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know?”
    “I know,” Lauren said, but I didn’t hear the edge to her voice.
    I was too busy thinking about Gates.
    I couldn’t believe that he was standing just behind me, right back in the yard. I could turn around and actually see him. He was real, not a figment of my imagination like he felt so many times over the last two years.
    Gates had been just one night, but that night loomed large in my mind. Even when I wasn’t thinking about him, that night was still somehow in my mind. Every night since was compared to that night, and they were always lacking somehow. I never reached that sort of intense joy and pleasure that I managed to get to with Gates, not even with Tony. Nothing else compared.
    And now he was back. I thought that I would be disappointed if I ever saw Gates again, but I wasn’t disappointed. In fact, he was more handsome than I remembered. Maybe it was the extra weight to his eyes, the intense mystery hidden there, but somehow I found myself even more intensely attracted to him than ever before. I had to take a deep breath and remind myself that I was with Tony.
    I couldn’t just turn around and throw myself at Gates. That would be pretty inappropriate.
    But I really, really wanted to.
    It was crazy. I really wasn’t that kind of girl. I barely dated until I met Tony, since I was way too busy with work. But now all of a sudden with Gates back, I found myself feeling like a teenager again. It was stupid and I knew it.
    “Come on,” Lauren said, pulling me out of my daydream. “Let’s go see baby Joey. He’s with his grandmom.”
    “Oh, yeah. Your kid.”
    She laughed. “Yeah, my kid.”
    “Lead the way, mama.”
    She laughed again and we headed into the other room, into a world of babies and little socks and dirty diapers.
    But even while I was holding Joey and laughing at a story about him peeing all over Greg’s record collection, I just kept thinking about Gates. I just kept thinking about that night.
    I knew it was dangerous that he was back, but I couldn’t help myself with him around.

Chapter 8

Gates
    I t felt weird to be back in the States, and even weirder to be standing in someone’s back yard drinking a beer without worrying whether a bomb was going to fall on your head.
    Two years in Syria changed me. There was no other way to put it. I went to Syria one man, and came back a completely different one. Well, not completely, but the things I saw there, hell, some of the things that I did, it changed me. I had a new weight in my chest, a new patch on my soul.
    Two years aiding rebel Kurds against the Islamic State. I saw them do horrible things, and I did horrible things to them in return. Most of my assignments were training and arming the locals, but every once in awhile Uncle Sam had me go out on a combat mission. Death always stalked along with me on those missions, whether it was the death of my men or the death of my enemies. Somehow, it always missed me, and so I continued onward. I had no other choice. I was fighting for the survival of my friends and my country, and I was proud of the work that I did.
    But it changed me, and there was no going back.
    I was home in the States for barely two weeks when Greg and Lauren invited me to their housewarming party. I didn’t want to go, but Greg gave me the whole, “you can’t sit around and stew in your memories” speech, and I knew he was right. I had to move on and live my life. I couldn’t let what happened over there define me.
    So I got dressed, I drove over, and I stood in his back yard, drinking a beer.
    And it was nice. It was strange, but it was nice. I didn’t have to worry about suicide bombings, or ambushes, or any of the other thousand ways I could die over there. I just had to stand around, make small talk, and try to enjoy myself.
    Which is what I tried to do. I was doing a pretty fucking good job, too, until she showed up.
    Piper appeared out of nowhere, and it shook me to the core. I should have expected