Fighting for Everything

  He couldn’t stand it.

  “Go,” he rasped, shaking now from anger as much as from the residuals of the panic attack. Or whatever the hell it had been.

  “What? No.” She scooted closer, her hands going to his drawn-up knees. “Tell me what’s going on, Noah. Talk to me. I want to help—”

  “You can’t,” he bit out on a quick shake of his head. God, the closer she got, the less air there was in the room. And, ah, hell, the fact that he’d been all over her right before he’d fallen to pieces just made it that much worse. He’d just felt so bad and she’d felt so good and he’d broken and given in to the sheer need to feel better. Just for a little while.

  What an asshole he was to use her that way. His best friend.

  And then the fireworks. They’d been over for what felt like several long minutes, but his body didn’t seem to be unwinding one damn bit.

  “I’m not leaving.” She met him glare for glare, and he could see her digging in.

  “Should,” he managed.

  She shook her head and ignored him entirely. “Was it the fireworks?”

  Noah heaved a shuddering breath. She wasn’t going to back off. Part of him loved her for that, because he would’ve done the same thing if their positions had been reversed. But their situations weren’t the same. Because he hadn’t weathered a lifetime of living with a father who had a habit of deciding he no longer needed his meds, which would lead to a sometimes months-long episode of troubling or even dangerous behavior that sometimes resulted in the police being called to assist in an involuntary hospital admission. But even when he was on his meds, Mr. Moore sometimes believed he was an undercover agent involved in covert investigations, investigations he’d actually pursue when he was out in public—though he only made admissions quite that revealing when he was doing worse.

  Damn if Noah didn’t now have a helluva lot more insight into what Mr. Moore might’ve been facing all these years. It wasn’t the man’s fault that he perceived the world differently, and it wasn’t Noah’s either. He knew that. But that didn’t mean either of them were always easy for the others in their lives to handle. And the last thing Noah ever wanted to do was burden Kristina with his own mental health issues. She had enough to deal with.

  And he was hanging on by a very thin thread.

  “Kris,” he managed, hands fisting against his thighs.

  “Sshh,” she said. “Just breathe for a minute.” She rose in a flourish of pink cotton, disappeared into his bathroom, and returned a moment later with a cup of water. “See if this will help.”

  Hating the feeling that she was nursing him, he accepted the cup in his hand, knowing he wouldn’t be able to hold it steady even as a little water sloshed over the rim. Noah sucked half of it down in one greedy gulp. It eased his throat and cooled the hottest edge of the fire inside his chest.

  “Thank you,” he whispered, his head dropping back against the wall. He closed his eyes and wished he could will the whole world away.

  “Have you had panic attacks like this before?”

  Noah kept his eyes closed and clamped down on the knee-jerk reaction to snap at her. He was going to have to give her just enough to get her to back off, wasn’t he? Fine. He’d go with the basics he gave his family.

  “Have had panic attacks before. Normal consequence of the TBI, apparently,” he said, referring to the traumatic brain injury caused by an IED blast that had taken out a lot of his unit and stolen half of his hearing and sight.

  The real shit of the situation was that the wiring in his brain was so fucked up not just because of that one blast, but also because he’d experienced dozens of blasts over the course of his military career. Maybe even more than a hundred. And it turned out that blast waves played punching bag with your brain coming and going and had a cumulative effect his neurologists said they were just starting to fully understand.

  Which was apparently why the hit he’d taken had fucked him up as bad as it did. It’d been the final straw that had broken the already-beat-up camel’s back.

  All that was a real bitch to learn after the fact for someone who’d served in the 2nd Combat Engineer Battalion, which handled anything and everything having to do with explosives—breaching doors and roofs, ordnance disposal, demolitions, minefield construction, and sweeping operations, to name a few.

  He gulped more water. “Never this bad before, but it’s also the first time I’ve heard fireworks since I’ve been back.”

  If he never heard them again, it would be too soon.

  “And the fireworks…sounded like…shooting?” she asked carefully.

  Noah lifted his head, guilt and embarrassment swamping his gut. “Look, I didn’t mean to freak you out. Especially given…” His gaze flickered to the bed.

  “Don’t apologize, Noah. It’s not your fault,” Kristina said. “I only care that you’re okay. Are you at least…talking to someone about this?”

  He nodded. “I got a guy.” And a bad habit of canceling appointments, but she didn’t need to know that. Problem was that the more he talked about all of it, the more the nightmares plagued him. And the last thing he wanted to do was waste his or the doc’s time by quietly staring at the carpet in the guy’s office for an hour a week. Being forced to talk didn’t help.

  Which was why he needed to get out of this conversation right now.

  “You can always talk to me, you know. I’m still the same old Kristina, and you’re still the same old Noah. Just like before,” she said. The smile on her face was so damn pretty…and hopeful.

  He couldn’t bring himself to dash that hope, but he had none to give. “Right,” Noah said. “Thanks. I’m good. Actually, I think maybe taking a shower might help chill me out.”

  “Yeah? That sounds like a good idea,” she said. They rose off the ground, and hell if he didn’t have to keep a hand against the wall to maintain his balance. Panic attacks and anxiety did shit for his equilibrium problems. “I could grab us some food and bring it down for when you’re out—”

  “No. I mean, nah, I’m tired. I, uh, just wanna crash,” he said, forcing a false ease into his voice he didn’t feel at all. He’d be lucky to sleep. And what sleep he did get would likely leave him wrung out and exhausted. But Kristina didn’t need to know any of that, either.

  “Oh. Right. Sure.” She smoothed her hands over the front of her dress, like she didn’t know what else to do with herself. “Well, whoa—” She took a step back and almost tripped over a pillow that had been knocked on the floor. Kristina caught herself on the edge of the bed and chuckled. “That could’ve been bad.” She picked it up and tossed it against the headboard.

  Noah gazed from the pillow to her. “Sorry. And, uh, about that,” he said, glancing to the bed again. “I probably shouldn’t have… I mean, before, when I, uh, kissed you and…” Goddamnit, was it hot in this room or was he in the process of internally combusting? “I think…maybe…”

  “It was just a crazy accident,” Kristina said, saving him from his apparent inability to string together a coherent sentence. “Heat of the moment.” She smiled.

  “Yeah. Heat of the moment.” A gut check said it was more than that, but none of his checks and balances were working too good these days, now were they.

  “Don’t worry about it,” she said, giving him a wink.

  “Okay. Won’t happen again, ma’am,” he said, making a weak effort to inject some humor.

  “Dude, you're the geezer in this friendship, so drop the ma’am crap.” Kristina pushed onto her tiptoes and gave him a strictly platonic peck on the cheek.

  Friendship. Right. Good, at least they were on the same page.

  She walked around the foot of the bed and stopped with her hand on the doorknob. “Sure you’re okay? I wouldn’t mind hanging awhile.”

  “I’m good,” he said, forcing a smile, forcing himself to stay together for just a few more seconds.

  “Okey dokey,” she said, disappointment plain in the cast of her eyes. ?
??Gimme a call tomorrow.”

  “Yup.”

  Kristina slipped out the door and closed it behind her.

  Noah released a long breath and braced his hands against his knees. The room seemed cold and the silence loud without Kristina there. And he didn’t want to examine that too closely. Or, really, anything that’d happened in this room during the last…hell…he didn’t even know how long he’d been with her.

  On autopilot, Noah tore off his clothes, locked himself in the bathroom, and turned on the shower water. Not wanting to meet his own gaze, he kept his eyes off the mirror while he waited for the water to warm, and then he stepped in, closed the shower curtain, and rested his hands against the white tile as the hot water sprayed down onto his head.

  A sob clawed up from deep inside his chest. Shit, no. If he let that sucker free—

  No, goddamnit.

  Noah raked his fingers into his hair and pulled against the pressure building up inside him. He’d already lost it. He’d already lost it enough today. No more. No more.

  Except the pressure just grew and grew and fucking grew—

  Noah whirled and punched the wall. Hard. White tile cracked and crumbled under the blow. The destruction…was fucking freeing. He punched again. And again.

  And, damn it all to hell, it was like someone had pressed a release valve. He sagged against the side wall and stared at the damage he’d done at the back of the shower. Fuck.

  He felt guilty about that. He really did. And he was going to have to get it fixed quick so he didn’t have to explain it to his parents.

  But it also didn’t escape his notice that despite fucking up that wall—and the knuckles on his right hand—he could breathe again. He didn’t feel good, but it was still the best he’d felt in days.

  Chapter Four

  Thursday came and went, and still Kristina didn’t hear from Noah. She’d texted and called him. Nothing. And it was stressing her out on so many levels.

  Sitting in her car in the parking lot at school, the air conditioning slowly but surely cooling the late May air, her thoughts raced.

  First, his panic attack. What if he’d had more? What if he was holed up in his room and fighting against them on his own? Kristina had witnessed her dad having plenty of panic attacks over the years, so she knew how they could make a person feel exhausted and in despair, isolated and alone.

  Second, his overall mental health. After a lifetime of living with someone who suffered from mental illness, she knew that panic attacks could be just one part of a larger picture. So she’d spent last night ignoring end-of-term papers that needed grading and researching veterans and fireworks online. Her reading led her beyond panic attacks to PTSD, blast-injury symptoms, depression, and the terrifying statistics of how many veterans with untreated conditions like these committed suicide every day.

  Twenty-two. Twenty-two veterans every day. How was that even possible?

  Not that she had any reason to believe Noah was struggling that badly, but that didn’t stop her chest from aching every time she thought about all she’d read.

  Third, their make-out session. Was he avoiding her now because they’d kissed? Or was that her projecting her own confusion onto him? Because Kristina was confused. By what had happened. By her reaction to it. And by the series of dreams she’d been having all week that played out every filthy-hot scenario of what might’ve happened if those fireworks hadn’t gone off.

  She’d masturbated to those memories and imaginings. Twice. She’d had orgasms thinking about Noah. Noah.

  That wasn’t weird at all. Nope.

  Oh, God, it’s so weird! Kristina dropped her forehead against the steering wheel.

  At some point, she was going to have to spill about her make-out session to her best friend from college, Kate Arnold. But for today, there was only one way to know the answers to any of the questions swirling around her brain. Talking to Noah. Since he wasn’t answering his phone or her texts, that left Kristina only one solution.

  She threw the silver Honda Civic into reverse, backed out of her parking space, and made her way to the Cortez house.

  Twenty minutes later, she pulled off the George Washington Memorial Parkway that led out to historic Mount Vernon and onto the narrow roads of her old neighborhood. Neither she nor her parents lived here anymore, her parents having moved to Philadelphia while she was in college so her mom could take a new job, but Noah’s family still lived in the same house that she’d half grown up in. As she pulled into the big gravel circular drive in front of the two-story brick house, Kristina once again felt like she was coming home.

  Noah’s dark green Ford Explorer sat in the driveway. Perfect.

  When knocking failed to bring an answer, Kristina found the spare key under the middle flowerpot where it had lived for at least fifteen years. She unlocked the door, returned the key, and stepped inside. She almost called out, “Honey, I’m home,” but after what had happened between them the other night, maybe that wouldn’t be funny?

  That she had to even give it a second thought represented all the issues their kissing raised in a nutshell.

  “Noah? It’s me,” she said instead.

  She poked through the first floor but found everything quiet and empty, so she headed downstairs. Running water told her the shower was on.

  No problem. She’d just wait for him to be done and then she’d let him know that she was there. She sat on the big leather couch and flipped through social media on her phone. And tried like hell to ignore all thoughts of Noah in the shower. Naked. Wet. Muscles glistening.

  Stop it, Kristina! Right.

  She flicked through her Facebook newsfeed. Read the new comments about her summer workshop position. Liked a video about cats jumping in and out of boxes. Congratulated a friend announcing a promotion.

  The water turned off.

  Noah is wet and naked and getting out of the shower now.

  Ack! Stop it!

  She could be normal. Just like she’d been for the previous nineteen years that she’d known him. Determined, she pushed off the couch and crossed to his bedroom door. It sat a few inches ajar, so into the opening she called, “Noah, it’s Kristina. Just didn’t want to scare you by being out here.”

  The click of a door opening. “Kristina?”

  She chuckled at the surprised tone of his voice. “Yup. Get decent and get your butt out here,” she said.

  The bedroom door whipped open, and there stood Noah dripping wet holding a white towel around his hips. So close she could’ve reached out and tugged it off. “Everything okay?” he asked, his brows set into a deep frown.

  “Uh…what?” she asked, her gaze stuck on his abdomen. He had the hint of a six pack. Since when did Noah have a six pack? Her gaze raked upward. And he had a tattoo on his left arm where his biceps reached his shoulder. The Marine Corps eagle-globe-anchor symbol in stark black.

  “I asked if you were okay,” he said, a weird tone in his voice. Maybe because she was standing there slack-jawed and drooling? Crap.

  She tore her eyes away from his body and finally looked at his face. Water droplets ran from his hair. They continued down his neck to the warm, olive skin of his chest. She wanted to lick him dry. When had Noah Cortez become so freaking hot? Her friend Noah Cortez.

  Kristina cleared her throat. “Yeah. Yes. Definitely. More than okay.”

  “Then why are you here?” He raked a hand through his hair, making his muscles move in all sorts of fascinating ways. “Not, of course, that I’m not glad to see you.”

  She forced her gaze to stay locked with his dark brown eyes. “I’m here because you’ve been avoiding me. So I’m making sure you can’t avoid me anymore. I want Seven Guys and you’re coming with me.” Her use of the nickname eked a small smile from him. Five Guys was their favorite burger joint, and always had been. Add Ben and Jerry to those five and you got seven… It had made sense when she was sixteen, anyway. And they needed some old-time normalcy right about now. At least sh
e did. “So, uh, go get decent.”

  Before I tackle you to the ground and make us both wet.

  “Yeah, okay. I guess I could eat,” he finally said.

  Good. Because she wasn’t giving him a choice.

  Five minutes later, he walked back out in a dark gray T-shirt and a pair of jeans that hung low on his hips. Kristina rose and nearly fumbled her phone, but finally managed to pull herself together. “Mind if I use your bathroom real quick?” she asked, stepping toward his bedroom door.

  “Course not,” he said as she disappeared into his room. “Oh, uh, wait. It might be better if you go upstairs.”

  “I can’t wait,” she called as she flipped on the bathroom light. “I’ll be quick.”

  She closed the door…and it was like bathing in Noah. The heat of his shower still hung in the air along with the same clean-soap scent she’d inhaled off his skin when they’d kissed. She did her business then stepped to the sink to wash her hands. Glancing in the mirror, Kristina did a double take. At a big hole in the shower tiles.

  What in the world? She walked closer and leaned in enough to reach out and touch the broken edge, her thoughts whirling.

  She dried her hands, retreated from the bathroom, and found Noah sitting on the coffee table, elbows braced on his knees and head looking down. One hand cupped around the other. And that’s when she knew. “You punched the wall?”

  His hands went lax and slipped apart, revealing purple bruising and red cuts all over the knuckles of his right hand.

  “Why?” she asked, working hard to keep her voice normal, casual. Even though she didn’t feel that way inside.

  “I needed to,” he said. And nothing more.

  That didn’t begin to satisfy her, but something squeezed in her belly, telling her that if she pushed, he was going to shut down. Even more than he was already doing. “Okay, well…you ready?” she asked. “Because I skipped lunch and I’m starving.”

  He finally looked up, and it was like he was assessing her. Assessing whether he should really believe that she was going to let it lie. “I’m good to go,” he said.