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stripped away any remaining warmth. Pops echoed through the night, a muffled rumble snapping through the quiet, as regular and disregarded as crickets on a summer night and yet not at the same time at all.
    Fortunately, the trip between the mess hall and the building housing her room didn’t take long, but she still stuffed her hands into her pockets. Their escort peeled off after Charlie got her inside, and he led her through the maze to her room. She didn’t try to sightsee. She really wanted the helmet off and the faster they got to their destination, the sooner that could happen.
    He opened her door and shuttled her inside, pausing to study her. “Sleep in. I’ll come get you closer to eight.”
    “No.” She shook her head. “I don’t get to be here that long and I really want tomorrow’s food to go well.” A few hours of sleep and she would be fine.
    If I can sleep .
    Charlie frowned and she thought he wanted to say more, but instead he glanced at her chest. “Do you want some help getting out of that?”
    “I’m good. I can apparently unbuckle, it’s buckling I suck at.” She laughed. Poor choice of words on her part.
    He nodded but didn’t step out.
    Pulling the helmet off and setting it on the bed, she reached back to loosen her braid. Her head ached a little from how tautly she’d weaved it. “Charlie? Do you want to come in for a bit?”
    Another frown tightened the line between his eyebrows.
    “It’s okay if you want to go get some sleep, but I don’t really want to be on my own yet.” She didn’t want to be. Everything seemed surreal there, from her actual presence to the conversation over dinner, to her wardrobe of bulletproof vest and flak jacket. This wasn’t a dorm room—hell, her dorm room was nicer than this little hole in the wall with its sparse, utilitarian furnishings. But she couldn’t get past what he’d said to her at dinner. It’s lonely ….
    Still, he hesitated.
    Combing her fingers through her hair, she rubbed at her tender scalp. Maybe the request hadn’t been fair. “Sorry, you do not need to babysit me. Go get some sleep, Captain. I’m a big girl.”
    Applauding her ability to handle the potential rejection smoothly, she fled into the bathroom and closed the door. The microscopic closet of a room would probably give a claustrophobe nightmares, but, right then, she needed the box and the alone time it provided and was profoundly grateful for the solitude. She’d asked a man to stay and talk to her—a virtual stranger, even if he was a Marine.
    Worse, the Marine had been involved in her brother’s death.
    But it isn’t and wasn’t his fault.… Accidents happen, bad intel happens, and it costs people . She understood it on a level she couldn’t quite explain and, strangely enough, her heart accepted it. He suffered; she’d seen it bleed through every sentence of the letter he’d sent her family—and all their subsequent communications. Maybe that explained why he answered her letter when she wrote him back. Every response earned another one. She’d spotted the hurt in his gaze, revealed for a few brief seconds when he’d said, It’s lonely ….
    She struggled to get out of the flak, almost making a liar out of herself. Setting it on the back of the toilet, she stripped the rest of her clothes off and hung them to air out in the little room. The shower, still lukewarm, helped sluice away her embarrassment. By the time she finished and pulled on an oversized cotton shirt with the single word, Marine, emblazoned across it, and a clean pair of undies, she felt almost human again. She packed her dirty clothes into the duffel and shoved the whole thing under the sink.
    Brush in hand, she padded back into her room and stopped.
    Charlie sat on the room’s only chair, his helmet and flak missing along with the weapon he’d carried earlier.
    “Oh.” She blinked.
    “You asked me to stay, right?” He rose, appearing uncertain for the first time since she met