself and I threw it all away.

“Ooooh, is she hot? You should make her give you a sponge bath,” Austin informs me.

“You’re an asshole. If she’s anything like the last two, she’s going to be pushy and annoying and she’ll probably leave here crying after I tell her to stop hovering.”

I hang up on Austin, cutting him off in the middle of some bullshit about Gwen and a sexy nurse costume, and toss my cell phone up onto the nightstand. Leaning over, I grab my crutches and stare at them helplessly, hating that I have to depend on someone else to do the simplest of tasks—like hauling my ass off the fucking floor. With a loud shout, I throw the crutches across the room, where they slam into the door, knocking the painting hanging on the wall beside it to the floor with a crash.

Throwing my head back against the edge of the bed, I close my eyes and think about a time when I wasn’t some weak asshole who needed help with every little thing, when I was a cocky son of a bitch doing whatever I could to bury the bad memories and have a good life.