“What’s so funny?” Erin’s voice sent a lick of awareness down Riley’s spine. He turned to stare at her standing next to Melody with a plastic bag in hand.
“Just giving Riley hell.” Nolan wiggled his eyebrows at Erin.
“Feel free to share the joke.” Erin sank into Riley’s recently vacated seat next to Melody.
“Nolan, will you help me pick up our dinner order?” Melody checked her watch. “We should start boarding in a few moments.”
“Sure thing.” Nolan tipped his cup up and drained the coffee.
“I am going to leave this here with you.” Melody handed Riley the laptop case.
“I can carry it,” Erin groused.
“Not without it hurting.” Riley accepted the case and sat on the other side of Erin.
Melody and Nolan strolled across to the pizza joint, leaving him alone with Erin.
Maybe Melody had a point, but his time with Erin was limited. Why bother? What was the point?
“I got some painkillers, if you need something for your neck.” Erin rattled a bottle at him.
A lump lodged in Riley’s throat. God damn, she was an angel and he a rotten bastard. She didn’t deserve the way he’d treated her earlier.
“Where’d the others go?” Erin glanced up and down the terminal. She seemed to have given up being angry at him. Because he didn’t matter? Because he wasn’t worth her time?
“Grant, Brenden, and Vaughn are taking a walk before we board.” He glanced at the pizza joint to check Melody and Nolan’s progress. His neck cramped in protest of the movement and he hissed.
“Careful. I got one of those refillable ice packs, too. I figured we could trade off using it.”
He didn’t deserve her kindness. He didn’t deserve anything.
“Is Grant still not speaking to you?”
“Not really.”
There was something about the way she looked at him that made him want more. To change. That little glance she tossed his way out of the corner of her eye. He didn’t know what it meant, but he wanted to find out. He wanted the chance. But at the cost of risking her life? He couldn’t do that.
She shoved the purchases into the laptop bag then stretched out her legs and leaned back, staring out the windows at the landscape surrounding the airport.
“I’m sorry for what I said earlier.” Riley hated how cheap those words sounded. He was sorry he’d failed her. That he was a fuck up. That he should have done more. That his words had hurt her.
“Which time? The part where I’m a distraction? Just a piece of ass?”
“I never said that.”
“No, but you might as well have.” Now her tone went frosty.
“I didn’t... That’s not what I meant.” He leaned forward and bounced his knee, fighting the urge to pace.
“Then what did you mean? I’ve got time to kill. Tell me.”
“I told you. I got distracted, and you nearly died.”
“Your friend? The one you enlisted with. How’d he die?” Erin’s gaze bored into his soul.
A cold sweat broke out along Riley’s hairline.
Fuck.
He swallowed and turned his gaze to the windows.
“He just died,” Riley muttered.
“You don’t go home, because when you do, you feel guilty you’re the one who survived. I get that. I live that. Why do you think I don’t want to live in Miami? I know too many people who never came home. People I got to be friends with.”
Riley squeezed his eyes shut.
He tried to not think about Jimmy. The guys had called him JimBo. He made Riley’s country roots seem positively contemporary. JimBo’s family were good people, but poorer than dirt. His stories about hunting for dinner and scrounging as kids had earned a lot of laughs. Riley’s family had scraped by, but not as bad as JimBo’s. A lot of their holidays included inviting JimBo’s family over. Sharing what little they had. Even now, JimBo’s younger brothers did seasonal work for Riley’s family.
“What was his name?” Erin sat leaned forward, studying the side of his face.
“Jimmy, but the idiots called him JimBo. He talked slow. Kind of funny, but he could outshoot us all. Fuck.” Riley shook his head. All those days squirrel hunting had paid off.
Erin reached over and took his hand as though she knew the next part was bad.
“We got into a bad situation. Jimmy and I were bringing up the rear, but I was too distracted with what was going on ahead of us. He took one shot. Killed him instantly.” All because Riley couldn’t do what he was supposed to.
“It—”
“Please don’t say it wasn’t my fucking fault, or it’s war, or any of those other bullshit lines.” He turned his head to stare at Erin. “I fucked up. And I fucked up again today.”
“I forgive you. For the fuck up. Jury is still out on if I’ll forgive you for being an ass.”
Riley held onto her hand. He couldn’t make himself let go.
“I still haven’t called my parents,” Erin said.
“You want to do that now, or wait?”
“I should do it, shouldn’t I? Tell them I’m coming home.”
“Now or in Frankfurt. I think Grant is going to get us rooms there for a few hours.”
“That’ll be nice.” She glanced at him. “Do you call your family while you’re working?”
“Not usually, no. I’ve worked very hard to train my mother into thinking I’m unreachable when I’m working.” He chuckled.
“Yeah, with your mom you kind of have to, don’t you?” Erin smiled and bumped her shoulder to his.
“I really am sorry. For all of it.” Riley turned his head despite the way his neck protested.
“That’s good to know.” She really wasn’t letting him off the hook easy.
“Are you... You okay?”
“Just doing some thinking.” She let go of his hand and eased back in her eat. “It seems like the more I figure out, the more I realize how little I knew about everything else, you know?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I do.” Riley grimaced and rubbed at his shoulder.
“On one hand, I understand why NexGen and the government would want to keep
